Political Quotes

“I will be very quick. I will vote for the continuing resolution because I do not want to shut the government down. I agree with Senator McCain that this is not the right process, but we are where we are. I think the issue people are focusing on about the continuing resolution is the changing of the training of the Free Syrian Army from title 50, a covert program, to title 10, the Department of Defense, where it will be out in the open. The reason I support the appropriation and the change in title 10--I think this is a long-overdue effort on our part to build up Syrian forces that can confront both Assad and ISIL, enemies of the United States. To my colleagues who worry about the people we train and the arms we give falling into the wrong hands, I would say that there is nothing we can do in this area without some risk. But when you tell me there are no Syrians that you believe exist who would fight against Assad and ISIL, I do not believe you quite understand what is going on in Syria. I would say that the vast majority of Syrians have two things in common: They want to overthrow Assad and they want to get ISIL out of their country. ISIL is mostly non-Syrians. They came from the vacuum created by a lack of security. When Hezbollah and Russia doubled down to protect Assad, who was just about knocked out several years ago, the Free Syrian Army was abandoned by us and the rest of the world and ISIL was able to fill in that vacuum. These are foreign fighters.…”