On the recordMay 18, 2016
First, let me thank Congressman Ellison for yielding and for his tremendous leadership. This amendment is extremely important. Today I rise to urge my colleagues to support this amendment and, really, allow our ground commanders to do their job. Now, of course, time and time again, Congress has refused to do its job. From Zika funding to confirming a new Supreme Court Justice, we failed to do our job. Instead of letting Congress do its job, the majority only seems interested in Congress doing other peoples' jobs, and that is including our military commanders. There is no way we should be allowing this to happen. Make no mistake, Republicans are trying to expand the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and further expand America's longest war. For nearly 15 years, we have been fighting a war in Afghanistan. Our brave servicemen and -women have gone way beyond the call of duty. They have done everything we have asked them to do. It is past time to bring them home to their families and to their children. But minimally, we should not be telling our military leaders what to do in a war zone, especially before they have completed their on-the-ground assessment. So I hope that we vote ``yes'' on this commonsense amendment. While our young men and women are in Afghanistan, until we bring them home, let's use the best type of intelligence, the best information, and the best direction that the ground commanders have determined based on their ground assessment in this war.
