On the recordMarch 15, 2012
I know Senator Durbin, Senator Ayotte, and others will be coming to the Senate floor, but let me get it started. According to the United Nations, more than 8,000 Syrians have been murdered in attacks by the desperate regime of President Bashar al-Asad of Syria. We continue to receive press reports on a daily basis about Asad's forces summarily executing, imprisoning, and torturing demonstrators who want nothing more than what we take for granted, which is to live in freedom in a democracy. This week we learned that dozens of Syrian women and children--some infants as young as 4 months old--were stabbed, shot, and burned by government forces in Homs. I know it is difficult for most of us to comprehend--and most of us would be so repulsed by it, we would not want to comprehend the kind of brutality Asad is perpetrating against his own people. Yet in the face of these atrocities, Russia continues to prop up the Asad regime by providing arms that are being used to slaughter these innocent Syrian civilians. Russia is the top supplier of weapons to Syria and reportedly sold Syria up to $1 billion or more worth of arms just last year. Western and Arab governments have pleaded with Russia to stop supplying these weapons to the Asad regime, but it has refused so far. Russia is not just passively supplying weapons to the Asad regime, it has recently admitted to having military weapons instructors on the ground in Syria training Asad's Army on how to use these weapons.…
