My concern is I wonder if we actually learned any of those lessons.

It is not like we just went to war for the first time. We spent an awful lot of time in Iraq and we have been in Afghanistan ten plus years.

We do not seem to learn these lessons.

I appreciate your passion on this issue. I share it.

This kind of stuff going on has to be brought to a halt.

I appreciate the opportunity to talk about H.R. 250, which would reform the Antiquities Act of 1906 by requiring congressional approval of any national monument designated by the President.

Under current law the President can unilaterally designate national monuments on Federal land outside of Alaska or Wyoming without any check or balance from the U.S. Congress.

Unfortunately, Presidents have used the Antiquities Act for purposes clearly beyond its original intent of preserving small parcels of land containing Indian artifacts that were being looted and vandalized and required immediate protection.

For example, just weeks before the 1996 election, President Clinton designated more than 1.7 million acres--that is a lot of land.

Congress passed the Antiquities Act in 1906 with the intent of preserving archeological sites, mainly Indian ruins and artifacts on small parcels of land that required immediate protection.

We need to have a comprehensive strategy to secure the border and part of that strategy has to be a measurement system that makes sense.