Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman. I thank my colleague for this extremely important amendment. Madam Chair, we have a dire situation in Syria, and everyone's heart breaks for the suffering of the Syrian people. Over 100,000 people are getting slaughtered by the leader of their own government. It's absolutely unconscionable. So the questions for us are: What can we practically do? Whatever it is that we do do, does Congress have a say in the ``yes'' or ``no'' of military action? I thank the gentleman for this amendment because there are two questions here. One is as to the policy itself, the use of military force, arming the rebels. Is that a wise policy? Will it make things better or will it make things worse? The second question is: Whatever the policy is, is it the responsibility of those of us who have been elected to represent Americans as Members of Congress--and we all do--to be accountable in making that enormously important and consequential decision that has the potential to send our troops into combat? Let me talk briefly about the policy. The military situation there is chaotic. The rebels are united loosely in an effort to bring down Assad, but distinguishing between the ``good rebels'' and the ``bad rebels'' is impossible. In fact, we are reading reports right now of how rebels who are having disputes with fellow rebels are settling them by beheading them. That's literally what's happening.…”