Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I think one of the things that makes this difficult is there are so many issues swirling around here: the desire; the need that I think, as Mr. Thornberry said, that everyone agrees on to confront and contain ISIS. Their savagery is just unimaginable. They are clearly a threat to us and to the region, and we need a plan for confronting them, for stopping them and, hopefully, ultimately defeating them. Now, part of that plan is what we are doing in Iraq. Part of that plan is trying to figure out how to deal with them in Syria. But aside from all of that, this amendment is far more basic and simple, and I think Mr. Thornberry explained it. It is a train-and- equip mission. This is something that the Department of Defense does all over the world in a variety of different places. We have had a great deal of success training armies in Ethiopia and Kenya and Uganda to help deal with the situation in Somalia. We have had considerable success training forces in Yemen to help confront AQAP. The goal of this is to reduce the requirement for a robust U.S. military presence to advance our interests. I have heard a number of folks, particularly on my side of the aisle, express that concern, that we don't want to go down the slippery slope of committing U.S. forces to a large-scale war, and I completely agree with them. But this amendment does not authorize military force. In fact, it is quite the opposite.…”