At the end of the day, it is simple to say that what we need to do is we need to win the ideological war.

But how do we contain that? Which groups are the greatest threat?

I want to emphasize though that although we agree that some degree of conditional military assistance is an appropriate way forward, the scale of leverage we can develop through assistance of the kind that any of us are interested in…

I am telling you, this is really, really poorly drafted in terms of narrowing it down to a specific set of purposes.

Personally, I support the drawdown. I think the fewer troops we have there, the better, going forward for a variety of different reasons.

Contained in one of those funds is an authorization for a Department of Defense [DOD] effort to support friendly rebels in Syria.

this is more for the White House: Sell it. Because if you don't, there ain't no way we are going to pass it.

This has got to be fixed; it is really not good that it came to us in this form in the first place.

I don't support sequestration. I would expand upon that to say I don't just oppose sequestration for the Department of Defense, but for all other discretionary spending, as well.

if the White House is going to push a policy like this, they have got to fricking push the policy, all right?

I would suggest better the 'how' is we want to train them and equip them so that they are better positioned to fight.

I have been around here long enough to know that that is far from a black and white issue.