Defining Certain Atrocities As War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, this resolution deals with the crimes of ISIS.

I want to thank my colleague from California, Anna Eshoo, and our colleague from Nebraska, Jeff Fortenberry, for their drafting of this resolution which I and so many others have cosponsored, and I want to thank the chair and ranking member of our committee for their work in preparing the amendment that we adopted in committee.

This resolution, H. Con. Res. 75, identifies the violent acts of ISIS by their right name: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and, where appropriate, genocide. We could and will be conducting a complete analysis in the future to identify which atrocities of ISIS are merely war crimes and which atrocities of ISIS are part of an overall systemic genocide. But it is clear that at least some of the war crimes are part of a planned genocide against religious minorities in the areas that ISIS occupies.

This resolution also includes a call upon the United States and all the states of the U.N. to conduct measures designed to prevent these crimes and genocide in the future. Now, it is said that People of the Book, most relevantly Christians, are being told by ISIS that they only have to pay a jizya and they will be allowed to live, a special tax imposed upon them. But the fact is that we know that the Yazidis are not even given that option but are subject to extermination; whereas, Christians may be told to pay the tax and then, when they run out of money, be executed because they are not paying more. So we know that ISIS is guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide.

In addition to passing this resolution, we ought to focus on the most significant thing the United States is doing against ISIS, and that, of course, is our airstrikes. I believe our airstrikes have been subject to rules of engagement that are far too limited. For example, we have learned that we try to cut off ISIS' flow of money by hitting the tanker trucks that are taking the oil out of ISIS areas for sale, but we are only hitting those trucks when they are parked, not when they are moving.

It is true that, if you hit a moving truck, you may kill the driver, and that driver may be an ISIS soldier or may be a civilian; but if you look at the strategic bombing that we engaged in during World War II, not just the strategic bombing of Germany, but the strategic bombing of occupied France and occupied Belgium and so many other occupied countries, you will see that we hit munitions plants and transportation tanker trucks whether or not those people operating the transportation devices and operating in the munitions plants were civilian or military.

If we are going to get serious against ISIS, we have to be willing not to target civilians but, instead, to do everything we can to prevent killing civilians; but we have to be willing to hit strategic targets even if we are not 100 percent sure that all civilian casualties will be avoided.

So I look forward to our working both diplomatically and militarily for the destruction of ISIS and eventually holding ISIS' leaders to account for their war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Texas for his speech and the gentleman from Nebraska who spoke earlier for his introduction of this resolution, along with my colleague, Anna Eshoo, from California. And, of course, I commend Chris Smith for a lifetime of work on human rights.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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