Providing For Consideration of H. J. Res. 124, Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule and in opposition to the amendment on Syria that will be offered later today and voted on tomorrow.

If it was a bad idea before to get involved in Syria's civil war, why is it now a good idea?

Is it only because ISIL has expanded its operations over a fluid border into Iraq?

How long will we support the Syrian Free Army?

Who are these people?

How much will it cost?

What happens if and when our weapons fall into the wrong hands?

What are the countries in the region offering in terms of substantive solutions?

What is the clearly defined mission?

How does this end?

Do we have answers to any of these questions as we prepare to vote?

We are talking about war, Mr. Speaker. When you drop bombs on people, that is war. And we can talk all we want about so-called boots on the ground, but unless some of our soldiers weren't given shoes, we already have boots on the ground. We need to be honest about that.

We have trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers for over a decade. And for what? To watch them shed their uniforms and to turn their weapons over to ISIL? Is that what we are doing here again, Mr. Speaker?

If the real purpose of U.S. military operations in Syria is to bring the killers of the two American journalists to justice, then perhaps good intelligence and a well-prepared Special Forces operation could do so, just like we hunted down Osama bin Laden.

I want to be perfectly clear on one other point. Any amendment to provide title 10 authority to train and equip Syrian opposition forces must not be seen in any way as an authorization for U.S. Armed Forces to engage in hostilities in Iraq or Syria. It must not be seen as a substitute for specific congressional action.

Authorization to carry out sustained military operations is not something that should be stuck into a conference report. There should be nothing backdoor about it. That would be an insult to our uniformed men and women, an insult to their families, an insult to this House, and an insult to the American people.

On July 25, this House voted 370-40--370-40--in favor of my resolution to require specific congressional authorization for sustained combat operations by U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq. Yet, since August 8, the U.S. Navy and Air Force have flown more than 2,700 missions against the Islamic State in Iraq, including 156 airstrikes. These airstrikes have occurred almost daily over the past 6 weeks.

Last week, the President announced that those operations will escalate and likely expand into Syria. This morning, they expanded to targets near Baghdad. If that doesn't qualify as sustained combat, Mr. Speaker, I don't know what does.

So, if this House is serious about what it said in July, then we should demand a vote this month on congressional authorization for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria. Anything less would constitute yet another failure on the part of this House to carry out its constitutional duties. Anything less would make a mockery of that vote that this House took in July. But, if this leadership gets its way, we will leave Washington for nearly 2 months without such a vote, and I expect and I think we all expect that during that time U.S. combat operations in Iraq and Syria will expand and escalate.

I know this is a hard vote. I know it is politically difficult. But we were not elected to duck the hard votes. We weren't elected to avoid difficult choices. War is a big deal. We need to do our jobs.

So, Mr. Speaker, I will vote ``no'' on this rule, and I will vote ``no'' on the Syria amendment.

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