[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 38 (Thursday, March 8, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H1293-H1294]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          TYRANTS AND DESPOTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized 
for 48 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, yesterday a good friend of 
mine, Senator John McCain, became the first U.S. Senator to publicly 
call for U.S.-led air strikes to halt the violence in Syria.
  Respectfully, I disagree with the Senator from Arizona. Our main goal 
in the Middle East is to protect our interests and the interests of our 
major ally, Israel.
  If we are to be dragged into a civil war in Syria for humanitarian 
reasons, I would respectfully remind Senator McCain and the President 
that they do not have the power to unilaterally start a war. The 
authority to initiate war is vested by the Constitution exclusively in 
Congress. The War Powers Act was enacted into law over a Presidential 
veto--not an easy thing to accomplish--to fulfill the intent of the 
Framers of the Constitution of the United States in requiring that the 
President has to seek the consent of Congress before the introduction 
of the United States Armed Forces into hostile action.
  Section 2(c) of the War Powers Act provides that no attempt by the 
President to introduce the United States Armed Forces into hostile 
action may be made under the War Powers Act unless, number one, there 
is a declaration of war; number two, a specific authorization; or, 
number three, a national emergency created by attack upon the United 
States, its territories or possession, or its Armed Forces.

                              {time}  1330

  The Constitution and the War Powers Act are not a list of 
suggestions; they are the law of the land, the law the President of the 
United States and every Member of Congress swears to protect and 
defend. Contrary to Defense Secretary Panetta's assertion before the 
Senate Armed Services Committee the other day, international permission 
does not trump congressional permission. If the President is even 
remotely entertaining the idea of engaging in military action in Syria, 
he must seek formal authorization from Congress to attack Syria first.
  While the violence is Syria is appalling and Syrian President Bashar 
al-Assad is certainly no friend of the United States, before any 
military action is taken, the President must tell Congress and the 
American people by what right we attack Syria. Syria has not declared 
war on the United States nor attacked the United States, our 
territories, possessions, or Armed Forces. It is not our responsibility 
to intervene simply because violence erupts in another nation. If it 
were, then bombs should be falling on a number of countries, including 
Yemen, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Sudan, Rwanda, North Korea, Burma, and I could 
go on and on.
  In fact, just this past Tuesday, March 6, the former top United 
Nations humanitarian official in Sudan warned that the country's 
military is carrying out crimes against humanity in the country's 
southern Nuba Mountains in acts that remind him of the 2003 2004 
genocide in Darfur. Sudan President Omar al-Bashir is under indictment 
for war crimes by the International Criminal Court for killings and 
rapes committed in Darfur. Roughly 5,000 people have died in Syria 
compared to 400,000 in Darfur. How are the actions of al-Assad any 
worse than the actions of al-Bashir? Where is the call to bomb Sudan?
  Madam Speaker, we could have a war of the week if we went after every 
tyrant that is committing these kinds of atrocities. Well-respected 
organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, 
have documented the crimes committed by Burma's military. Many of the 
abuses committed by the Burmese regime represent some of the world's 
most horrific ongoing atrocities. For example, the regime has destroyed 
over 3,300 ethnic minority villages in eastern Burma alone, recruited 
tens of thousands of children, child soldiers, forced up to 2 million 
people to flee their homes as refugees and internally displaced, and 
used rape as a weapon of war against the women of Burma. How is the 
violence going on in Syria any worse than the destruction and 
degradation committed by the Burmese junta?
  North Korea is widely acknowledged to be the worst violator of human 
rights in the world. The regime cares so little for its people that 
authorities are imprisoning, for 6 months in labor training camps, 
anybody who did not participate in the organized gatherings during the 
mourning period for the late Kim Jung Il, or who did participate but 
didn't cry and didn't seem genuine. Six months in a labor camp for not 
crying? North Korea is a recognized state sponsor of terror, a 
proliferator of nuclear weapons, and a direct threat to United States 
forces in South Korea, yet no one is urging the bombing of North Korea.
  The world is full of despotic and oppressive regimes. The sad fact is 
that even in 2012, more of the world labors in the shadow of tyranny 
than in the daylight of democracy and the rule of law. Many of the 
world's leaders are at least as bad as Qadhafi and al-Assad, and many 
are even worse. We are not the world's policeman.
  Even if we are willing to ignore the hypocrisy of using military 
force in Syria for ``humanitarian reasons'' while we turn a blind eye 
to the other equally pressing humanitarian crises around the world, 
there are several practical issues surrounding an operation in Syria 
that make it ill-advised, and this case should be made to the Congress 
if the President or Senator McCain push for military action against 
Syria.
  Libya and Syria are very different countries with different 
geographies and different militaries. The Libyan army of Qadhafi was 
far less capable than Syria's army under al-Assad. Its forces were not 
as well-trained, well-fed or well-armed. In fact, Qadhafi had 
decisively turned on his military forces after a series of military 
coup attempts in the 1980s and 1990s. In the place of a professional 
military, Qadhafi increasingly relied on the revolutionary committees, 
many of whom defected en mass within days of protests breaking out 
against his rule.
  Even against such a weak opposition, NATO's bombing campaign only 
succeeded in pushing the loyalist forces back. The rebels were unable 
to advance very far. As the battle turned in a stalemate, NATO and 
others were forced to raise their commitment, and the United States 
spent billions of dollars in that conflict as well, without 
congressional approval. Trainers were sent in, and NATO personnel 
shared space in the rebels' operations room in Benghazi. Qatar had to 
ship in approximately 30 consignment of Milan antitank cannons and 
Belgian FN rifles. During the final assault on Qadhafi's compound, 
Qatari forces even found themselves leading the charge.
  Nearly a year into the civil war to oust President al-Assad, the 
Syrian army remains largely intact. In addition, Syria has a 
substantial chemical and biological weapons capability and thousands of 
surface-to-air missiles and shoulder-launched missiles, making Syria 
much more of a threat to attacking air forces than anything Libya had. 
How will the American people react if an American pilot is shot down 
and captured by the Syrian army, or worse, Syria's terrorist proxy, 
Hezbollah? And that's why Congress must be consulted before we take any 
action; and I would urge any of my colleagues who are considering 
urging the President to take unilateral action, that they remember the 
War Powers Act and the Constitution.
  In addition, if air power is to be used against Assad's regime, as it 
was to overthrow Qadhafi's, then it is certain that the venture will 
take longer than the 6 months it took in Libya. The price in Syrian 
blood on both sides, the rebels and the government, will be higher, and 
the geography of the country, without the vast stretches of desert 
between towns that were turned into shooting galleries when Qadhafi 
tried to remove his forces, would guarantee more civilian casualties 
from NATO bombs than occurred in Libya. How many civilian casualties 
are acceptable to prevent a humanitarian crisis?

  Other questions that need to be addressed: What will Israel do if 
Hezbollah responds to Western military actions against Syria by 
launching rockets into Israel? What will Iran do to protect its ally in 
Damascus?

[[Page H1294]]

  Finally, brutally, we must ask the question: Is the devil we know 
better than the devil we don't know? And here I'd like to divert just a 
minute from my prepared text.
  When we saw the changes in Libya, we didn't know who was going to 
take over. We didn't know that sharia law was going to be the rule of 
law there, which took them back into a more radical stance.
  In Egypt, the elections that have taken place after Mubarak was 
removed from power have led to the suspicion, very strong suspicion, 
that sharia law will be imposed in Egypt as well. We don't know what 
that will do to the Camp David Peace Accords and whether or not that 
could cause our ally, Israel, to be in more danger. We need to know, 
before we get into a war to change regimes, what we're getting in place 
of the people we are removing.
  Qadhafi, as bad as he was, and I didn't like him at all and I think 
he should have been removed, was no threat to the United States or our 
allies. He was a threat to his own people. And yet we decided 
unilaterally to go in and get him, and we did, along with the French 
and our NATO allies. And now some of my colleagues are talking about 
going into Syria and removing al-Assad without congressional approval, 
unilaterally by the President, and we don't know what we'll be getting.
  We have found recently from reports that al Qaeda forces are in Syria 
assisting the rebels. Now we have to make sure that if al-Assad goes, 
that we don't have a base of operations for the enemies of freedom in 
Syria. We know what we've got. We don't like it, but we better be 
careful before we start making a regime change there that al Qaeda 
doesn't take over or have a big influence in Syria that will cause 
problems for the United States, our ally Israel, and others in the 
Middle East later on.
  While Senator McCain, my good friend, may angrily deny it, the 
assessment of the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, and 
half a dozen intelligence reports and independent news agencies is that 
al Qaeda has inserted themselves inside armed operations groups in 
Syria, as I just said. Al Qaeda is there. They're the mortal enemy of 
everything that we believe in, and they're involved with the rebels, 
and we need to be sure that we're doing the right thing if we 
participate and if the Congress approves of some action in Syria.
  Do we really want to undertake a ``significant military 
commitment''--those are the words of Marine General James Mattis, head 
of the U.S. Central Command--to create so-called safe havens in Syria 
to deliver weapons and supplies to al Qaeda fighters from Iraq?

                              {time}  1340

  I believe that the sun is slowly setting on the Assad regime in 
Syria. I sincerely hope that we are not pushed into a war we do not 
fully understand and that we don't really need to be in.
  I must remind my colleagues in both the House and the Senate one more 
time: Neither the President nor a few Senators nor Members of Congress 
have the right to demand or push for unilateral action by the United 
States without the Congress of the United States being involved in the 
decisionmaking process. That has happened in other countries in the 
past. It happened in Libya. But it should not happen anymore because 
the Constitution, the War Powers Act, and the rule of law must be 
maintained by the Congress of the United States.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________