[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 118 (Tuesday, September 10, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5437-H5438]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE WAR ON SYRIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, Russia's diplomatic intervention in 
the Syrian crisis is indeed welcome news. But whether it is real or 
illusory, the President needs to step back from the dangerous precipice 
that he has brought us to.
  Certainly, he's made his case for war with Syria very clearly, that 
the United States must punish the use of chemical weapons, and if we 
don't, they're more likely to be used again. He assures us that the 
strike will be limited and that it will aid moderates fighting the 
regime. He warns that American credibility is at stake. The case is 
quite clear: it is simply not convincing.
  It's possible that an attack on Syria will convince Assad not to use 
chemical weapons in the future. But it is just as likely to convince 
him that, being in for a penny, he might as well be in for a pound and 
unleash his entire chemical arsenal.
  It is just as likely that an American strike on Syria will produce a 
retaliatory strike, possibly by Hezbollah against Israel, requiring a 
retaliatory strike by Israel, possibly on Iran, in a catastrophic chain 
reaction.
  We don't know where it will lead, but we can be sure that the morning 
after the attack we would confront a most uncomfortable irony. In 
retaliation for Assad killing Syrian civilians with chemical weapons, 
the United States will have killed Syrian civilians with

[[Page H5438]]

conventional weapons, for civilian casualties are an unavoidable 
tragedy of war.
  Well, who would be our new allies in this war?
  They'd be the Islamic forces that are responsible for their own 
litany of atrocities, including the massacre of Syrian Christians, the 
beheading of political opponents, summary executions of war prisoners 
and acts of barbarity too depraved to be discussed in this forum. We 
would be aiding and abetting those forces.
  We're told that al Qaeda's not more than a fourth of our new 
coalition and that the rest are moderates. Well, we were told the same 
thing about Libya. We were told the same thing about the Muslim 
Brotherhood in Egypt.
  The problem with moderates in the Middle East is that there aren't 
very many of them, and they're quickly overwhelmed in any coalition 
they attempt.
  Nor can such an attack be limited in duration or scope. The fact is, 
once you have attacked another country, you are at war with that 
country and its allies, whatever you wish to call it, and whatever you 
later decide to do.
  And wars have a very nasty way of taking turns that no one can 
predict or control. World War I began with a series of obscure 
incidents that quickly escalated into world war. And the Middle East 
today is a veritable powder keg compared to the antebellum Europe of a 
century ago.
  Finally, we're told American credibility is on the line. Well, 
chemical weapons are barbaric, but this isn't the first time they've 
been used in modern times. They were used previously in Syria, in the 
Yemeni civil war, by Iraq against Iran, by the Vietnamese against the 
Cambodians, by Libya against Chad.
  The only unique thing about this incident is that it is the first 
time an American President has declared their use to be a ``red line.'' 
Our credibility was harmed by a foolish and reckless statement by the 
President. Let us not further damage it with a foolish and reckless act 
by Congress.
  Wars are not something to be taken lightly. From the podium right 
behind me, General MacArthur warned that, ``In war there is no 
substitute for victory.''
  If you're going to start a war, you'd better be prepared to put the 
entire resources of the country behind it, to endure every setback 
along the way, to utterly annihilate every vestige of the enemy, and to 
install, by force, a government of our design and choosing, and to 
maintain that government until all opposition is ceased. If you are not 
willing to do that, then you have no business firing the first shot.
  More than a decade of irresolute and aimless wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan should have taught us this lesson: that victory, and not 
stalemate, must be the objective of any war. Yet, this would be a war 
whose avowed objective is stalemate. That is self-defeating. It is 
immoral.
  The President has already made his case very clearly, and he is very 
clearly wrong.

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