[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 134 (Thursday, September 18, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5735-S5737]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ISIS
Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the dangerous
and brutal extremist organization called ISIS, the terrorist army,
which in recent months has overrun vast swaths of Iraq and Syria and is
a serious threat to the stability of the region, and, in fact, to the
international community.
But before I do that, I also want to say that ISIS is not the only
major problem facing our country. It would be a real tragedy if, in our
legitimate concerns about the dangers of ISIS, we continue to ignore
the very serious problems that are taking place right here in the
United States of America and impacting tens of millions of working
families.
There are crises here at home we have ignored for too long. Real
unemployment today is 12 percent, youth unemployment is 20 percent. We
can't ignore it. The minimum wage nationally is at a starvation wage of
$7.25 an hour. We cannot ignore that reality. We have to raise the
minimum wage.
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Women earn 77 cents to the dollar that men earn. That is unfair. We
cannot ignore the issue of pay equity. We have to address that issue.
Senator Boxer was just on the floor talking about the planetary
crisis of global warming and the fact that virtually the entire
scientific community is united in telling us that global warming is
real. It is significantly caused by human activity. It is also causing
devastating problems in our country and around the world. We cannot
continue to ignore the crisis of global warming.
Last week many of us voted to overturn the disastrous Citizens United
Supreme Court decision that allows billionaires the ability to spend
unlimited sums of money to buy elections which will benefit candidates
who support the rich and the powerful. My point is that while we
address the very serious problems in the Middle East--and these are
very serious problems--we cannot take our eye off the very serious
problems facing tens of millions of Americans.
The issue involving ISIS, in my view, is enormously complex. Just one
example is Syria. The Assad government is a dictatorship which has
killed many thousands of its own people and has even used, we believe,
chemical weapons against its own citizens--and these are the good guys.
The decisions we make now in Syria, in Iraq, and in the Middle East
must be made with great thoughtfulness.
As you know, President Obama has been attacked time and time again
because he publicly stated a while ago that ``we don't have a strategy
yet'' for dealing with ISIS. Frankly, I applaud the President for
trying to think through this incredibly complicated issue and not
making rash decisions which would make a very bad and dangerous
situation even worse and more dangerous.
I remember back in 2002--I was in the House of Representatives then--
when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney said they did have a strategy. They
were tough, they were forceful, they acted boldly, they acted swiftly,
but, unfortunately, what they did was dead wrong. In fact, it was the
worst foreign policy blunder in the recent history of America and
opened up a can of worms we are trying to deal with today.
Frankly, I must say I am not impressed with all of the tough talk. I
want smart policy that will work and that will, in fact, lead to the
destruction of ISIS, not sound bites that may be effective in a
political campaign.
I will take a few moments to lay out some of my concerns. First,
President Obama is absolutely right when he said this struggle will not
be successful unless there is a strong international coalition. Let's
be clear: ISIS is a terrorist threat not only to the United States but
to Britain, France, Germany, countries throughout Europe, and, in fact,
to nations throughout the world.
More importantly, ISIS, which wants to establish a new caliphate,
which includes many countries across a large geographical area, is a
major threat in the region to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Turkey, Qatar, Iran, Jordan, and other countries.
I very much appreciate the hard work that President Obama and
Secretary of State Kerry have undertaken in trying to put together an
international coalition that will effectively fight ISIS. We all know
how difficult that effort is, but at this point it appears to me the
kind of coalition we need has yet to come together.
In my view, ISIS will never be defeated unless the countries in the
region--the people in the region, the Muslim world, including Sunni and
Shiite nations--stand up to this threat.
I know how hard President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are
trying, but we are nowhere near where we need to be in terms of
building this coalition at this moment.
It may surprise many people to know that Saudi Arabia--a country run
by an autocratic royal family worth hundreds of billions of dollars and
one of the wealthiest families in the world--is a country which was the
world's fourth largest defense spender in 2014. Most people don't know
that. According to a Reuters article from earlier this year--and I
quote--``Saudi Arabia beat Britain to become the world's fourth largest
defense spender in 2013.'' In other words, Saudi Arabia is now spending
more money on arms and the military than is the United Kingdom.
The article goes on to cite a report by London's International
Institute for Strategic Studies which estimated Saudi Arabia was
spending over $59 billion, a figure researchers said was extremely
conservative, pushing it above Britain at $57 billion or France at $52
billion. Once again, Saudi Arabia is spending more on their military
than is Britain or France.
Another article from Bloomberg provides additional details on Saudi
Arabia's military strength. It cites that ``in 2011, the U.S.
Government signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia valued at $29
billion.'' That is the end of the quote from Bloomberg. But according
to Military Balance, ``The Royal Saudi Air Force has more than 300
combat capable aircraft, including 81 F-15 C and D fighter aircraft,
172 advanced F-15 S Typhoon and Tornado fighters capable of ground
attack, dozens of C-130 transport aircrafts.'' This is what the Saudi
Arabian Air Force has.
Let me also quote from an article in Forbes which details the
strength and numbers of many of the militaries in the Mideast. The
article notes:
Countries in the region have more than enough power to
destroy the Islamic State. Turkey has an army of 400,000.
Iran has nearly as many in the army and paramilitaries. Iraq
has a nominal army of nearly 200,000 and some 300,000 police.
Saudi Arabia has nearly 200,000 army, national guard, and
paramilitary personnel. Syria's military, though degraded by
war, numbers some 110,000, plus paramilitaries. Jordan has
74,000 in the army. The Kurdish Peshmerga numbers in the tens
of thousands. All of these but Iraq and Kurdistan have some
air force ground attack capabilities.
Furthermore, not only are countries in the region not stepping up in
the fight against ISIS but, believe it or not, several of these gulf
states are empowering ISIS and Al Qaeda-related groups through their
financial contributions. A recent article in the Washington Post noted:
Kuwait, a U.S. ally whose aid to besieged Syrian civilians
has been surpassed only by the United States this year, is
also the leading source of funding for al-Qaeda-linked
terrorists fighting in Syria's civil war.
Now, think back not so long ago when the United States of America
went to war to push Saddam Hussein's troops out of Kuwait and restore
the royal ruling family. Today we find that ``Kuwait is the leading
source of funding for al Qaeda-linked terrorists fighting in Syria's
civil war.''
The article goes on to state:
. . . the amount of money that has flowed from Kuwaiti
individuals and through organized charities to Syrian rebel
groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra totals in the hundreds of
millions of dollars.
Kuwait is hardly alone in this effort. As Treasury Department Under
Secretary Cohen stated:
A number of fundraisers operating in more permissive
jurisdictions--particularly in Kuwait and Qatar--are
soliciting donations to fund extremist insurgents, not to
meet legitimate humanitarian needs.
On and on it goes.
Why is all of this of enormous consequence? The answer is pretty
obvious. The worst action we can take now is to allow ISIS to portray
this struggle as East versus West and Muslim versus Christians, as the
Middle East versus America. That is exactly what they want and that is
exactly what we should not be giving them. In other words, this is not
just a question of whether young men and women in Vermont or in North
Dakota or in any other State of this country should be putting their
lives on the line to defend the billionaire families of Saudi Arabia
when Saudi Arabian troops are not in the struggle. This is not just
whether the taxpayers of our country and not the billionaire ruling
families of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and other countries should be
paying for this war; more importantly, it is an understanding that at
the end of the day, this war will never be won by the United States
alone but it must be won by the people in the region.
Should we, as the most powerful military in the world, be of help to
those people struggling against ISIS? The answer is obviously yes.
Along with the international community, we should be strongly
supportive of those countries in the region that are standing up to
ISIS. And I personally believe President Obama is absolutely right in
his efforts to judiciously use airstrikes which, at this point, have
shown some success. But at the end of the day, in my view, the United
States of America
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cannot and should not lead this effort. We must be supportive of other
countries in the region who are standing and fighting against the ISIS
terrorist organization, but this fight will have to be fought by
countries in the region that are, in fact, most threatened by ISIS.
They cannot stand aside. They cannot say: Hey, go for it, United
States. Thank you, American taxpayers. But we in Saudi Arabia--no, we
don't want our young people involved in this war. We don't want our
airplanes involved in the attacks. We don't want our billions to go
into this war. Thank you, America. It is really nice of you to do that.
By the way, while you do that, we may play both sides of the issue and
some families may actually fund terrorist organizations. But we really
do appreciate your stepping to the plate because we are not doing that.
So that is where we are today. It is a very complicated, difficult
situation. Again, I applaud President Obama and Secretary Kerry for
trying to work through this. But this is what I worry about: I worry
very much that supporting questionable groups in Syria--so-called
moderates who are outnumbered and outgunned by both ISIS and the Assad
government--I worry very much that getting involved in that area could
open the door to the United States, once again, being involved in a
quagmire, being involved in perpetual warfare. And what happens when
the first American plane gets shot down or the first American soldier
is captured? What happens then? I am hearing from some of our
Republican colleagues who are already talking about the need for U.S.
military boots on the ground. That is what they are talking about
today, and that concerns me very, very much.
So I am going to vote against this continuing resolution because I
have very real concerns about the United States getting deeply involved
in a war we should not be deeply involved in. At the end of the day, if
this war against this horrendous organization called ISIS is going to
be won, it will have to be Saudi Arabia, it will have to be Iraq, it
will have to be the people of Syria, it will have to be the people of
that region saying: No, we are not going to accept an organization of
terrorists such as ISIS. And we should be there to help, as should the
United Kingdom, as should Britain, as should France, as should Germany.
This has to be an international coalition. But the last thing we need
is the United States being the only major military power involved in
this war.
So I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of
a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Madam President, what is the order before the Senate?
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