[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 170 (Wednesday, November 18, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H8287-H8288]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              SHOWING OUR SUPPORT FOR THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Kentucky (Mr. Barr) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of our allies, 
the people of France, and in strong condemnation of the terrorist 
attacks in Paris, France, carried out by the Islamic State this past 
Friday.
  The people of France have been our allies since the American 
Revolution, and having traveled to Normandy and seeing the American 
flag over Omaha Beach, it underscores the important alliance that we 
have had with the people of France throughout our history.
  Ever since the founding of our country, we have been united with the 
people of France by our shared values of freedom and civil society and 
democracy. The attack on Friday was an attack on these values by 
barbaric terrorists who want to impose their brutal and twisted version 
of Islam and authoritarian rule across the world.
  We grieve for the massive loss of life, not just for the French 
people, but also for the victims and their families around the globe, 
including Nohemi Gonzalez, an American student from El Monte, 
California.
  We join the voices from around the world to condemn these attacks, 
but condemnation is not enough.
  As I saw firsthand while visiting Iraq and Afghanistan last month, 
the President's strategy of withdrawal and containment is clearly not 
working.
  By underestimating the threat, referring to ISIL as the JV team, 
declaring that ISIL has been contained just hours before the brutal 
attacks in Paris, President Obama has allowed this radical Islamic 
cancer on humanity to fester and grow.
  Indeed, the key lesson of my trip to the Middle East is that American 
retreat has made the world a much less stable and a much more dangerous 
place. The weakness of the President's foreign policy and U.S. 
withdrawal from the Middle East has allowed our adversaries, ISIL, 
Russia, Iran, the Taliban, al Qaeda, Jabhat Al-Nusra, to fill the 
vacuum, to grow stronger and become a much greater threat to our 
homeland and our interests.
  In contrast, our allies, Israel, the Jordanians, the government of 
Iraq, the Kurdish regional government, the unity government in 
Afghanistan, they have all become more threatened and more vulnerable.
  There is not a single place in the world which is safer or more 
stable today or where our adversaries are weaker or where our allies 
are stronger than on the day President Obama took office.
  The President has, in recent days, lectured his critics to come up 
with their own plan and regurgitated his tired old attacks on his 
predecessor's successful national security policy.
  But if there is any lesson to be learned from the Obama policy in 
Iraq, as contrasted with U.S. policy after World War II in Japan and 
Germany, it is that once you win a war, do not leave. A residual 
security force and continued diplomatic engagement to prevent sectarian 
divisions would have reassured moderate Sunnis and prevented the rise 
of ISIL.
  The President implies that his critics would lead us into another 
unpopular ground war in the Middle East, but we do not need to fight 
the Iraq war again. We have already won that war.
  But we do need to do more to combat ISIL. What about authorizing use 
of military force that doesn't constrain the Commander in Chief, which 
is what the President sent us?
  Why don't we do what our ally, Prime Minister al-Abadi, in Baghdad, 
wants and has asked us for, which is more U.S. air power, more U.S. 
special operators on the ground for better coordination of the air 
campaign, more funding for the Iraqi train and equip fund?
  We must do more to help the moderate forces, the indigenous forces on 
the ground, such as the Kurdish Peshmerga, to take back territory 
controlled by ISIL.
  We must address the surge of refugees pouring out of Syria and other 
war-torn countries across the Middle East. These people are in 
desperate need of help, but the answer is not to resettle them halfway 
around the world here in the United States.
  An open-ended resettlement program is, in fact, an admission of 
defeat, that their homes will never be safe for them to return to, so 
we had better assimilate them to new lands with new languages and new 
cultures.
  That is not the best solution for these refugees. And because we know 
that at least one of these terrorists involved in the Paris attacks 
entered Europe by blending in with those trying

[[Page H8288]]

to flee ISIL, it could pose a national security risk to the United 
States.
  We shouldn't take the indigenous fighters away from the anti-ISIL 
campaign through an open-ended refugee program. Instead, let's actively 
protect them in their home country by helping them defeat ISIL and win 
the war.
  The best thing we can do for these people is to defeat the enemy and 
to end their reign of terror, rape and oppression. We need a new 
strategy, not to contain ISIL, but to eliminate them.
  The refugee issue is a simple matter of common sense, but the problem 
is larger than the refugees. As we were reminded so tragically on 
Friday in Paris, failure to confront terrorists and radical ideologies 
abroad gives them an opportunity to grow and spread and attack us here 
at home.
  So let's grieve and pray for the people of France, but let's do more. 
Let's rise up with them, with new resolve, to defend our shared 
commitment to liberty, security, and freedom.

                          ____________________