[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 110 (Friday, June 23, 2023)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E612-E613]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           NEW RISE OF ASSAD

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. J. FRENCH HILL

                              of arkansas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, June 23, 2023

  Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, recently, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad was 
invited back into the Arab League after 12 years of being in exile.
  I can't tell you how incredibly frustrating and disappointing this is 
to many, particularly the innocent people of Syria who have endured 
more than a decade of war, murder, and torture.
  Assad's readmittance to the Arab League sends the wrong signal.
  It sends the signal to the rest of the world that his atrocious war 
crimes against his own citizens over the past twelve years are 
acceptable.
  A recent Reuters article had the headline Arabs bring Syria's Assad 
back into the fold, but want actions, action on the drug trade.
  Well that's rich, because the only reason there is an epidemic in the 
drug trade in the Gulf and the region, is because of Assad.
  Assad turned Russia and Iran to maintain his death machine, and now 
the Captagon drug trade, led by his cousins, led by his military, 
providing an independent source of funding for his regime while he 
poisons his neighbors and takes their money and fuels terrorism in the 
region.
  And yet he's invited back to the Arab League meeting.
  It's preposterous.
  My bill that passed last year's National Defense Authorization Act 
was called the Captagon Act and requires the U.S. Government to develop 
a multilateral and all of government approach to disrupting and 
dismantling the production of the Captagon drug right in the heart of 
Syria.
  Recently, the Treasury Department along with our ally the United 
Kingdom, took steps to sanction key actors in Assad's inner circle who 
are producing and trafficking Captagon.
  This is a good step, but it's months late Mr. Speaker
  It's in the right direction of disrupting and dismantling the 
trafficking networks associated with this illicit drug.
  But it's just a good start, and it comes years after we know the 
deadly impact of Captagon in the region, on families, but also fueling 
of terror by Assad through the billions of dollars transferred from 
that illicit trafficking.
  So it's critical that governments across the globe to continue to 
show their support for the Syrian people by denouncing those who seek 
to normalize relations with the repulsive regime, granting Assad 
admittance to the Arab League once again sends the opposite message, it 
rewards barbaric behavior.
  The United States government has an obligation to sanction Assad in 
our efforts to dismantle the Captagon drug trade and hold Assad 
accountable for his war crimes.
  And that's why I'm pleased this week to cosponsor the Middle East 
Subcommittee Chairman Joe Wilson's new bill H.R. 2302, The Assad Regime 
Anti-Normalization Act.
  This bill was passed this week unanimously in the House Foreign 
Affairs Committee.
  Congress will act where this administration has continuously failed 
to consistently do so.

[[Page E613]]

  I look forward to supporting this bill on the House floor and seeing 
it signed into law.

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