[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 7269-7270]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             ASSAD MUST GO

  (Mr. SCHIFF asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, the outrages perpetrated by Syrian President

[[Page 7270]]

Bashar Assad against his own people have laid bare his regime's total 
lack of legitimacy. The shelling of Homs evokes memories of the 1982 
massacre at Hama, in which his father ordered the Syrian army into the 
rebellious city, killing up to 40,000 people.
  After the elder Assad died in 2000, the new president, in interviews 
with western journalists, made several cautious statements that led 
many Syrians to believe that the new President would be willing to take 
at least the first steps towards democracy in their ancient land. 
Indeed, the first months of the new regime saw a period of intense 
political and social debate in Syria, which continued to some degree 
until the fall of 2001, when the government sharply reversed course and 
ended what had become known as the Damascus Spring.
  Similarly, tentative Syrian cooperation in the months after 9/11 did 
not last, and in 2005, Syrian intelligence officers joined with 
Hezbollah in murdering Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and 
provoking a war with Israel in the summer of 2006.
  Now the Assad regime has turned on its own people who have been 
inspired by their fellow Arabs in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.
  We in Congress must use every diplomatic and economic tool to end 
this dictatorship. And I urge President Obama to support the Syrian 
people in their quest for an end to the corruption and brutality of the 
Assad regime.

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