[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9229-9230]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 SYRIA

  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Madam President, like many others, I am 
deeply disturbed by the current situation in Syria, the appalling 
atrocities, the tragic loss of life, the reported use of chemical 
weapons. This deserves the clear condemnation of the international 
community.
  I am also concerned by the push for intervention in this war, by the 
rush to judgment for the United States to yet again become entangled in 
a civil war. The President has decided to send arms to the rebels to 
fight the government of the Bashar al-Asad. The full scope of this 
intervention is not yet clear, but this path is dangerous and 
unnecessary.
  The Asad regime is cruel and corrupt. We can all agree on that point. 
Many of the groups fighting against him do not share our values and 
could be worse. They may pose long-term risks to us and our allies. 
Asad's enemies may very well be America's enemies. The fact is that we 
do not know. A number of experts, including our military brass, have 
sounded alarms warning that the options to intervene in Syria range 
from bad to worse and could prove damaging to America's strategic 
interests. By flooding Syria with weapons, we risk arming those who 
ultimately may seek to do us harm.
  We have been down this road before. Recent history tells a cautionary 
tale. In the 1980s the United States supported a rebel insurgency to 
repel the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Back then as now, many 
Members of Congress pushed for arming these rebels. The United States 
supplied weapons, intelligence, and training, with the goal to defeat 
the Soviets in Afghanistan.
  Our short-term victory had tragic consequences for the future. 
Radical members of the insurgency formed the Taliban regime, giving 
safe haven to terrorist training camps, providing material support to 
Osama bin Laden and his fledgling al-Qaida movement. Through state-
sponsored terrorism in

[[Page 9230]]

Afghanistan, al-Qaida thrived and perpetrated attacks on the USS Cole 
and the World Trade Center on 9/11. The aftermath has been more than a 
decade of war, with tragic loss of American lives and treasure.
  This is history to learn from, not repeat, and yet many who advocated 
for previously disastrous Middle East interventions are leading the 
charge to arm groups we know little about and to declare war through 
air strikes on another Middle Eastern country.
  What little we do know about the Syrian rebels is extremely 
disturbing. The opposition is fractured. Some are sympathetic to the 
enemies of the United States and our allies, including Israel and 
Turkey. There are reliable reports that some of the rebels even include 
Iraqi Sunni insurgents--the same groups who killed many U.S. troops and 
still target the current Iraqi Army and Government.
  We know American law currently considers some of the rebel elements 
to be terrorist groups. The United States has designated one of the key 
opposition factions, the Nursa Front, as a terrorist organization for 
being an al-Qaida-affiliated group.
  The Syrian opposition is very unorganized. They lack a chain of 
command, they are subject to deadly infighting, and if they are able to 
defeat Asad, they may turn on each other or worse the United States or 
our allies.
  Simply put, once we have introduced arms, neither we nor their 
fighters may be able to guarantee control over them. Such weapons could 
end up in the hands of groups and people who do not represent our 
interests, possibly including terrorists who target the United States, 
our allies, such as Israel and Turkey, and the Iraqi Army and 
Government--an Iraq that we spent billions of dollars and thousands of 
American lives to establish.
  Given this reality, those who are pushing for military intervention 
should answer three basic questions: Can arms be reasonably accounted 
for and kept out of the hands of terrorists and extremist groups? Can 
they assure us those arms will not become a threat to our regional 
allies and friends, including Israel, Turkey, and the Government of 
Iraq? And if the answer to the two previous questions is no, can they 
then explain why transferring our weapons to the rebels, whose members 
may themselves be affiliated with terrorist and extremist groups, is a 
sensible option for the American people? What national interest does 
this serve?
  I do not believe those questions have been answered. I think the 
majority of the American people agree. They do not see the 
justification of our intervention in this civil war. We need to slow 
down this clamor for more weapons to Syria and war and take a step back 
from this plunge into very muddy and dangerous waters.
  Stopping radicalism and protecting our allies is of vital importance; 
however, we come to the ultimate question, one that has not been 
adequately answered: Will this hasty march to intervene in another 
Middle East conflict achieve these goals or will it ultimately harm the 
interests of the United States, leading to yet another bloody, costly, 
overseas conflict and, ironically, worsening the terrorist threat?
  We should listen to the lessons of history. After over a decade of 
war overseas, now is not the time to arm an unorganized, unfamiliar, 
and unpredictable group of rebels. Now is not the time to rush headlong 
into another Middle Eastern civil war. The winds of war are blowing yet 
again, and we should be ever vigilant before we venture into another 
storm.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.

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