[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14937-14938]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE MIDDLE EAST AND ISIS

  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the gravest and 
most important issue we can debate in Congress. I am here to talk about 
America's involvement in the Middle East and President Obama's plan to 
defeat ISIS. Make no mistake, we must defeat and destroy ISIS. But how 
we destroy them is what we must get right.
  I applaud the President for presenting a plan to the American people. 
I support airstrikes against ISIS. I support providing humanitarian 
aid. I support cutting off terrorist funding sources. Doing these 
things has already helped to prevent genocide and has already begun to 
roll back ISIS's gains in Iraq.
  I also support in engaging the world community, but most importantly 
Turkey and the Arab League nations. Unfortunately, I have not seen 
signs from the region that tell me we have their full support. This 
should be an Arab ground war and a U.S. air war, but I cannot and will 
not support arming or training the Syrian opposition forces. I did not 
come to this decision easily.
  I spoke with military and foreign policy experts. I attended 
classified briefings and asked questions of this administration--but, 
most importantly, I studied our history.
  We have been at war in that part of the world for the past 13 years. 
If money and military might could have made a difference, it would have 
by now.
  In Iraq alone, we spent the better part of 8 years training the Iraqi 
police and military force of a 280,000-person army at the cost of $20 
billion to the American people--$20 billion. The first time they had to 
step up and defend their country, their people, and their way of life, 
what did they do? They folded in the face of ISIS, abandoning their 
equipment and facilities to the enemy.
  I ask my colleagues and the President, why do we think that training 
the rebels would turn out any differently?
  In West Virginia, we understand the definition of insanity. We get 
it.
  The first principle of war is to know your enemy. And we certainly 
know our enemy.
  ISIS is a barbaric terrorist with no respect for humanity, and they 
deserve to die. I have seen the videos and, like every American, I was 
disgusted and outraged.
  But as it is most important to know your enemy, it is equally 
important to know your allies--and I am not confident we know who our 
allies are.
  To illustrate that point, I refer my colleagues to press reports that 
moderate Syrian opposition forces sold American journalist Steven 
Sotloff to ISIS, who beheaded him and put the video on the Internet. 
Are those people our allies?
  Who are our other allies in this fight? As of today, we have only 
hints of military support from Arab countries that themselves face a 
greater threat from ISIS than any one of us.
  Syria's neighbors have the technical ability and the financial 
resources to support and train the Syrian opposition forces. If that is 
the correct course of action we should take, they have the wherewithal 
to do it.
  In the 1991 Iraq war, we had commitments from our allies around the 
world, but most importantly from the Arab community. We had a total 
buy-in. I know Secretary of State Kerry has been working tirelessly to 
build a similar coalition and to recruit support from Iraq's neighbors, 
because it is their neighborhood and theirs to defend. I hope it is 
successful because, as our intelligence community has said repeatedly, 
ISIS could soon become a direct threat to the United States of America. 
But I strongly believe that if our military arms and trains Syrian 
rebels, we will be involving ourselves in a ground conflict that we 
cannot resolve where potentially everyone involved is our enemy.
  To my mind, the reasons not to arm Syrian rebels today are very 
clear. No. 1, first, the weapons we give to moderate opposition may not 
remain in their hands. If my colleagues have seen the videos of ISIS 
shipping U.S. Army humvees and MRAPs out of Iraq that we gave to the 
Iraqi Army, they will understand what I mean.
  No. 2, I have seen no evidence that the Syrian rebels we plan to 
train and arm will remain committed to American goals or our interests. 
The vast majority of national level Syrian rebel groups are Islamist, 
none of whom are interested in allying with the United States. This is 
not to their best interests--and not in their interest--and none of 
whom we should be associating with.
  Further, the opposition fighters we will train care more about 
overthrowing Assad's regime than they do about defeating ISIS. Assad is 
evil, make no mistake about it, but he is not a threat to America. If 
the moderate opposition has to choose between defeating Assad and 
defeating ISIS, why do we believe--think about this--they will choose 
our priority over their own? Why would we even think that? How do we 
know they won't join forces with ISIS if it helps them overthrow Assad, 
their main objective?
  No. 3, authorizing military support for Syrian rebels will 
inextricably draw us into a civil war we have no way to end--and we 
have seen this picture unfold before. Our fight is against ISIS and the 
Islamist terrorist groups that threaten the United States. A limit of 
that fight should be doing what we need to do to protect Americans and 
to prevent genocide. Every further step we take from that basic 
principle of protecting Americans and preventing genocide takes us back 
down the road of Middle Eastern nation-building. That means we should 
support others with counterterrorism forces, intelligence gathering, 
air power, and diplomatic efforts--and it means stopping the flow of 
illicit oil, money, and fighters across Syria's borders. We do not need 
to arm and train Syrian rebels to protect Americans.
  I would ask my colleagues to consider America's history of 
intervention in the Middle East. It has not been a successful one. 
Interventions have failed in Lebanon, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, and 
Afghanistan is on the brink of failure.
  What did we learn from our actions? Certainly not that going into 
Muslim countries to restore order or restore democracy is a winning 
strategy for us.
  I have been very clear: We have every right to and we must--we must--
defend ourselves and protect American citizens and interests against 
terrorists anywhere in the world. I again voice my strong support for 
the counterterrorism efforts already ongoing to protect Americans, but 
we have proven by blood and treasure already spent that we have not 
made a difference with American boots on the ground in this part of the 
world.
  Some have used the examples of our garrisons in Germany, Japan, 
Korea, and the Balkans as examples of where the United States 
successfully established the rule of law with residual military forces, 
but such comparisons have little basis in history. Once our mission was 
achieved and occupation began, our troops did not face the threat of 
violence from the same people we had just defended and liberated.
  Others have said if we had kept a residual force in Iraq that ISIS 
would never have taken hold, and I respectfully disagree. How can I 
fault a President for pulling troops out after 8 years, billions spent, 
and thousands of lives lost, with no end in sight? Again we trained in 
Iraq a military of 280,000 persons at a cost of $20 billion, and when 
they faced their first test, they folded. That was a fraction of the 
total cost of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  I wish to give a rundown of where we stand today. In Iraq, 
conservatively, we have spent $818 billion. In Afghanistan, we have 
spent $747 billion, and that is continuing to grow. The total cost of 
our recent wars: $1.6 trillion, and that is growing. That doesn't 
include the cost of long-term care of wounded veterans, over 50,000.

[[Page 14938]]

  But the cost in money is nothing compared to the cost of lives. In 
Iraq, 4,400 dead, 36,000 wounded. In Afghanistan and still counting, 
2,200 dead and 21,000 wounded.
  I know my vote comes with a price. I know that. It is my 
understanding that the same vote we make to train and fund the Syrian 
opposition forces will also be one to pass a CR to fund our government. 
I do not believe we should be forced to decide between funding our 
government and arming Syrian rebels in the same vote.
  We should be ashamed for failing to pass appropriations bills to 
finance government operations for the fiscal year that starts 2 weeks 
from now, and more ashamed that for the sake of expediency--expediency 
because of an election coming up--that we are using a stopgap 
continuing resolution as a vehicle for authorizing major military 
activity that will have repercussions for generations to come.
  Asking us to make this choice is a disservice to the American people. 
But if that is a decision I am forced to make--and I will say if that 
is a decision I am forced to make--it is one I am committed to making. 
I understand my vote will likely not be the deciding vote, but even if 
it were, I would still cast the same vote. I believe these votes should 
be separate and debated. We owe that to the American people. We have 
this time to do it. I believe with all my heart we have more than 
enough time to do this. I am prepared, as some of my colleagues, to 
stay in session so we can give the American people the debate and 
transparent transition they deserve.
  We must learn from our past mistakes and we must not repeat them. I 
believe our country deserves this debate. Let me make it clear, I 
believe ISIS is a grave threat to the region and could become a direct 
threat to the United States. We must confront and defeat them. I just 
do not believe that arming the Syrian opposition forces is the correct 
approach, because I can foresee a Senate debate a few years from now--
not that far off--I can see this coming about how to defeat the next 
group of Islamist terrorists we helped to train and install.
  I have not come to this decision easily, and I know it comes with 
consequences, but I believe the people of West Virginia sent me to the 
Senate to make tough decisions and vote to do what is best for not only 
all West Virginians but for every American.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________