[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15262-15263]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  ISIS

  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the dangerous 
and brutal extremist organization called ISIS, the terrorist army, 
which in recent months has overrun vast swaths of Iraq and Syria and is 
a serious threat to the stability of the region, and, in fact, to the 
international community.
  But before I do that, I also want to say that ISIS is not the only 
major problem facing our country. It would be a real tragedy if, in our 
legitimate concerns about the dangers of ISIS, we continue to ignore 
the very serious problems that are taking place right here in the 
United States of America and impacting tens of millions of working 
families.
  There are crises here at home we have ignored for too long. Real 
unemployment today is 12 percent, youth unemployment is 20 percent. We 
can't ignore it. The minimum wage nationally is at a starvation wage of 
$7.25 an hour. We cannot ignore that reality. We have to raise the 
minimum wage.
  Women earn 77 cents to the dollar that men earn. That is unfair. We 
cannot ignore the issue of pay equity. We have to address that issue.
  Senator Boxer was just on the floor talking about the planetary 
crisis of global warming and the fact that virtually the entire 
scientific community is united in telling us that global warming is 
real. It is significantly caused by human activity. It is also causing 
devastating problems in our country and around the world. We cannot 
continue to ignore the crisis of global warming.
  Last week many of us voted to overturn the disastrous Citizens United 
Supreme Court decision that allows billionaires the ability to spend 
unlimited sums of money to buy elections which will benefit candidates 
who support the rich and the powerful. My point is that while we 
address the very serious problems in the Middle East--and these are 
very serious problems--we cannot take our eye off the very serious 
problems facing tens of millions of Americans.
  The issue involving ISIS, in my view, is enormously complex. Just one 
example is Syria. The Assad government is a dictatorship which has 
killed many thousands of its own people and has even used, we believe, 
chemical weapons against its own citizens--and these are the good guys. 
The decisions we make now in Syria, in Iraq, and in the Middle East 
must be made with great thoughtfulness.
  As you know, President Obama has been attacked time and time again 
because he publicly stated a while ago that ``we don't have a strategy 
yet'' for dealing with ISIS. Frankly, I applaud the President for 
trying to think through this incredibly complicated issue and not 
making rash decisions which would make a very bad and dangerous 
situation even worse and more dangerous.
  I remember back in 2002--I was in the House of Representatives then--
when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney said they did have a strategy. They 
were tough, they were forceful, they acted boldly, they acted swiftly, 
but, unfortunately, what they did was dead wrong. In fact, it was the 
worst foreign policy blunder in the recent history of America and 
opened up a can of worms we are trying to deal with today.
  Frankly, I must say I am not impressed with all of the tough talk. I 
want smart policy that will work and that will, in fact, lead to the 
destruction of ISIS, not sound bites that may be effective in a 
political campaign.
  I will take a few moments to lay out some of my concerns. First, 
President Obama is absolutely right when he said this struggle will not 
be successful unless there is a strong international coalition. Let's 
be clear: ISIS is a terrorist threat not only to the United States but 
to Britain, France, Germany, countries throughout Europe, and, in fact, 
to nations throughout the world.
  More importantly, ISIS, which wants to establish a new caliphate, 
which includes many countries across a large geographical area, is a 
major threat in the region to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, 
Turkey, Qatar, Iran, Jordan, and other countries.
  I very much appreciate the hard work that President Obama and 
Secretary of State Kerry have undertaken in trying to put together an 
international coalition that will effectively fight ISIS. We all know 
how difficult that effort is, but at this point it appears to me the 
kind of coalition we need has yet to come together.
  In my view, ISIS will never be defeated unless the countries in the 
region--the people in the region, the Muslim world, including Sunni and 
Shiite nations--stand up to this threat.
  I know how hard President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are 
trying, but we are nowhere near where we need to be in terms of 
building this coalition at this moment.
  It may surprise many people to know that Saudi Arabia--a country run 
by an autocratic royal family worth hundreds of billions of dollars and 
one of the wealthiest families in the world--is a country which was the 
world's fourth largest defense spender in 2014. Most people don't know 
that. According to a Reuters article from earlier this year--and I 
quote--``Saudi Arabia beat Britain to become the world's fourth largest 
defense spender in 2013.'' In other words, Saudi Arabia is now spending 
more money on arms and the military than is the United Kingdom.
  The article goes on to cite a report by London's International 
Institute for Strategic Studies which estimated Saudi Arabia was 
spending over $59 billion, a figure researchers said was extremely 
conservative, pushing it above Britain at $57 billion or France at $52 
billion. Once again, Saudi Arabia is spending more on their military 
than is Britain or France.
  Another article from Bloomberg provides additional details on Saudi 
Arabia's military strength. It cites that ``in 2011, the U.S. 
Government signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia valued at $29 
billion.'' That is the end of the quote from Bloomberg. But according 
to Military Balance, ``The Royal Saudi Air Force has more than 300 
combat capable aircraft, including 81 F-15 C and D fighter aircraft, 
172 advanced F-15 S Typhoon and Tornado fighters capable of ground 
attack, dozens of C-130 transport aircrafts.'' This is what the Saudi 
Arabian Air Force has.
  Let me also quote from an article in Forbes which details the 
strength and numbers of many of the militaries in the Mideast. The 
article notes:

       Countries in the region have more than enough power to 
     destroy the Islamic State. Turkey has an army of 400,000. 
     Iran has nearly as many in the army and paramilitaries. Iraq 
     has a nominal army of nearly 200,000 and some 300,000 police. 
     Saudi Arabia has nearly 200,000 army, national guard, and 
     paramilitary personnel. Syria's military, though degraded by 
     war, numbers some 110,000, plus paramilitaries. Jordan has 
     74,000 in the army. The Kurdish Peshmerga numbers in the tens 
     of thousands. All of these but Iraq and Kurdistan have some 
     air force ground attack capabilities.

  Furthermore, not only are countries in the region not stepping up in 
the fight against ISIS but, believe it or not, several of these gulf 
states are empowering ISIS and Al Qaeda-related groups through their 
financial contributions. A recent article in the Washington Post noted:

       Kuwait, a U.S. ally whose aid to besieged Syrian civilians 
     has been surpassed only by the United States this year, is 
     also the leading source of funding for al-Qaeda-linked 
     terrorists fighting in Syria's civil war.

  Now, think back not so long ago when the United States of America 
went to war to push Saddam Hussein's troops out of Kuwait and restore 
the royal ruling family. Today we find that ``Kuwait is the leading 
source of funding for al Qaeda-linked terrorists fighting in Syria's 
civil war.''
  The article goes on to state:


[[Page 15263]]

       . . . the amount of money that has flowed from Kuwaiti 
     individuals and through organized charities to Syrian rebel 
     groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra totals in the hundreds of 
     millions of dollars.

  Kuwait is hardly alone in this effort. As Treasury Department Under 
Secretary Cohen stated:

       A number of fundraisers operating in more permissive 
     jurisdictions--particularly in Kuwait and Qatar--are 
     soliciting donations to fund extremist insurgents, not to 
     meet legitimate humanitarian needs.

  On and on it goes.
  Why is all of this of enormous consequence? The answer is pretty 
obvious. The worst action we can take now is to allow ISIS to portray 
this struggle as East versus West and Muslim versus Christians, as the 
Middle East versus America. That is exactly what they want and that is 
exactly what we should not be giving them. In other words, this is not 
just a question of whether young men and women in Vermont or in North 
Dakota or in any other State of this country should be putting their 
lives on the line to defend the billionaire families of Saudi Arabia 
when Saudi Arabian troops are not in the struggle. This is not just 
whether the taxpayers of our country and not the billionaire ruling 
families of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and other countries should be 
paying for this war; more importantly, it is an understanding that at 
the end of the day, this war will never be won by the United States 
alone but it must be won by the people in the region.
  Should we, as the most powerful military in the world, be of help to 
those people struggling against ISIS? The answer is obviously yes. 
Along with the international community, we should be strongly 
supportive of those countries in the region that are standing up to 
ISIS. And I personally believe President Obama is absolutely right in 
his efforts to judiciously use airstrikes which, at this point, have 
shown some success. But at the end of the day, in my view, the United 
States of America cannot and should not lead this effort. We must be 
supportive of other countries in the region who are standing and 
fighting against the ISIS terrorist organization, but this fight will 
have to be fought by countries in the region that are, in fact, most 
threatened by ISIS. They cannot stand aside. They cannot say: Hey, go 
for it, United States. Thank you, American taxpayers. But we in Saudi 
Arabia--no, we don't want our young people involved in this war. We 
don't want our airplanes involved in the attacks. We don't want our 
billions to go into this war. Thank you, America. It is really nice of 
you to do that. By the way, while you do that, we may play both sides 
of the issue and some families may actually fund terrorist 
organizations. But we really do appreciate your stepping to the plate 
because we are not doing that.
  So that is where we are today. It is a very complicated, difficult 
situation. Again, I applaud President Obama and Secretary Kerry for 
trying to work through this. But this is what I worry about: I worry 
very much that supporting questionable groups in Syria--so-called 
moderates who are outnumbered and outgunned by both ISIS and the Assad 
government--I worry very much that getting involved in that area could 
open the door to the United States, once again, being involved in a 
quagmire, being involved in perpetual warfare. And what happens when 
the first American plane gets shot down or the first American soldier 
is captured? What happens then? I am hearing from some of our 
Republican colleagues who are already talking about the need for U.S. 
military boots on the ground. That is what they are talking about 
today, and that concerns me very, very much.
  So I am going to vote against this continuing resolution because I 
have very real concerns about the United States getting deeply involved 
in a war we should not be deeply involved in. At the end of the day, if 
this war against this horrendous organization called ISIS is going to 
be won, it will have to be Saudi Arabia, it will have to be Iraq, it 
will have to be the people of Syria, it will have to be the people of 
that region saying: No, we are not going to accept an organization of 
terrorists such as ISIS. And we should be there to help, as should the 
United Kingdom, as should Britain, as should France, as should Germany. 
This has to be an international coalition. But the last thing we need 
is the United States being the only major military power involved in 
this war.
  So I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of 
a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, what is the order before the Senate?

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