[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Page 19575]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  PRESIDENTIAL STRATEGY TO DEFEAT ISIS

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, last night the President addressed the 
Nation. It was one of the few times during his Presidency that he 
addressed the Nation from the Oval Office, signifying that this was 
going to be an important address by the Commander in Chief. 
Unfortunately, what the President communicated was that little, if any, 
change will be made in the current administration's approach on 
terrorism following the attack on San Bernardino last week. The 
President's approach to eradicating this terrorist threat has only 
resulted in a tactical stalemate that has kept the morale of ISIS high 
and their recruitment efforts robust, as we have seen.
  In the wake of the shootings last week, an event the President 
himself called an act of terrorism, the American people deserve a 
credible and aggressive strategy to combat this terror threat that 
clearly poses a danger not just over there but over here. A good start 
would be for the President to listen to his own military leadership as 
well as members of the intelligence community. If the reports are 
true--and they certainly haven't been denied--the President has turned 
a deaf ear to his own military leadership and leaders of the 
intelligence community on how to fight and defeat the ISIS threat. 
Despite the President's rhetoric on his so-called strategy against 
ISIS, one thing is clear: It is not working. So our country clearly 
needs to change course, and that should start with a real plan and real 
candor from the Commander in Chief on how he intends to defend our 
interests abroad and at home to keep our people safe.
  While I was eager to hear what the President might say about the bad 
results from his current strategy, unfortunately, we didn't hear it 
last night. However, what we did hear was this recent theme from some 
of our colleagues across the aisle--as we voted on the repeal-ObamaCare 
set of votes last week--as well as from the President himself during 
his weekly address, the Democratic leader, and some other Members of 
the Senate, that what they are basically trying to do is to change the 
subject. You will recall that one way they tried to do that was by 
offering an amendment that said people on watch lists would be denied 
their core constitutional rights under the Bill of Rights, and in this 
case it happened to be the Second Amendment; that is, you are presumed 
to be guilty without the necessity of having to go to court and 
actually prove what you are claiming is true.
  I was struck by the fact that the New York Times, back in 2014, noted 
in an editorial entitled ``Terror Watch Lists Run Amok'' that ``A 2007 
audit found that more than half of the 71,000 names on the no-fly list 
were wrongly included.'' This is the New York Times making the case 
that basically I and others argued for, which is that there cannot be 
any presumption of guilt just because the government includes your name 
on a list, particularly when it comes to denying your core 
constitutional rights. If the Second Amendment isn't strong enough to 
withstand this so-called presumption, neither is the freedom to worship 
according to the dictates of your conscience, the First Amendment 
rights to free speech and freedom of association. You get my drift.
  Rather than address the real problem, which flowed from another 
speech the President gave a few years ago out of the Oval Office where 
he announced the precipitous withdrawal of our troops in Iraq that 
created the vacuum that is now being filled by ISIS and Al Qaeda--
rather than talk about the lessons learned and how a new and different 
strategy was going to be employed after consultation with our military 
leadership and members of the intelligence community, the President and 
his supporters decided to try to change the subject and produce a red 
herring that has nothing to do with the fight to degrade and defeat 
ISIS. Of course the threat is not only about people traveling from 
abroad to our country, it is about Americans here and other people on 
visas, perhaps from visa waiver countries, traveling from the Middle 
East to the United States. Perhaps the most dangerous of all is the 
radicalization of people already in the United States. If the 
preliminary indications prove to be true, that seems to be the thread 
that connects so many of these attacks, whether it is in San Bernardino 
or Garland, TX, a short time back, or MAJ Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood back 
in 2009.
  What we need and what the American people deserve from their 
Commander in Chief is candor and the willingness to show a little 
humility and say: You know what. The way we have been handling things 
really isn't working very well. Instead, the President tries to play 
partisan politics, and he tries to distract the American people by 
suggesting that our Constitution is too generous when it comes to the 
right to keep and bear arms.
  For the sake of all Americans, I hope the President reconsiders his 
flawed strategy and produces a more effective one to eradicate ISIS 
soon because the safety of the American people is clearly at stake.

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