[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12011]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     KILLING THE INNOCENTS IN SYRIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you a story. 
There was a little boy named Ali Daqneesh, age 10, and his little 
brother is Omran. That is the boy you see in the photo here that was 
shared across the Internet, worldwide, 2 weeks ago.
  Ali was a really good big brother. He loved to play outside, and he 
was still at that age when kids really get to dream big and imagine 
their future. I can only imagine the life that Ali looked forward to. 
Maybe he wanted to be a police officer; maybe he wanted to be a teacher 
or a doctor. I really can't say for certain because, tragically, his 
life was cut short by an airstrike.
  Ali's death is an all-too-common fate for many of Syria's men, women, 
and children. These are the people who have lost their chance at life 
from the brutality of Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin.
  Of the over 500,000 dead Syrians, more than 50,000 are Syrian 
children who have been killed since the evil dictator Bashar al-Assad 
turned against his own people in 2011. Yet, even as the world continues 
to be outraged over these atrocities and pictures of dazed and bloody 
Syrian children like Ali's brother Omran, Assad and Russia and their 
Iranian backers are still barrel-bombing and launching chemical weapons 
against civilian targets.
  On a daily basis, we hear that Syrian and Russian fighter planes have 
launched attacks on medical facilities and hospitals across the 
country. When these facilities are bombed, it is the children who 
suffer. In fact, the regime's belief is don't target, necessarily, 
military assets because, when you target innocent civilians, you 
inflict more collective pain on the population of Syria; and in Assad's 
estimation, that brings the war closer to an end.
  At the end of July, a maternity hospital in Idlib was bombed. A 
recent story in The New Yorker highlighted the horror that comes with 
these bombings. In Aleppo, newborns in incubators suffocated to death 
because a Syrian or Russian airstrike cut off power to a hospital. Who 
is doing this? And why?
  Bashar al-Assad continued the legacy of brutality against his people 
from his father--his father, who had one goal, and that was to keep 
power. Power is a crazy motivator for some people. The people of Syria, 
in 2011, decided they wanted some freedom, as is humanity's right, and 
they stood up and protested peacefully against Assad.
  What did Assad do? Did he respond by saying: Well, let's talk and 
maybe find a way to have an outlet for your interests or your concerns? 
No. Assad rolled the tanks. Assad said he would kill his opposition. 
And what ensued after that was the incubation of a group we know today 
as ISIS, the opening of a civil war in Syria that is now spreading all 
over the Middle East, a massive refugee crisis around the world.
  I hear some people in political conversations today express 
admiration for Vladimir Putin. They express admiration for Vladimir 
Putin's strength, as if oppressing and killing people is something to 
be proud of. That doesn't show strength. That shows weakness.
  Mr. Speaker, Vladimir Putin and Russia are tearing Europe apart. 
Vladimir Putin and Russia are delivering bombs on medical facilities 
and on children in Syria. They are no ally of ours. Sometimes the enemy 
of our enemy is still our enemy.
  Mr. Speaker, I hear people sometimes say that dictatorships work in 
the Middle East. Sometimes they say that this introduction of freedom 
has somehow been terrible for people who just aren't ready for it. I 
agree. The introduction of freedom to a society that is not used to it 
can sometimes be very messy, and sometimes in the course of looking 
back over 20 years of history we see the success. That happened in our 
own founding. We went through the Civil War. We went through a bloody 
Revolution. We went through a time where we kept an entire race in 
chains. But, Mr. Speaker, when people say that dictatorships work, no, 
they don't.
  This kid, I always wonder what is going through his mind. Probably 
not much because he was stunned at the bomb that landed on his house 
and killed his brother.

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