SYRIA; Congressional Record Vol. 159, No. 86

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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 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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