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M. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this Rule and in opposition to the amendment on Syria that will be offered later today.

If it was a bad idea before to get involved in Syria’s civil war, why is it now a good idea? Is it only because ISIL has expanded its operations over a fluid border into Iraq?  How long will we support the Syrian Free Army?  Who are these people? How much will it cost?  What happens if and when our weapons fall into the wrong hands? What are the countries in the region offering in terms of substantive solutions?  What is the clearly-defined mission?  How does this end?  Do we have answers to any of these questions as we prepare to vote? 

We’re talking about war, M. Speaker.  When you drop bombs on people, that’s war.  And we can talk all we want about so-called ‘boots on the ground,’ but unless some of our soldiers weren’t given shoes, we already have boots on the ground.  We need to be honest about that.

We have trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers for over a decade.  And for what?  To watch them shed their uniforms and to turn their weapons over to ISIL?  Is that what we’re doing here again, M. Speaker?

If the real purpose of U.S. military operations in Syria is to bring the killers of the two American journalists to justice, then perhaps good intelligence and a well-prepared special forces operation could do so.  Just like we hunted down Osama bin Laden.

And I want to be perfectly clear on one other point.  Any amendment to provide Title 10 authority to train and equip Syrian opposition forces must not be seen – in any way – as an authorization for U.S. Armed Forces to engage in hostilities in Iraq or Syria.  It must not be seen as a substitute for specific congressional action.

Authorization to carry out sustained military operations is not something that should be stuck into a conference report.  There should be nothing “back door” about it.  That would be an insult to our uniformed men and women, an insult to their families, an insult to this House, and an insult to the American People.

On July 25th, this House voted 370-to-40 -- 370 to 40 – in favor of my resolution to require specific Congressional authorization for “sustained combat” operations by U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq. 

Yet since August 8^th, the U.S. Navy and Air Force have flown more than 2,700 missions against the Islamic State in Iraq, including 156 airstrikes.  These airstrikes have occurred almost daily over the past 6 weeks.  Last week the President announced that those operations will escalate and likely expand into Syria.   This morning they expanded to targets near Baghdad.  If that doesn’t qualify as “sustained combat,” Mr. Speaker, I don’t know what does.

So if this House is serious about what it said in July, then we should demand a vote on congressional authorization for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria. 

Anything less would constitute yet another failure on the part of this House to carry out its Constitutional duties.  Anything less would make a mockery of the vote this House took in July.

But if this Leadership gets its way, we will leave Washington for nearly two months without such a vote.  And I expect – we all expect – that during that time U.S. combat operations in Iraq and Syria will expand and escalate.  

I know this vote is hard.  I know it’s politically difficult.  But we were not elected to duck the hard votes.  We weren’t elected to avoid difficult choices.   I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ‘No’ on this rule and on the amendment.