[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 71 (Thursday, April 27, 2023)] [House] [Pages H2056-H2069] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-27
Chamber: HOUSE
Mr. GAETZ: we must continue to bring to this floor areas in the world where U.S. troops are present where there is no clear end game, where there is not an end state that is clearly achievable. What our generation has learned as a consequence of observing the great patriotism expressed by many of my colleagues who participated in this debate today is that we don't have the ability to beat an ideology out of anyone. We don't have the ability to go into these places that oftentimes have been riddled with bloodshed and violence and somehow convince them that a democracy or a parliamentary system is more beneficial than the greed that has been driving them for far too long. That is the story of the Middle East. That is the story of North Africa. If my constituents have to go to Somalia and Syria, then I think everyone here should have to vote one way or the other, and I don't expect to win that vote, but I was expecting probably during this discussion to maybe hear a little bit more about what it is that we expect these people to do in Somalia to ultimately get them out. What we have heard is some version of the argument that we have got to fight them over there so we don't fight them over here, even though all the evidence in the Record suggests that they don't have the capability to even strike us here, and that the harboring of terrorism that seems to justify the 2001 AUMF permission slip for American intervention in no way relates to the activities, capabilities, goals, ambitions of this particular group. What this group wants to do is they want to be able to overthrow the government in Somalia and orient greater Somalia under their sharia law, and they are losing in that fight. What we see online and what many of us have received in briefings in Congress is that when U.S. troops are present, that serves as a propaganda vehicle for a lot of these groups to be able to go out and recruit and add folks to their ranks, and that is certainly not what we want to see. If the African Union had a greater role, if the African Union stepped up and worked to fill that vacuum with greater credibility with particular partners and particular localized clans, then that might achieve this objective in the absence of the death, the danger, and the deployment that has had our military spread far too thin for far too long. Mr. Speaker, I heard in my colleague's opening that we have to reject the siren song of isolationism. I would observe that globalism is no lullaby. It is often soaked in blood and mired in civil war and violence, resulting in worse conditions than we found ourselves in. There are 17 million Somalis. I am rooting for them. I hope that when my life ends, Somalia isn't synonymous with famine and failed states and civil wars and coups. I really hope that. However, we must also exercise sufficient humility in this body to understand the capabilities of persuasion for a relatively small batch of American troops given the problem set. I return to the argument that I made earlier in this discussion. There is an opportunity cost to this in people. There are specific units that call my district home that are having to split between AFRICOM and INDOPACOM when the reality is whether or not our children are speaking Mandarin, our grandchildren are being dominated by the Chinese Communist Party is not going to be the result of who wins the battle of Mogadishu. It is going to be the result of who holds the high ground against our true pacing adversaries. Becoming the neighborhood block captain of Somalia is certainly not the behavior of a serious country engaged in various serious challenges against serious adversaries. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their indulgence. I certainly thank the leadership for permitting me such time, and I yield back the balance of my time.