[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. MILLS: I thank my distinguished colleague from Florida (Mr. Gaetz) for yielding. I also thank my colleagues, Mr. James and Mr. Zinke for their service. They, like myself, are combat veterans who understand the total cost of warfare. Mr. Speaker, before I get into my statement, I will address a couple of things that were mentioned by my colleagues here today. We talked about the idea that we are here to preserve freedoms and we are here to preserve democracy. Let's talk about our role in democracy. We went into Iraq in 2003 under the auspice that we were there for weapons of mass destruction and to liberate the people of Iraq. Only 2 years later did we supplement this with the 2005 Iraq Constitution, whereby article 76, in its own design, created sectarian democracy that gave rise to the Iranian control which ultimately gave rise to China's domination. We are not a nation-building element. We are warfighters. We are there to conduct counterterrorism operations when needed, but only at the expense that it is to the benefit of the American national security and U.S. interests. He talked about timely. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, we started our operations in Mogadishu in the early 1990s. We started the operations in Afghanistan in 2001, and we started the operations in Iraq in 2003. So by what definition do we determine is timely? The idea that my colleague--and rightfully so, and I agree with him-- Mr. James said about the repeal and replace piece of the AUMF, which I do view as an abdication of our roles and responsibilities as legislators under the Constitution in Article I, Clause 8, it does have a replacement, and I just stated it. It is called the United States Constitution war authorities. At no point in time can you find in the Constitution whereby it says we can repeal our rights as legislators under the Constitution to put in something which abdicates our roles and responsibilities for 20-plus years on an AUMF that was designed, and now being abused, by Presidents on the left and the right, who have been using it for its unintended purposes. While I agree with my colleague, Mr. Gaetz, that Afghanistan is completely not relevant to the discussion that was made, we are talking about an area whereby President Biden utilized political optics over military strategy, endangering the lives of our military, when we know that it was a conditions-based withdrawal. One thing was actually stated that is correct, which is the threat in which China possesses when it comes to the African Continent and that a vacuum could be created. Let's go ahead and focus on what China's ultimate goal is because it is not kinetics. It is not about the bomb- to-bomb, gun-to-gun, or bullet-to-bullet mechanism. It is about the economic and resource warfare impact. It is about the Belt and Road Initiative, which expands out the Eurasian border, takes over Africa, Oceania, cuts off the Western Hemisphere's supply chain in an effort to utilize the WHO, WEF, and OPEC to eliminate the U.S. dollar from the global currency. Let us address that issue. It is not one that is done by kinetics and warfighters, but by a whole-of-nation approach that deals with Treasury, that deals with the economic build-out, that deals with strengthening the industrial base at home, which stops the reliance on the very adversaries that we pay to slap us around every day. The idea that we are going to play this terrorist whack-a-mole where every time one pops, we send a new force, it does nothing to actually try and help with stabilization. Let's talk about our interactions.  We had a terrorist organization known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which was based in a small portion in the Gulf of Aden out in Yemen. It wasn't until our drone strikes that caused numerous civilian casualties did we not play right into the ideology that Americans are here to destroy us and kill us due to our religious beliefs. We were actually the reason that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula continued to grow. My colleague on the left--who I have a great deal of respect for and we sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee--Mr. Meeks, he talks about the fact that we have had no Americans killed in Somalia. That is absolutely false. In fact, we just had another soldier killed in 2018 as a result of an explosion that resulted in three more. Also in 2017, we had three more killed that were there. As someone who has had to go visit Arlington Cemetery on many occasions to see my brothers that are no longer here with me today, I don't think that we need to spare one more life of American bloodshed in an effort that we don't have a clear, strategic military objective to begin with. Mr. Speaker, I ask that we look at not being isolationists, as we are always called and considered, but also not interventionists. Our goal is to be protectionists; protection of our constitutional rights, our sovereignty, and the American people. That is our role. We keep talking about this 2001 AUMF that we are to repeal. Let's go through this. In 2019, the amendment to the 2020 NDAA to repeal the 2002 AUMF was stripped out in its final version. On November 14, 2018, the resolution introduced to assert Congress' war power authorities in Yemen, the Rules Committee stripped the resolution and its procedural privilege.  Soon after, the Rules Committee stripped privilege from all war power resolutions for the remainder of the 115th Congress. We keep talking about what we are going to do, but I have seen very little action. This is one of the reasons I ran for Congress because there are too many politicians who like to talk and not enough statesmen who are willing to act. I know a little thing about action, considering that between my military and government experience I spent over 7 years of my life in Iraq, almost 3 years of my life in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Pakistan, and guess what, northern Somalia and the Puntland areas of Hargeisa and Berbera. I can tell you very clearly that what we are doing right now in our procedures is not making us safer. We must start to look at a real change in order to protect America, stop abdicating our roles and responsibilities, and start leading from the front.