mr. engel: i rise in strong support of this resolution and yield myself such time as i macon susme the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. engel: thank you, mr. speaker. tomorrow, we'll welcome the president of ukraine to address the joint session of congress. it's fitting that the leader of the ukrainian people will speak in this chamber where over the centuries, our own democracy has grown and thrived. today, we know that freedom and democracy in ukraine are under threat and so with this resolution, we will send a clear signal to the president and people of ukraine that we stand by them. america stands with them. i visited ukraine a few months woog my friend, the chame of the -- chairman of the foreign affairs committee, congressman royce, and everywhere we went we heard the same thing, the people of ukraine do not want russian interference in their country. ukraine is an independent nation, it's not part of another country. and the people of ukraine have a right to make a d

mr. engel: i hope to correct this theme. syrian christians would rather live under assad than the opposition. this is mischaracterization, in my opinion, of the situation in syria. assad may profess to protect christians but in reality he buys his oil from isis. and isis will not be able to fund their operations without the assad regime. moderate opposition has publicly stated their acceptance and tolerance of -- intolerance of christians and the syrian christians have welcomed the u.s. call to defeat isis and defend their communities. again, we have no great choices here but the worst choice is to do nothing. i want to again thank congressman mckeon. chairman royce and i conduct the foreign affairs committee in a very bipartisan fashion. we pride ourselves in being one of the most bipartisan committees. foreign policy should be bipartisan. issues like this should be bipartisan. i think we can all be proud to be members of congress. this is being done in a bipartisan way. i certainly support this resolution. thank you. the s

let's go to mr. engel from new york. >> thank you. mr. chairman, secretary, there have been several falsehoods and misrepresentations of a modern opposition. in particularly the free syrian army. i'd like to clarify one point. the free syrian army is committed to fighting isil. i would like to request consent to place in the record a statement by the chief of staff of the supreme military command of the free syrian army in which he states that the free syrian army is committed to fighting isil. i want to just quickly read part of the statement. the chief of staff of the supreme military command, i request to remove them from syrian soil. the heroes of the free syrian army have sacrificed thousands of brave souls in the fight over the past year. we fully plan to continue this fight until baghdadys defeat and collaborate with islamic state and other terrorist groups that seek our extermination. we will be unable to finish off islamic state without acting to stop assad. we call upon the world community and the u.s. congress in particular to

lawmakers have come from the republicans - they have applauded the air tricks and new york congressman mr engelwho advocated strong action against i.s.i.l. i expect you would be pleased but has it gone far enough, sir? >> i'm pleased in that i think that this is something that needed to be done. i don't get ahead of myself. i know a lot of people that second-guess the president say this or that should have been done, that isn't being done - i think you have to start somewhere, and the decision was made by the congress and the president to arm and train the free syria army, and rebels, and i think that we weren't obviously going wait months and months until the training was done. i think that a decision was made to try to strike the targets now with i.s.i.l. and it was the right decision. >> with reference to the free syrian army, and arming and supporting moderate forces, it's a relatively small group that they are talking about, 5,000 of how many thousands in the 40,000 range that may be available to them. will that be enough to make a dips to contain the threat? >> i don't know. i think you h

mr. engel: i thank my friend from new jersey for yielding to me and i rise in strong opposition to this bill. my friend on the other side of the aisle says that this doesn't repeal the affordable health care act but in reality it does. this is the 53rd time. when i was a little boy, i went to p.s. 53 in the bronx and i feel we've now reached that level of 53 and no end in sight. i wish that both sides of the aisle could put our heads together and fix what we don't like. keep what we like, fix what we don't like. all the major bills that have ever been put into effect be it medicare, medicaid, the civil rights bill of the 1960's, alm these bills had to be tweaked because when you have an omnibus bill you don't know what its effect is going to be until you roll it out and see. and then you make changes. that happens with every major bill. the problem is that most of our friends on the other side of the aisle hated the law and never really wanted it to succeed. so if you don't want it to succeed a

. >> congressman engel, are you surprised? mr. boehner has been very critical of the president at every juncture. are you surprised there is not more push back from your friends on the republican side? >> well, i'm pleasantly surprised, i'm happily surprised, because i think the president made a very cogent case the other night when he spoke with the american people. yesterday was september 11th. and joe crowley and i both being new yorkers, we remember september 11, 2001. that came about because we dropped the ball in afghanistan when the russians were kicked out. we allowed al qaeda to make it a no man's land to train and plot attacks on the u.s. homeland. that's what isis will do if we leave them alone. they are grouping in iraq and syria. and if we don't disrupt them, there will be attacks on the u.s. homeland. i think it is certainly in the u.s. national interest to disrupt them and to defeat them. and i think it goes beyond politics. i think that's what the speaker is reflecting. >> congressman, let me give you the other sid

engel in turkey this morning. thank you very much. the u.s. ambassador to the united nations joins us now exclusively. madam ambassador, it's great to see you. >> it's great to be here. >> mr. times the president has said the tide of war is receding, at the general assembly last year, he said we are shifting away from a perpetual war footing. yesterday he said the only language understood by killers like isis is the language of force. are we heading back to a perpetual footing of war? >>. but what we are doing is engaging a campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy this monstrous group and to the extent that we have been at war with al qaeda over these many years, that is the kind of effort that you will see against them. >> are we at war against isis? >> we are at war against group of isil, yes. >> one thing missing from his speech yesterday, he did not wage criticize the president of syria as he has in the past. what is noticeable to me in the two days since airstrikes began pence syria, assad has remained silent. is that silence a tacit acknowledgement on both sides we are hoep helping assad? >> well, president obama has made clear on virtually every speech on the effo