Jason Crow

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize September 27 as Gold Star Mother's and Family's Day. This day serves to honor the Gold Star Mothers and Families across Colorado and our Nation.

Since World War I, families have marked the loss of a loved one in the Armed Forces by displaying a service flag with a gold star in the window of their homes. In 1936, President Roosevelt signed legislation establishing Gold Star Mother's and Family's Day, observed on the last Sunday of September to honor mothers and families of our Nation's fallen service members.

Colorado has a long history of military service, and the mothers and families of our state's fallen service members have carried the loss with strength and grace. Many continue to support other military and veteran families in their communities, and keep the memory of their loved ones alive through this work.

I honor the Gold Star Mothers and Families of Colorado. as well as Gold Star Mothers and Families across our country, for their sacrifice and for the lasting impact of the loved ones they lost in service to our country.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Moulton for his leadership on this.

I want to highlight a different component to this. There is a debate around imminent threat. Very clearly, in my opinion and in the opinion of most folks, there is no imminent threat. In fact, the administration itself has stopped even trying to show that, which I think is a clear illustration that there never was one and there isn't one.

Beyond the debate on this floor, one of the things that gets lost, and the important thing that gets lost, is the people who actually get to make this decision are the American people. The genius of our system is that it is Americans who get to decide matters of war and peace, through the Representatives in this body.

For 25 years now, America has been in endless conflict. There have been threats that have come and threats that have gone. The answer can't be that whenever there is a threat, instantly it means we have to go to war. That is the logic on the other side: threat equals war. If a threat pops up, you go to war.

That can't possibly be the logic. If that is the case, then we will be at war forever. We will spend another $3 trillion in addition to the $3 trillion we have already spent. Regardless of the nature of the threat posed, the answer always will be to send our military. Americans know that is not tenable, in fact.

What is the accountability mechanism? The accountability mechanism is that Americans are in the driver seat because Americans are the ones that have to do the fighting, do the dying, and pay for this. It is not the elites and the pedigreed folks in this administration that are fighting and dying. They are banging the war drums and sending working- class kids like us to go do it.

Why are the Republicans so desperate to avoid even voting on this? Why have they literally canceled votes this year to avoid voting on this? Because they know that Americans don't want it. Republicans and Democrats alike don't want it.

President Trump himself used to know that. I don't know what happened, but he campaigned on this. He went around the country and said, let's stop the endless wars. Let's pull out. Let's focus back home. He was right about that. Then he became President and turned his back on the American people and on the very promise he made.

Let's have these votes. Let's let people know where we stand, then go home, stand in front of our constituents, and answer the tough questions. Why send your taxpayer money? Why send your sons and daughters to go do it?

That is why we are here.

Mr. Speaker, I join all Americans, my colleagues, and Chairman Mast in mourning those lost who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation, once again. I honor greatly the service of the chairman. We served in these wars together. He knows sacrifice. He, in fact, sacrificed and gave more than I did.

He also deeply understands the threats. He was right when he outlined those threats. Iran is a malignant regime. Iran does and has posed a threat to Americans, as has North Korea, Russia, and many other regimes, countries, and terrorists around the world. The important thing is not just to recognize the threat and say if there is a threat that we automatically have to go to war, because that is the start of the analysis, not the end of it.

The next questions and the important questions are what do we do about it. Do we go to war? Do we assemble a coalition? Do we use sanctions? Do we use soft power? How do we meet that threat? It is a fact that in the 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan we stopped asking that essential question and just assumed that war was the answer and would solve it. That is what led us to 20-plus years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of American lives lost for wars that ended poorly.

I am unwilling to not learn that lesson.

I want to be really clear about Iran, in particular. There was no intelligence showing that Iran was proceeding with the development of a nuclear weapon. If there was intelligence, we would be having a different discussion here. There wasn't, and that fact matters.

That leads us to the second part of it: What do we do? How do we meet this threat that has been posed for 40-plus years? What is clear is that Americans are done with an endless cycle of conflict in the Middle East.

When I was in Afghanistan, our adversaries, the enemies that we fought, would often say: Americans have all the clocks, but we have all the time. They simply want to wait us out knowing that we will just spend more money, have more combat deployments, that we will just continue to do it year after year until we wear out.

When I am facing my constituents who are losing their homes, losing their farms, and losing their healthcare, who can't answer the simple question of how this is making them safer or how this is improving their life, I can't answer that. I am unwilling to perpetuate yet another quagmire and endless cycle of conflict.

It is time for us to restart the accountability loop here in Congress. All these rules, all the authorizations that we debate, why it matters is because this Congress, this body, has the duty to take a vote, to have this debate, and

then go home and stand in front of those constituents who are losing their homes, losing their farms, and losing their healthcare, and say why we should or shouldn't do it. That is what this is about.

Mr. Speaker, I implore my colleagues to learn this lesson from the last 20-plus years and end this endless cycle of conflict. Let's bring our folks home. Let's focus on healthcare, housing, and meeting the needs of our constituents and serving our military families in the way that they need to be served.