ated. And I thank you very much and I yield back all the rest of my time.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Shelley, thank you.

Mr. Cardoza.

Mr. CARDOZA. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is an honor to be on this Subcommittee and to serve, and I associate myself with all the comments that have gone previously, particularly yours. I would just only add that it is like a bully in a schoolyard, that it is appropriate to expel them when they act up and this is exactly the right course of action to be taken.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Issa, do you have any opening remarks on the resolutions?

Mr. ISSA. Only that I will have some changes and amendments. I apologize I wasn't here for the unanimous consent.

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. And now the visionary who saw the Syria problem before so many saw it. Thank you, Eliot Engel, for being with us and please, I love to recognize you for your re

marks.

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Madam Chair, for the compliments. You have been my partner all the way through on this and I thank you for your vision and for your partnership in this. I want to also thank Mr. Ackerman, who has always played a very important role as the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee, and I want to thank Shelley Berkley for her very kind words.

Several years ago when we were putting together a bill in Congress called ILSA, the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, I inquired as to why Syria was not in that bill and was told that there were delicate negotiations between the House and the Senate and if I attempted to put in an amendment it would disrupt the bill, and I was told to put in my own bill.

So we sat down and drafted the bill known as the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. It was important that we include the Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act because Lebanon, for all intents and purposes, is an occupied and captive nation, the only Charter Member of the United Nations that is under occupation, and it has been a captive nation for more than two decades.

This resolution puts the Congress on record with the people of Lebanon as we witness their Cedar Revolution, very similar to the Orange Revolution that we saw in the Ukraine and very similar to the captive nations of Eastern Europe when they overthrew the yoke of oppression. It shows that people can rise up and make changes and if the United States Congress is solidly behind that, it does have impact and weight, and that is why it is important that we do this today.

I also want to point out that U.N. Resolution 1559 clearly calls and demands that Syria get out of Lebanon, and we did that resolution cosponsored in the United Nations Security Council with, of all countries, France. There is no difference of opinion between the United States and France in terms of the Syrian occupation of Leb

anon.

And we could go on and on. This is an important resolution, again, because it puts us totally on record as supporting the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and calling Lebanon a captive