[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 67 (Tuesday, April 25, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5637-S5638]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     CONCLUSION OF MORNING BUSINESS

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, morning business is 
closed.
  Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I appreciate your recognition. I would 
like to use my leader time to make a statement on the pending 
resolution prior to the time to take our vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, 7 days ago, a brutal attack on a Federal 
office building in Oklahoma City left over 80 people dead, more than 
400 injured, and a city and Nation shaken to its core.
  On Sunday, the Nation observed a day of mourning. All Americans 
joined President Clinton, the families of victims, and the people of 
Oklahoma City in thought and prayer at the memorial service. With them, 
we thanked and honored the brave men and women who have aided in the 
rescue efforts at the bomb site. It was an added tragedy to learn 
Sunday that one of the rescuers, a nurse, lost her own life in the 
course of helping others.
  The swift and efficient work of FBI and other Federal law enforcement 
in apprehending suspects reinforces the well-earned reputation of those 
agencies. Terrorists must know that no matter who they are, domestic or 
foreign, there is no place to hide from the reach of our law. President 
Clinton has made clear that those who committed this act will be 
pursued, found, convicted, and punished to the full extent of the law. 
He has the support of every law-biding American in that determination.
  An act of terror--the intentional murder of innocent men, women, and 
small children--shattered the sense of security that Americans have 
enjoyed in an increasingly violent world. Our world has made us all 
vulnerable to the deranged and to the enraged. No one's security can be 
guaranteed against people determined to attack, to kill, to pursue 
their mad plans, Security cannot be guaranteed against those who have 
no concern for human life.
  But that does not mean we are doomed to give in to the forces of 
insanity or mad rage. The human world has always been one of risks and 
dangers. Throughout human history, violence has erupted in wars and 
between individuals; human beings have been at risk from the forces of 
nature, from disease and accident.
  Today's violence and terrorism come into our homes through television 
images. They have an impact that written reports of battles and 
tornadoes could never have.
  No sooner had Wednesday's bombing been reported than scores of faked 
bomb threats began to be received from coast to coast. Federal 
buildings in Kansas City; Miami; Portland, OR; Dayton and Steubenville, 
OH; Casper, WY, and Boise, ID, were closed. In Omaha, the Zorinsky 
Federal Building was closed, and its day center emptied, by a bomb 
threat.
  Television and wire service stories reported all these threats and 
others. No wonder Americans all over the country immediately felt at 
risk. The immediacy of live television, the awful images of wounded, 
bleeding, shaking people staggering out of the Federal building in 
Oklahoma City made every American watching a participant in this 
hideous tragedy. No one who saw the small children covered with blood, 
dazed and bewildered, will ever forget their eyes.
  The deaths and injuries, have brutalized families all across America. 
A young woman from Spearfish, SD, serving in the Air Force, is among 
the missing. Married just 4 days before the bombing, she left her duty 
station at Tinker Air Force Base on Wednesday morning to go to the 
Social Security office in the Federal building in Oklahoma City to 
register her married name, and she has not been found. Her father, 
David Koch of Rapid City, her high school classmates from the 1993 
graduating class at Spearfish High, and all who knew her have been 
devastated by this terrorist attack. That is true for literally 
hundreds of families and people nationwide.
  The immediacy of television brings us closer together as a Nation 
mourning national tragedies, but it also makes each of us feel less 
safe, less secure in our daily lives.
  We should not let ourselves forget that outbreaks of insane violence 
have occurred before. In 1927, for instance, a Michigan farmer unable 
to pay his property taxes bombed a school full of children, killing 
more than 40, because he blamed the construction of the school for his 
high property taxes.
  Incidents like that were not as frequent in a smaller, younger 
nation. But they did not occur and despite the fact that they occurred, 
Americans in every generation remained true to the constitutional 
structure of Government that has given us the world's most free 
society.
  We need to remember this fact, as my colleagues from Oklahoma said so 
eloquently this morning, of our history in the face of the Oklahoma 
City tragedy. This act of terrorism will have achieved a purpose if it 
robs Americans of their sense of security. It will have achieved a 
purpose if it leads us to respond irrationally. It will have achieved a 
purpose if public discourse turns to invective.
  The deaths and injuries caused by the bombing of the Federal building 
must not be allowed to rip apart the fabric of our society.
  The resolution the Senate is about to pass expresses the outrage and 
sadness of the Senate and the American people with respect to the 
bombing in Oklahoma City. It commends all those involved in the rescue 
efforts and the investigation. It offers our sincere condolences to all 
those who lost family members and friends in, and all those who were 
injured by, the bombing.
  I want to clarify one point with respect to the resolution. It states 
correctly that the law authorizes the death penalty for terrorist 
murderers. Although the death penalty is not a sentencing option for 
those convicted of
 the World Trade Center bombing, the 1994 crime bill, which was enacted 
after the World Trade Center bombing, does provide for the death 
penalty in cases such as the bombing of the Federal building in 
Oklahoma City.

  The resolution also expresses support for the President's and the 
Attorney General's statements that Federal prosecutors will seek the 
maximum punishment allowed by law for those convicted of the bombing. 
While some Senators support the death penalty for certain crimes and 
others oppose the death penalty as a matter of principle, there is a 
strong belief among all Senators that the apprehension, prosecution, 
and punishment of those who commit heinous crimes such as this one 
should be pursued as aggressively as possible. That belief is reflected 
in the strong support for this resolution.
  Of course, words can never express the depth of our emotions at a 
time like this. Furthermore, our national response must be 
multifaceted.
  We have to relearn the hard fact that our technologically advanced 
society has created new ways to make us vulnerable. And it will never 
be possible to develop enough technological security to make us 
invulnerable. Metal detectors and x-ray machines, and electronic ID 
cards all have their place in necessary security actions. But the 
bombing in Oklahoma City proves that you need not even enter a building 
to blow it up.
  At the same time, we must become more vigilant and more aware. The 
number of bombing incidents in the United States has gone up more than 
fourfold in the last decade. In 1983, the FBI reported 683 bombing 
incidents. In 1993, the last year for which complete figures are 
available, the FBI reported 2,980 bombing incidents.
  Few Americans realize this, but in an increasingly violent and 
fragmented world, we cannot afford to be complacent. There are some 
steps we can take to respond more forcefully and pro-actively to the 
threat of terrorism, whether it is home-grown or comes from abroad.
  [[Page S5638]] We must do more and focus more attention on the 
intelligence resources that may help detect potential terrorist attacks 
before they can be consummated. We should take up and pass President 
Clinton's anti-terrorism proposals. We should determine what additional 
tools the FBI and other law enforcement agencies may need to carry out 
their missions.
  We should examine proposals for improved visa tracking of overseas 
visitors to the United States, so that those who overstay their visa 
time cannot simply vanish into society without a trace. We should take 
steps to alter our asylum procedures, so that those legitimately 
seeking political refuge can be admitted, while those using asylum 
backlogs as a pretext are not allowed to stay indefinitely, but let us 
remember, as well, that this tragedy was not the work of overseas 
terrorists, but of Americans, people who enjoyed the great freedom our 
Nation offers.
  We have become accustomed to seeing terrorist attacks in other parts 
of the world--Bosnia, the Middle
 East, Europe, and Latin America. Americans have seen hundreds of 
smoke-stained people streaming out of the World Trade Center Buildings 
in New York City. In response, we have been quick to explain that the 
causes are nationalism, or religious fanaticism, or some other belief 
system with which Americans have nothing in common.

  Americans have always been quick to seek reasons to explain what 
happens in the world around them. But there are events so monstrous, so 
evil, that they cannot be explained away. No human reasons can account 
for the minds that could conceive, or the hands that could carry out, 
this deed.
  Nevertheless, it is natural and healthy for each of us to question 
and try to understand how this could have happened, and to think--
beyond laws--about what we as a society might do to reverse the trends 
of violence and intolerance in America.
  It is imperative that we find ways for Americans from diverse 
backgrounds with sometimes very divergent points of view to live 
harmoniously.
  The first step toward that goal is for us to talk to each other. We 
must find better ways to do that. We must restore civility to private, 
and especially public, discourse. We should not permit our political or 
racial or ethnic or other differences to blind us to each other's 
truths.
  If we listen to one another, we are likely to find our differences 
are not as great as some of the intemperate rhetoric makes them appear. 
We are likely to remember that what divides us is much less important 
than what unites us as a nation. We will never eliminate all our 
differences, but we will learn that we can live with them.
  Each of us--as parents, neighbors, teachers, elected officials, 
candidates for office, journalists--has an affirmative responsibility 
to promote that kind of environment.
  The bombing in Oklahoma City is the result of evil, misguided people. 
We do not yet know what their motivation was; we can only speculate. 
But we can ask ourselves if our increasingly hateful public discourse 
is falling on ears receptive to hate, if it is providing a context for 
hands ready to undertake hateful acts.
  No one believes that the actions of any man are the fault of the 
speech of anther, but people are inspired and uplifted by words and 
ideas. We saw that at the memorial service in Oklahoma City. Words and 
ideas can and do inspire and uplift. But they can mislead and delude. 
All of us who speak and act in the public arena have an obligation to 
bear that in mind, for every time we speak, in effect, we are making a 
choice about what kind of environment we promote. The privilege of 
serving our community carries with it the obligation not to damage that 
community.
  Americans now can and must do what earlier generations of Americans 
have done. We must mourn with the families of victims and pray for all 
the shattered lives and hopes. We must identify changes in the law that 
have the promise of making us safer. And we must continue to live our 
lives, saddened by the enormous loss, but rededicated to the social 
contract that binds us together and allows all of us from different 
backgrounds, with different ideas, to live together in peace.


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