[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 74 (Monday, June 12, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H3779-H3785]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2005, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I am going to be joined by some of our
colleagues tonight as we begin our discussion in this great body, in
this great House talking about the war on terrorism and the global war
that we face.
Mr. Speaker, before I began that discussion with my colleagues, I
want to take just a few moments and address some of the statements that
the minority made during their hour that preceded this. They have
talked a lot about spending, and they have talked a good bit about
their dissatisfaction with spending.
One of the things that I would like to remind the Members of this
body and those that are watching this debate tonight is that much of
that spending takes place because of the bureaucracy that has been
built in this Congress over the past 50 years.
Now, you go back and you look at what transpired in the 1960s and the
way the bureaucracies grew, and the way programs grew. You see all
around here that this bureaucracy has been built as a monument to many
of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They have put their
energy into that. They have put that into growing this government here
in Washington. Many of them believe that the government here in
Washington knows better than the folks back home. I disagree with that.
I would encourage our colleagues to join with us as we work on waste,
fraud and abuse, as we work toward reducing the size of this
government. When we passed the Deficit Reduction Act that would have
made nearly 1 percent across the board cut, they chose not to cast a
vote in favor of that.
But they do enjoy coming and talking about how wonderful they feel it
would be to have a debt-free America and a balanced budget, and, yes,
that is something we would like to do, but we don't want that budget to
be balanced
[[Page H3780]]
by raising taxes. We want that budget to be balanced by reducing
spending. That is a big part of our focus as we continue to work.
Soon we are going to have a spring cleaning week where we are going
to talk about 150 of these different agencies that absolutely need to
go through a house cleaning. They need to reduce their size. They need
to get their priorities in order, and bureaucrats that are in these
buildings need to start responding to the citizens of this great
Nation. They should be held accountable, and we are going to press
forward on that issue.
One of my colleagues also made a comment about economic growth, and I
would invite our Members to look at the economic stats from 1995 and
the economic stats from 2005. If you compare those 2 years, what
happened in the economy in 1995 during the Clinton years and what has
happened in 2005 during the Bush years? What you are going to see is on
every single economic indicator, whether you are talking GDP,
unemployment rates, economic growth, homeownership, every single
indicator, the 2005 economy beats the 1995 economy on every single
point.
I would commend that to individuals that are watching tonight, to be
certain that they look at those facts, that they look at those
statistics and add those numbers.
It was also mentioned on the floor tonight what type of America do
you believe in? I always love it when I hear that type of comment. What
type of America do you believe in? I think the colleagues that join me
here tonight would join me in saying we believe in an America that is
strong. We believe in an America that is free. We believe in an America
that is compassionate and caring and wants the best, the very best, for
all of our citizens. We believe in an America where children can dream
big dreams, where they can grow up happy and free and educated and
watch those dreams become reality, where they can take hold of their
best efforts and say you know what, we are going to make this even
better.
We are going to make it better. We really believe in an America that
is focused on hope and not focused on fear. We believe in an America
that is strong on individual freedom that understands the importance of
freedom for being able to freely live, to freely think, to freely work.
We know that that requires that we have a secure homeland, and that is
why this majority has been focused on our security agenda, being
certain that we look at the moral security of this great Nation, the
retirement security, the economic security and, of course, the national
security of this wonderful free land that is a beacon of democracy to
every single nation on the face of the earth.
You know, when you talk about what kind of America you believe in, I
love it sometimes when we are visiting with our troops in war-torn
areas, and you meet somebody, and they walk up to you, and they say,
you are an American. You are an American? You are an American.
There is a certain awe that comes out of their mouth when they look
at us and they know we are what they would like to be. We have got
something they want. That is something that we have got that they want,
that other nations want, is freedom. It is the chance to do and to be
and to have your children do and be all that they would hope to be.
That is why the majority is going to take this entire week and we are
going to have a discussion with the American people. We are going to
bring forth our hopes. We are going to bring forth our thoughts of what
is happening in this war on terrorism. We are going to talk about the
progress we have made. We are also going to talk about the areas where
we want to improve.
Mr. Speaker, we are going to talk about the big picture. We are going
to hold a debate on the Republican and the Democrat approaches to
winning the war on terror. We are going to compare, and we are going to
contrast the different philosophies that each party has toward the war
on terrorism. Our military's elimination of al-Qaeda's top leader in
Iraq is an auspicious start to this debate. That success should make it
clear that winning takes patience, and it takes perseverance. But
things that are worth fighting for and things that are worth working
for are items that are worth waiting for because we don't live in a
world of instant gratification where everything is decided within 30
minutes. Some things take time to do them right.
History has taught us, history has taught us that it is important
that when we look at democracy, when we look at working with other
Nations that we get this right. It also takes excellent work by our
military and our intelligence folks, and God bless them all. God bless
them all.
I am especially grateful for our troops from Fort Campbell from the
101st who are in Iraq now and are certainly working diligently on this
effort. Many of our National Guardsmen are there, and they are working
as well.
{time} 2130
I am very grateful to them and to their families.
Last week, we got to see part of the big picture in the war on
terrorism more quickly with Zarqawi's death, with the destruction of a
major leader in the global terrorist network. The big picture is the
U.S. chasing these people down and eliminating them.
It is helping free nations, Mr. Speaker, free nations develop and
throw off the shackles of terrorism in the Middle East. This, Mr.
Speaker, will be our topic and our discussion for the week.
At this time, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr.
King) who is so focused on protecting this great Nation and our
Nation's security.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee
(Mrs. Blackburn) especially for organizing this evening.
Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to be here amongst my colleagues for
whom I have such respect and gratitude for the work that they do on a
daily basis to help lead this country in the right direction.
As the gentlewoman from Tennessee mentioned, we are going to talk
about the big picture in the global war on terror, and oftentimes we
lose sight of the big picture. One of the reasons is because we are
watching the news every night, and it seems as though they are setting
up television cameras or movie cameras in Iraq wherever the IEDs might
be planted, and they seem to be able to turn the cameras on seconds
before they detonate an IED and seconds before there is some kind of an
atrocity that takes place over there. That gives us a very narrow
picture of what is going on in Iraq, Mr. Speaker.
But the bigger picture over there is this, and that is that Iraq is a
battlefield in the global war on terror, and we began this 20 years ago
or so. It came home to roost when we all realized September 11, 2001,
that this was not just a sometime enemy, not just an enemy that
attacked the USS Cole or the U.S. embassies in Africa or did the
bombing on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, and the list of those kind
of terrorist attacks went on and on; but it came home to roost in a way
that Americans all understood on September 11, 2001.
The bigger picture of it is this that there is a culture out there
that believes that their path to salvation is in killing people who are
not like them, and I will contend that that organization that is out
there, al Qaeda, also remnants of the Taliban, those that are left, are
really a parasite; and it is radical Islam which is a parasite on the
religion of Islam. Islam itself as mainstream may well be a peaceful
religion, but the parasite that rides on them is not.
The definition of parasite, I would remind you, Mr. Speaker, and the
other listeners as well, it is a species that rides upon the host. The
host is Islam. The parasite is radical Islam, and that parasite species
rides on the host, feeds off the host and reproduces on the host,
sometimes attacks the host and drops off and attacks other species and
sometimes gets picked up back up again and rides on the host again and
starts the cycle all over. That is the case with ticks and mites, the
whole series of parasites that are there throughout all we know in the
animal kingdom, and that is the case also with radical Islam and the
overall religion of Islam.
We are faced with that kind of an enemy, and that enemy has killed a
lot of Christians. That enemy has killed a lot of Jews, but that enemy
has also killed more Muslims than anything else. It gives us a broader
picture, Mr. Speaker, of what this enemy is that we are up against.
[[Page H3781]]
But the question we needed to ask ourselves, probably well before
September 11, 2001, and certainly on that date and every date after
that, is how do we conduct a war against a global enemy that is
amorphous, an enemy that does not have uniforms or a territory, maybe
has a leader or group of leaders, an enemy that simply has an ideology
of hatred and terror that comes out and attacks people who are not like
them in order to destabilize and somehow gain their presumably greater
glory and somehow their salvation in the next life, which I think is
down below rather than up above?
Well, as I asked that question subsequent to September 11, 2001, I
had the privilege to be listening to an address by Benazir Bhutto, who
is the former Prime Minister of Pakistan. She served two different
periods of time there, mostly back in the 1990s. She gave an address
back in Storm Lake, Iowa, town of my birth, to Buena Vista University,
a small private university there, and a very excellent one, that tracks
outstanding speakers.
After her profound address, she and I sat down one-on-one, knee-to-
knee, so to speak, and this certainly was on my mind and it is on all
of our minds even today. I asked her how do we get to this point of
victory? How do we bring forth a war on these terrorists to the point
where we can declare victory? What is our objective going to be and how
shall we carry out this and conduct this war to reach this objective?
And she sat for a little while and she said, You have got to give
them a chance at freedom. You have got to give them a chance at
democracy. Today, the people in these countries do not have hope. They
do not have a way to vent their anger. They do not have a way to apply
their energy for change in a constructive fashion with any kind of hope
that they can make progress and make this world a better place for
themselves, their family, their children, and the subsequent
generations.
So, consequently, if we can provide that opportunity, then the
climate that breeds terror will turn into a climate that turns that
energy towards constructive ends, constructive ends where they would be
working to improve their families, their homes, their communities,
their country, their churches, their mosques, their synagogues,
whatever it might be.
As I listened to that, I asked her a series of questions about it for
clarification. I began to think as I drove home that evening this is a
pretty good formula to put Benazir Bhutto back in power in Pakistan,
but I am not convinced that it is a solution on how we could prosecute
and win a war on terror. Yet, I sat down and began to read more and
more about Islam, in particular the book, ``Radical Islam Visits
America'' by Daniel Pipes, and I read that through twice with a red ink
underliner and a highlighter to try to understand the culture, the
religion, the psychology.
I put that together with Natan Sharansky's book, ``In Defense of
Democracy.'' When Natan writes that all human beings have a certain
energy within them that they will use to try to effect a change, and
that they will use that energy if that change is to keep them alive or
if that change is to deal with the minutiae that may seem irrelevant to
people who will struggle just to stay alive.
Then, to understand, that we never go to war against another free
people. Free people do not go to war against free people. So if we put
that into the equation, there is an energy and a drive for change, by
Natan Sharansky. We never go to war against another free people. So to
the extent we can promote freedom and a form of democracy around the
world is also a formula for more peace and more safety for all
Americans and all free people.
We add that then to Daniel Pipes' understanding and to the idea to
promote freedom, and the President's doctrine which he gave out in his
second inaugural address, which now we know as the Bush Doctrine, and
that is, that all people yearn to breathe free, and it is the duty and
it is the obligation of all freedom-loving people to promote freedom
throughout the globe and throughout the ages.
Put that formula all together, and that is the formula for how to
move forward on this global war on terror and how to finally declare
victory.
So we began operations in Afghanistan a couple of months after
September 11 very successfully, and 25 million people that had never
before in that place on the globe gone to the polls to select their
leaders and to direct their national destiny went to the polls and
voted, and there were American troops in the field, especially our
troops that I noticed in the field, guarding those paths to the polls,
guarding those polling sites, and now you have 25 million people in
Afghanistan. Some would say, and there were many detractors over on
this side of the aisle, that said, oh, it is another Vietnam; you will
never be able to get through the Khyber Pass, no one's ever been able
to go into Afghanistan and come out of there having won a victory; that
country has always fought off all of its invaders.
Well, we did not invade them. We liberated them and the Afghani
people now breathe free and have selected their leaders, and the same
formula with the same advisers and the same advice was to go to Iraq
and do the same thing for the same number of people, 25 million people,
and the American soldiers did that and the marines did that and our
airmen and our sailors did that and liberated 25 million people.
They went to the polls three times, Mr. Speaker, in 2005 to select
their leaders, to ratify a constitution and to put a legitimate
government in place, and now they are a sovereign Arab nation in the
Middle East. This sovereign Arab nation has had a difficult struggle,
and the casualties have been by some measures high, not by measures of
previous wars, by measures of the contemporary media. It is tragic to
lose America's best in a struggle like this, but it is the highest
calling.
So, today, Iraqis breathe free, and we think that somehow, because
there is casualties there in the streets of Iraq, it is an intolerable
level in that civilization. I asked the question, how can they tolerate
living in a society with this high level of violence, this high level
of casualties?
So I went back and took a look at the level of casualties that were
there, and they need to be measured as a percentage of the overall
population. We do that, we do that statistically by measuring how many
people out of every 100,000 die a violent death. Well, that would be
murder in most societies; and in Iraq, the civilians would be the
measure, some are victims of IED bombings, some are victims of murder.
We added up those numbers. There are several Web pages that provide
that information. We took the most reasonable numbers that we could
find. It comes to this number: 27.51 Iraqis per 100,000 die a violent
death on an annual basis, 27.51.
Now, what does that mean, and to me it really does not mean a lot
until I compare it to places that I know where I have a feel for the
rhythm of this place. Well, I by now have a feel for the rhythm of this
place called Washington, D.C., and my wife lives here with me. I can
tell you, Mr. Speaker, she is in far greater risk being a civilian in
Washington, D.C., than an average civilian in Iraq.
Forty-five out of every 100,000 Washington, D.C., residents die a
violent death on an annual basis, 45. 27.51 in Iraq out of 100,000, 45
out of every 100,000 in Washington, D.C.
If you go to New Orleans, pre-Katrina, before Katrina, 53 per
100,000, almost twice as many violent fatalities in the city of the New
Orleans than there are in Iraq as an average civilian.
Now, we took out the military, took out the police because they are
involved in combat, but that gives you a measure, Mr. Speaker, of what
is it like in Iraq. The United States military has provided, first of
all, liberation for the Iraqis that were dying at an average rate of
182 a day at the hands of Saddam Hussein, collared him, put him on
trial, took out Zarqawi and gave them a safer, free society than the
society that they lived in.
Statistically, if you want to chart that for the duration of this
operation from the liberation of the Iraqis in March of 2003 until
today, there are over a 100,000 Iraqis alive today because the United
States and coalition forces went into Iraq and took on that calling to
promote freedom throughout the globe. Now, Iraq stands as near the end
of the military security solution of the operation in Iraq, at the
beginning of
[[Page H3782]]
the political solution in the operation of Iraq, where now they have a
sovereign Arab government, and they are on the cusp of the solution for
their economics. When they are able to start pumping oil out of that
ground and sending it around the world and cashing the checks, we will
see then this lode star of Iraqi being an inspiration for all the Arab
world. A free Arab world, a prosperous Arab nation, and inspiration for
all the Arab world.
I have to believe that as the Berlin Wall went down on November 9,
1989, and freedom echoed across Eastern Europe, hundreds of millions of
people breathe free today, I have to believe that same kind of
contagious desire for freedom will take place in the Middle East among
the Arab people.
That is the big picture, Mr. Speaker. That is the vision of our
President. That is the sacrifice of our military. That is the
commitment of this Congress, and that is where we are headed. I believe
and I pray that we will arrive there one day soon, and I expect to be
around to celebrate that joyous day. I will stand here with our
military every day until that is accomplished.
Thank you to the gentlewoman from Tennessee. I appreciate this
privilege to address this Chamber and the Speaker.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa, and I
am so appreciative that he mentioned that this is not a sometime enemy
that we are dealing with. This is an enemy, as he said, that is
amorphous. They are located everywhere. Terrorist cells are around the
globe, but it is an enemy with an agenda. Their agenda is to end
freedom as we know it, and they work at it 24/7. They are an enemy to
freedom, and we do know that the Iraqi people are grasping at their
chance for freedom.
You know, Mr. Speaker, I think it is really quite important to note
that a development that got swamped by the Zarqawi news, but a
development that I certainly believe is very critical to our long-term
security goals, was that the Iraqi Government's confirmation of its top
three security chiefs was last week. You had Sunnis and Shiites
standing together as the security chiefs for this nation.
What an enormous step in the right direction, and we have now had
tremendously successful elections in Iraq. We have a unified
government. We now have 275,000 Iraqi security forces that are in
place.
{time} 2145
So we do know that we are seeing progress in the right direction.
There are no guarantees, but it is steps in the right direction.
At this time, I want to yield to the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Carter, who has Fort Hood in his district. Judge Carter has worked so
diligently with our men and women in uniform, and I thank him for
coming to talk a little bit about the big picture, about the global war
on terror, and why it is imperative that we persevere. And I yield to
the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee. She is a real
asset to this Congress, and I am just proud to be able to be with her
tonight to talk about the war on terror.
I live in a district where on any given day we have between 15,000
and 20,000 American heroes standing on that wall protecting freedom in
the United States, in harm's way, giving their lives and limbs and time
so that we can sit here in this House and so that our children and our
wives and our loved ones can walk the streets of the United States
free.
You know, this war on terror is a war on a cancerous idea that is,
when you really think about it, is really one of the most horrible,
horrible things there is; that there is a group of people that are
fighting a war not against military soldiers as proud warriors marching
off to war. No. In fact, they do not want to even see an American
soldier anywhere near them, if they can help it. They want to terrorize
society. And that terrorism, in their way of thinking, starts with
civilians, not military.
We got a real good dose of that on 9/11, a dose that I do not know
how the American people can ever get it out of their minds. When we
were attacked at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, they attacked our
military installations at Pearl Harbor. But when we were attacked on 9/
11, a building full of business folks was attacked. This was not an
attack on a military target, this was an attack on a civilian target,
and its sole purpose was to kill American citizens.
We need to thank the Lord that their timing was slightly off and that
the building was not completely full. If it had been, instead of
numbering in the thousands we might have been numbering in the hundreds
of thousands of people in those two buildings that might have died. But
that was their purpose. Their purpose was to change how we live by
hitting us where we live. I just can't think of anything more horrible.
You know, I was in the judge business for a while, as were several
people in this room here today, and we know from experience that
there's a lot of evil out there in the world, and we spent our time
trying to deal with that evil. And I think, from what I know of my
colleagues here in the House, we did a pretty good job of fighting
evil. One of the things we did to curtail evil was we put them away,
and we put them down so that the price of being evil was a high price
in the places where we lived. And we are proud of that.
I think the American soldier knows that the hard part of fighting the
war on terror, on fighting people who are really not out to fight them
but are out to fight their children and their wives and their moms and
dads back home, and moms and dads and children of people in Iraq and
Afghanistan and many other countries in this world, the Philippines,
Indonesia, and the list goes on and on and on, they are always
attacking the innocent trying to live their lives.
But what is their theory behind this? I have thought about this. And
I want to say that Mr. King gives some great insight into some of the
things he has read, and I was fascinated by some of the things he had
to say. But I think about this, and what they are really trying to do
is to change the way we live until we just really cannot tolerate
living that way any longer and we are willing to compromise and give in
to what they view as a world view, until their radical Islam dominates
the world.
They want our school children in Texas, or our school children in
Tennessee, or our school children in Iowa to get up in the morning,
every morning, and be afraid to stand at the bus stop, be afraid to
ride on the school bus, be afraid to go to their school for fear that
somebody might blow it up, somebody might shoot at the bus, somebody
might hijack them or kidnap nap them. That is the world they are
developing right now that we are tearing apart right now in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
This is not easy work for our soldiers. Our soldiers are out there in
a special role that soldiers have never been in. Soldiers are trained
to fight soldiers. Soldiers are trained to go onto a battlefield and
fight a battle. And sometimes it is an unconventional battle, and we
are trained to fight unconventional battles. Our soldiers are not
policemen, although some are trained as policemen. Our soldiers
shouldn't be policemen, but today the American Marine on patrol in Iraq
or Afghanistan has a special mission, and that mission is to make sure
that the safety of that population is as safe as the safety he wants
for his population back home.
And he cares about those people. He cares about those kids. A great
story I heard when I was back in Iraq was about a soldier walking down
the street and a little girl comes running out and hands him one rose.
A beautiful rose. He later gave it to a lady at the hospital who told
me the story. She explained, and somebody was able to speak the
language and tell this to the soldier, that that was the only thing
living left in their garden. But she knew he deserved to have that rose
because he was keeping her garden safe. This was a little 10-year-old
girl.
Now, I'm sure that soldier will go for the rest of his life with the
memory of that little girl. And I know sometimes they have to be
standing out there in 115 degree heat with all that armor on and
saying, man, this is a tough job. But that is the kind of thing that
tells us what we are fighting for. We are fighting to protect innocent
human
[[Page H3783]]
beings. Not warriors, but to protect innocent human beings from being
terrorized until they surrender their freedom and their will to
terrorism.
That is what terrorists want. That is what they do. They just attack
the innocent until the innocent throw up their hands and say, whatever
you want, you can have it.
And we have examples of how they have done that. Look at Lebanon.
Look at the other places around the world where the terrorists have
just run rampant through the streets until Lebanon, which used to be
called the Riviera of the Middle East, is now an example of destruction
when people use the term Lebanon.
So why are our American soldiers doing this? They are doing their
duty with pride and with conviction. And I will tell my friends on the
other side of the aisle who seem to have this cut-and-run mentality, I
want them to think about the times, and I know they have visited Iraq
and they have to have talked to the same soldiers that I have talked
to, but the soldiers that I talked to are proud of what they are doing
in Iraq. They are confident that they are succeeding in what they are
doing. They do not understand why the American people don't hear about
their successes.
But, folks, even when we don't publicize their successes, they are
having them. This last week has been a huge step forward in the war on
terror because we took out the top terrorist. And from his little
notebook, over the next couple of days we took out 17 other locations.
Today we had another very successful raid. And we are not only getting
rid of the bad guys and punishing them for their misbehavior by putting
them into the Never-Never Land, but we are also capturing things that
tells us more.
So I say to the terrorists: Beware. The American soldiers are coming.
Beware. We are learning every day and we are getting better and we are
learning more and more information about you, and we are coming to get
you. We are going to stop what is going on.
I was real proud to know when Zarqawi was killed that the first
people at the site were my boys in the 4th Infantry Division. Proud of
them. They are the guys who caught Saddam Hussein. They are the guys
who have been up front on every war, as has the 1st Cav. The 1st Cav.
Gave us free elections. The 4th Infantry Division gave us Saddam
Hussein, and now the first people on site after that beautiful job the
Air Force did.
But you know what, the real war on terror, and we need as American
citizens to think about this real strongly, is the first time the
President spoke, I think it was after this thing happened, and he said
what would be our top policy on the war on terror. He said if you help
our enemies, you are our enemy. We are taking the fight to the enemy.
I think that is the right policy. I think the right policy is to say,
we are not going to stand for people who kill innocent civilians no
matter where they are, and we are going to stand up to them. Why?
Because as Prime Minister Blair said right here in this House, it is
our turn. We are the beacon of freedom in the world. We have the
resources, intelligently used, to meet the challenge.
People say, oh, but it is going to be a long war. You know what? I
think it is going to be a long conflict, but it's going to be a
conflict that is going to have a series of battles in it. We are
misdefining Iraq by calling it the war in Iraq. We are misdefining
Afghanistan by calling it the war in Afghanistan. It is the battles in
Iraq, the battle in Afghanistan. And maybe whatever we do in the way of
successes will postpone the next battle.
Folks, we went into what we called the Cold War, and the Cold War
included the battle of Korea and the battle of Vietnam and the battle
of Panama and a lot of other battles that took place. But we won the
Cold War by sticking to the principle that freedom and democracy and
the ability to live your life in a world that was peaceful and loving
was worth fighting for and worth standing up to people who wanted to
change that and put totalitarianism in place of freedom.
We have now got a group of people who are fanatics and who want to
put this radical Islam in place of freedom. And, unfortunately, once
again, we have to stand up and be counted. And we will, as long as we
produce people like I have met at Fort Hood and many other places where
I have gone with the military, these quality young men and women. And
as long as the American people are willing to stand the ground and do
the job we back here have to do to win the war on terrorism, we will
succeed.
Mr. Speaker, it is critical that the American public realize that the
only thing standing between us and another 9/11 is the will to face the
terrorists' onslaught not only with our troops but with our hearts and
minds in America we should stand up for what is right. There is right
and there is wrong in this world, and imposing the will by terror, by
Islamic terrorists, is wrong.
Standing up for freedom and letting our kids be able to go to the
park and play without fear of terrorism or wander the streets or your
wife to go shopping at the grocery store or you be able to go to work
every day without the fear of terrorism, that is right. It is the
freedom we fought for and died for in this American country, and it is
the freedom the whole world should be able to enjoy.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say, I am proud to say that I am an
American and that Americans stand for right, I yield back to the
gentlewoman.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much how well the
gentleman represents his constituents at Fort Hood, and I know he is so
very proud of them and the work that they do.
I, likewise, am so very proud of my men and women at Fort Campbell,
men and women of the 101st, there in Montgomery County, Tennessee.
{time} 2200
How appropriate that the gentleman from Texas referred to them as
heroes, because indeed they are. And as they work to gather in the
trust and confidence of the Iraqi people, the trust of a little girl
who brings the rose from her garden to one of our military men and
women, the trust of an Iraqi citizen who takes the key out of a lock of
one of Saddam Hussein's former jails and hands it to an American
soldier and says, ``Thank you, thank you for my chance at freedom.''
Mr. Speaker, those are the stories that we are hearing day in and day
out. They are coming to us from our men and women in uniform who do
understand the big picture, who do understand that we have an enemy
that would like to change our way of life.
It is imperative that we communicate that message that we are not
going to stand for that. We are not going to stand still and let that
happen. You know, I think it is really quite interesting that sometimes
the liberal elites try to couch this debate about Iraq as to whether it
was wrong or whether it was right to go in and free millions of people
from Saddam Hussein, whether it was worth it. Many of the leftists
think it was not worth it. They would like to just sit down and talk
about this. I believe we should put that question aside for a moment
because it really does simplify the question of our involvement in
Iraq. It oversimplifies it. The question ignores the relevance of Iraq
to America's national security framework.
You know, as the gentleman from Texas said, our daily lives, how we
go about them, when we are made more unsafe, when our national security
is made unsafe by the existence of a hostile and isolated Middle East
ruled by murderous thugs and their terrorist supporters, then we have
to do something about that. That is a fact. I challenge anybody to come
in and argue with that.
The truth of this fact is written in the blood of Americans and the
citizens of dozens of other free nations, the people who have been
murdered by terrorists, spawned in the Middle East over the past 40
years. Whether anyone believes we should be in Iraq for the sake of
freeing an oppressed people is something we could haggle about all
night, but it is not the point of our mission there. We should be in
Afghanistan, Iraq and in the Middle East actively working to put an end
once and for all to the systems of government that have promoted and
celebrated brutal attacks on America, on Europe, and in countries
across Africa.
If we do not, we are going to suffer again and again. We are in Iraq,
we are in Afghanistan because President Bush and the American people
decided on
[[Page H3784]]
September 11, 2001, that enough was enough. Could we have stayed out?
Of course. Could we have continued responding to terrorism as a case of
civil disobedience? Of course.
We could have decided to simply contain this region and hope to
contain the terrorism that grew there, but that did not get to the root
of the problem. And the price of that policy would have continued to be
periodic September 11s. That would be the price. This country had to
decide whether we were willing to pay this steep price of letting the
Middle East continue for another 30 years as it had for the past 30
years.
We have had a real champion of freedom join us in the U.S. House of
Representatives this year, another judge from the great State of Texas;
and at this time I want to yield to Judge Poe from the great State of
Texas.
Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee
for allowing me to make some comments on the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Tennessee is named the Volunteer State. It was some of those
Tennesseeans who volunteered to help my State, Texas, become a free and
independent nation back in 1836, another example that to be free it
always costs something. We called upon those volunteers to make a
difference in freedom, noting that every person serving in Iraq and
Afghanistan is a volunteer. Many of them are on their second and third
tours of duty, volunteered because they understand the importance of
what they do.
We just recently learned that the United States Army has met not only
its enlistment goals but more enlistments than they had predicted
because many Americans, the young of our Nation, understand the
importance of what is going on. They know there is a war going on out
there, and it is a war against terrorists. It is a war the terrorists
started, and terrorism is not something we desire; but it is certainly
something we must destroy.
We cannot negotiate with terrorists. We cannot sit down at a
conference table and say come let us reason together. It is not going
to work because you see, terrorists are determined to kill people, not
just soldiers, not just sailors or marines, but all people, any people
that get in their way. And that includes their own people. That
includes military and nonmilitary. It includes civilians, the old, the
elderly, women, children. It includes people in hospitals recovering
from sickness. Anybody they think will cause terror in the hearts and
souls of the world they murder, and they kill throughout the world.
That is the way terrorists operate, and the idea that we can even
negotiate with them is almost as absurd as the idea that we can appease
those individuals.
Appeasement comes up every time some nation, like our Nation, has to
go to war to fight for our freedoms and liberties. It came up in World
War II, and appeasement was talked about even in Washington, D.C.,
appease the Germans, appease the Japanese, give in, try to ignore. Of
course, we saw what happens. Appeasement never works with terrorists
because they are determined to become more criminal-like in their
activity and promote their desires no matter what it takes.
I, like you and many Members of the House, have been to Iraq. I have
seen the Iraqi people. I have seen our military and was fortunate to be
there last year and when the Iraqi people had their first free
elections in the history of their nation. It was quite the honor to be
one of two Members of Congress to see that event.
Of course, the skeptics and critics say, as the gentlewoman from
Tennessee says, the northeastern elites, they said the Iraqis do not
understand freedom or democracy, it will never work; and every election
starting with that first election and every subsequent election after
that proved that Iraqis want freedom. They have tasted it, and they do
not want to let it go. And they are fighting for it just as much as our
troops are fighting for it.
Of course, I visited with our troops. They all say that we are
winning the war on terror. And we are winning the war on terror. One
thing that an Iraqi woman said to me at the voting booth, she had cast
her ballot, had that purple stain on her finger, proudly walking down
the street defiant of the terrorists because they said if you vote, the
terrorists will kill you, and of course they did kill 57 Iraqis that
voted that day. Anyway, she came up to me, she had tears in her eyes. I
had an interpreter with me and she said to the interpreter and he told
me, she said, We Iraqis are grateful to America for giving their youth
to us.
What she was saying was she was aware, as the Iraqis are, that
Americans die so other people can live and live free.
You know, 2,400-plus Americans have died in this war. Eight of those
who have died are from my congressional district down in southeast
Texas. I have talked to the families of those marines and sailors and
airmen and soldiers that have been killed. Those families grieve in
their own way, but they say to a family that they were proud of their
son and they will be proud of America if America stays the course and
finishes the job that their kids started in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Finish the war, win the war, Mr. Poe, win the war. I heard that so many
times. Win the war that my son died in.
And I say to those families and other families that this country will
win that war on terror. As has been said here on the House floor, it is
going to be a long war. It is not an easy war. It is an unconventional
war because we fight by the rules of engagement, the United States. We
go after the terrorists. The terrorists, unlike any other war in world
history, are determined to kill anybody in their way, including the
innocent.
But we will not let those that have died and those that will die, die
for nothing because they are dying for something. They are dying for
two things. They are dying for the welfare of the United States of
America. It is in our best interest to take the fight to the enemy, and
we are doing that. We are going to track them down wherever they show
up in the world, and we are going to eliminate them. They are beginning
to believe us that we will track them down. And we also are fighting
this war because of that word freedom.
It is important that Iraq and Afghanistan be free nations. They have
never tasted freedom. They have tasted it now; and as I said, they do
not want to let go of it. President Kennedy said it better than I can.
He said, you know, this country will bear any burden. We will pay any
price. We will support any friend, we will oppose any foe to preserve
liberty.
That is our mission statement given by President Kennedy over 40
years ago, and that is what our troops are doing.
Freedom has always cost. It always will. Good things have cost. It
cost us 7 years of hard war against the British. After we gained our
independence, gained our freedom, the British did not believe it, and
they attacked us again in the War of 1812. They burned this building
down, and they burned the White House. They burned every building in
Washington, D.C. except for two because they were trying to make sure
that America was not a free Nation. So we had to fight them again.
Freedom has cost this country, and it has cost other countries; and
Iraq is one of them. We do not get freedom by sitting down at a
conference table and saying, let us reason together so we can be a free
people.
There is no substitute for victory. It is the only path to freedom,
and I hope that folks in this Nation understand the great job our
troops are doing and are as committed as they are to winning the war.
Down in southeast Texas, I have the distinction of having the Port of
Beaumont. It is the number one military deployment port of cargo going
to Iraq. It comes from Fort Hood and Fort Bliss, and it is the place
where our troops come home. Most of the troops coming back to my area
are National Guard troops. You see, down in southeast Texas when the
National Guard comes home, we have parades for them. Schools and
businesses close, and everybody turns out on Main Street waving the
American flag. We are proud of what our troops are doing. We
understand, as most Americans understand, they are doing a good job and
they are putting their lives on the line for that simple word that
people since the beginning of the world have wanted, and that is
freedom.
So this country I do not think is ever going to flinch and it is
never going to
[[Page H3785]]
flee and we certainly are never going to fear because we will never
fail the war against terrorism, and I hope we will be successful.
I appreciate the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) allowing
me to make these comments. I hope we will continue the dialogue and the
perseverance to be successful and to spread the word not only in
America but to those terrorists who live throughout the world that they
can run, but they can certainly never hide because the American
fighting man is going to track them down.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas. I
thank him for mentioning that our men and women in uniform are
volunteers and they have chosen to fight.
I, like him, have spent time with these men and women and their
families and on Memorial Day talked with the aunt of a young man who
came to one of the memorial services. And after I spoke, she came up
and with her broken heart she said, Mrs. Blackburn, you're so right, he
was there because he wanted to be there and you're so right. He knows,
he knew that we were winning, that we are winning the war on terror.
{time} 2215
And yes indeed, he understood the mission. Our families, our military
families know this, Mr. Speaker, and they know that this Nation has
decided not to play hostage, not to be held hostage. Our men and women
in uniform are paying the price to fight this war so that we are not
having to fight it on the streets of Washington, D.C., or Memphis or
Nashville or L.A. or anywhere else in this country. We have made a
choice not to be bullied and not to live with the gun pointed at our
head. And I give credit to our President. And, Mr. Speaker, I credit
the American people for making a tough decision. War is never easy. War
is never, ever easy, but we have to remember the big picture in this
and that picture is we have to have a democratic ally in the Middle
East. This is about freedom and free people. It is about expanded
democracy and education. It is about rooting out terrorists and
disrupting their networks and their way of working and their beliefs so
that they don't import it and place it on us. It is about slowing them
down and eventually making it impossible for them to work.
Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of talk about whether we are winning or
not. And we are winning. But this is not easy. There are going to be a
lot of dark days ahead. This is not an easy fight. It is not easy for
us. It is not easy for our military men and women and their families.
It is not easy for the Iraqi people. And there is a tremendous amount
of frustration when they take a couple of steps forward and then a few
steps back and a couple of steps forward and another step back. And
just as in the past 3 years we have had some victories to celebrate, we
have also had some very tough times. But we come to the point of
saying, is it a necessary action? And yes, indeed, Mr. Speaker, it is a
necessary action. The defense of freedom is a necessary action for our
great Nation. It was the only decision that put America on the
offensive when it came to the war on terrorism and our national
security because freedom is worth fighting for.
As I close the hour this evening and begin this week's debate, I want
to focus where I began in talking about the big picture. Ronald Reagan
often said, we could bet on hope or we could bet on fear. You can bet
on hope or you can bet on fear. He chose to bet on hope. And, Mr.
Speaker, I know why. And I know why the American people choose to bet
on hope. It is that hope, that desire that lives in our heart for a
better tomorrow.
I love quoting Margaret Thatcher and her comment when she talks about
America. She would say it is more than a superpower, more than a great
Nation. America is an idea. America is an idea. What a great idea it
is. It is the idea of freedom. It is the idea of opportunity. It is the
idea of hope. And this week we look forward to talking about hope for
our future, hope for the future of our children, hope for the future of
the Nation of Iraq.
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