[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 90 (Wednesday, June 6, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H6082-H6086]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WAR IS UGLY BUT TYRANNY IS UGLIER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. WAMP. I thank the speaker.
Mr. Speaker, tonight I come to the floor with several of my
colleagues over the next hour to recognize that while even tonight
we've heard these divisions on the floor from both parties and Members
in each party that have differences of opinion about Iraq and the war,
we come tonight to talk about the threats around the world that
continue to emerge, that are real.
But before we get to the discussion about those threats and global
security and the need for our country to be the leader of all of
civilization, civilized countries versus, frankly, uncivilized,
organizations, factions, even countries around the world who actually
believe that blowing themselves up somehow is right or just. This is
the struggle, and I do not think we can afford to deny the threats. I
want to start first, though, by honoring the people who are
volunteering to this very day to put themselves between the threat in
our civilian population and serve in the uniform of our Armed Forces,
first and foremost, the ones that have actually given their life for
us.
Last week, over the Memorial Day district work period, I joined the
families of two heroic East Tennesseans, one here in Washington at
Arlington National Cemetery as I left. Sergeant First Class James David
Tiger Connell, Jr., of Lake City, Tennessee, was laid to rest here in
Arlington a week ago Friday for answering the Scriptural call that ``no
greater love hath any man than to lay down his life for a friend.'' And
then on Memorial Day, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I joined the family of
Private First Class Travis Haslip from Ooltewah, Tennessee, to lay his
body to rest. Two great American heroes who joined six other heroes
from my district who have given their life for us. And contrary to what
some people say, they not only did not die in vain, they joined the
ranks of the greatest Americans ever who were willing to give their
life for the cause of freedom.
{time} 1915
They were willing to lay it all on the line for the principles that
this country holds so dear, knowing that every generation sooner or
later has to face threats like this and somebody has to go and answer
the call.
If you believe they died in vain, then many, many, many others
through other wars throughout the history of our country also did, and
I don't believe it for a second, because I know that it is those
patriotic Americans that have paid the price.
I want to honor tonight Sergeant Paul Thompson III of Jefferson City,
Tennessee; Sergeant First Class Stephen Curtis Kennedy of Oak Ridge,
Tennessee; Sergeant David Thomas Weir of Cleveland, Tennessee, and I
want to talk about his mom in a minute; Staff Sergeant Daniel M. Morris
of Clinton, Tennessee; Sergeant John Michael Sullivan of Hixon,
Tennessee; and Sergeant Terrance W. Prater of Speedwell, Tennessee.
I want to say that Jackie Weir, Sergeant David Weir's mom, wrote me a
letter which I received over the Memorial Day weekend. This incredible
mom has on the bottom of her letterhead a quote from General George S.
Patton. It says, ``It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.
Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.'' This is on her
letterhead. She gave her son for our country and its future.
This coming Monday, I will be privileged to join my nephew with the
181st Field Artillery Brigade as they deploy for Iraq from Chattanooga.
Jeffrey Watts is my nephew, so a member of our family is going as well.
May God be with all of them, protect them and strengthen them.
Because, as John Stuart Mill once said, ``War is an ugly thing, but
it is not the ugliest of things.'' He said, ``The decayed and degraded
state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth
war is much worse.'' He said, ``A person who has nothing for which they
are willing to fight, nothing they care more about than their own
personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of ever
being free unless those very freedoms are made and kept by better
persons than himself.''
That is etched in my memory, because I don't believe everything John
Stewart Miller ever wrote, but I agree with that, that the alternative
to war sometimes is complete loss of freedom, and it is tyranny, and it
is terror all the time, and it is oppression. Without the courage to
fight and stand up, that is where we may end up.
It is easy to forget the timeline. I want to go through it. Then I
want to recognize the gentleman from Michigan. The timeline though goes
back a long time.
Twenty-five years ago, April, 1983: A suicide car bombing against the
U.S. Embassy in Beirut killed 63, 17 Americans.
October, 1983: A suicide car bomb attack against the U.S. Marine
barracks in Beirut kills 241 servicemen. A simultaneous attack on a
French base kills paratroopers.
November, 1984: A bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Bogota,
Colombia, kills a passerby. The attack was preceded by death threats
against U.S. official by drug traffickers.
April, 1985: A bomb explodes in a restaurant near a U.S. air base in
Madrid killing 18, wounding 82, including 15 Americans.
June, 1985: San Salvador, El Salvador, 13 people are killed in a
machine gun attack in an outdoor cafe. Four U.S. Marines and two
American businessmen.
June, 1985: A TWA airliner is hijacked over the Mediterranean, the
start of a 2-week hostage ordeal. The last 39 passengers are eventually
released in Damascus after being held in various locations in Beirut.
August, 1985: A car bomb at a U.S. military base in Frankfurt,
Germany, kills two and injures 20. A U.S. soldier murdered for identity
papers is found the day after the explosion.
October, 1985: Palestinian terrorists hijacked a cruise liner, the
Achille Lauro, in response to the Israeli attack on PLO headquarters in
Tunisia. Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly, wheelchair-bound American is
killed and thrown overboard.
November, 1985: Hijackers aboard an Egypt Air flight killed one
American. Egyptian commandoes later stormed the aircraft on the island.
Sixty people are killed.
December, 1985: Simultaneous suicide attacks are carried out against
U.S. and Israeli check-in desks at Rome and Vienna international
airports. Twenty people are killed in the two attacks, including four
terrorists.
I am going on and on. There are 44 incidents in 25 years by the
Islamic radicals. You can deny it if you want to. You can say this is
all about Iraq if you want to. But I continue.
April, 1986: A bomb destroys a West Berlin disco frequented by U.S.
servicemen, killing one American and one German woman and wounding 150,
including 44 Americans.
An explosion in April, 1986, damages a TWA flight as it prepares to
land in Athens, Greece. Four people are killed when they are sucked out
of the aircraft.
December 21, 1988: A bomb destroys Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland. All 259 people aboard the Boeing 747 are killed, including
189 Americans, as are 11 people on the ground.
February, 1993: A bomb in a van explodes in an underground parking
garage in New York's World Trade Center killing six people and wounding
over 1,000, 1993.
[[Page H6083]]
April, 19, 1995: A car bomb destroyed the Murrah Federal building in
Oklahoma City. This was not al Qaeda. We know what that was.
November 13, 1995: A car bomb in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killed seven
people, five of them American military and civilian advisers for the
National Guard training center.
June 25, 1996: A bomb aboard a fuel truck explodes outside a U.S. Air
Force installation in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Nineteen U.S. military
personnel are killed.
July 27, 1996: A pipe bomb explodes during the Olympic games in
Atlanta. That was also not them.
June, 1998: Rocket propelled grenades explode near the U.S. Embassy
in Beirut.
August, 1998: Terrorist bombs destroyed the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi,
Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
October 12, 2000: A terrorist bomb damages the destroyer USS Cole in
the Port of Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39.
September 11, 2001: It is all I need to say.
April 11, 2002: Explosions at ancient synagogue in Tunisia leaves 17
dead.
May of 2002: Car explodes outside hotel in Pakistan, killing 14.
June of 2002: Bomb explodes outside American consulate in Pakistan,
killing 12.
October of 2002: Nightclubs bombed in Bali, Indonesia, killing 202,
mostly Australians.
October suicide attack on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, killed 16.
May 4, 2003: Suicide bombers kill 34, including eight Americans, in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
May of 2003: Four bombs kill 33 people, targeting Jewish, Spanish and
Belgian sites in Casablanca.
August, 2003: Suicide car bomb kills 12, injures 150 at Marriott
Hotel in Jakarta.
November, 2003: Explosions rock Riyadh Saudi Arabia, killing 17.
November, 2003: Suicide car bombers simultaneously attack two
synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 25 and injuring hundreds.
March, 2004: Ten terrorist bombs explode almost simultaneously during
the morning rush hour in Madrid, Spain, killing 202 and injuring more
than 1,400.
May 29 through 31, 2004: Terrorists attacked the offices of a Saudi
oil company in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, taking foreign oil workers hostage
in nearby residential compound. Twenty-two people dead.
June, 2004: Terrorists kidnap and execute Paul Johnson, Jr., an
American in Riyadh. Nearly a week after his capture, photos of his body
are posted on an Islamic website.
December, 2004: Militants believed to be linked to al Qaeda drive up
to U.S. Embassy consulate in Saudi Arabia, storm the gates and kill
five.
July, 2005: Bombs explode on three trains in London, England, killing
52.
October, 2005: Twenty-two killed by three suicide bombers in Bali.
November, 2005: Fifty-seven killed at three American hotels in
Jordan.
March, 2006: Two residents arrested in this country, one a Georgia
Tech student.
June, 2006: Canadian plot to behead the Prime Minister and bomb the
Canadian Parliament. Seventeen arrested.
June, 2006: Florida-based plot to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago,
seven arrested.
December, 2006: Chicago area Muslim convert arrested for plotting to
attack a local mall and government buildings using grenades.
May, 2007: New Jersey-based plot to attack soldiers in Fort Dix, New
Jersey.
Last week, another huge plot exposed to cause unbelievable damage at
JFK Airport on an energy system that runs between New Jersey and New
York.
We sure better not ignore these threats. We better stand in the gap
for the next generation and quit denying that these threats are
mounting against us. I don't want our country to be the last country in
the world willing to face this reality.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan, the Chairman of
the Policy Committee here among Republican Members of the House,
Thaddeus McCotter, an expert on these issues.
Mr. McCOTTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee.
Mr. Speaker, amidst these tumultuous times, it is often difficult to
make sense of the stakes and the situations which confront us. But let
us be clear: America in Iraq faces the prospect of a defeat, with
consequences not only for this present generation of Americans but for
future generations of Americans as well. Unlike Vietnam, the enemy will
follow us home; and this is an enemy that is bent upon our destruction
and the death not only of ourselves but of everything we hold dear.
In similar times, as my colleague Phil English, the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, earlier read, it was the moral clarity of individuals
like President Roosevelt, who helped guide the greatest generation to
their triumph over abject evil.
This generation of Americans must retain their moral clarity to
understand what needs to be done in the perilous present to get us to a
better tomorrow. First, we need to step back and assess the situation
in Iraq. The reality in Iraq is that we have one thing left to do as a
Nation, and that job has been entrusted to our troops, who have done
everything and more that has been asked of them.
To date, Iraq is free, Iraq is sovereign, Iraq has a democratically
elected government. The people of Iraq within the government are
fighting side by side with United States forces to kill and capture al
Qaeda and other terrorists and insurgents.
And today we find ourselves struggling to attain the last goal before
our troops accomplish the mission, and that is to give the new
democracy a chance to survive in our absence. I say a chance to survive
in our absence, because no free people, including ourselves, can ever
be guaranteed that their liberty will last in perpetuity.
Did not Benjamin Franklin tell us this when he said to his fellow
patriots at the founding of our Nation, we will give you a republic, if
you can keep it.
The price of keeping that republic, or of any free nation, is eternal
vigilance, to make sure that your rights are not eroded and you are not
enslaved.
At another time in our Nation's history, when we were sorely tried
through the conflagration of war, it was President Lincoln who
understood that a war for secession had become a war for the
emancipation of an entire race so that our Nation could have a new
birth of freedom.
What we find in the Middle East today as we struggle to accomplish
the last task in this mission is that our war for terror has been
transformed into the war for the emancipation of millions of Muslims,
so that the Middle East and our world can have a new birth of freedom.
If we, as a nation conceived in liberty, who have seen the sorrowful
sacrifice of so many of our sons and daughters throughout our history
to retain that liberty, determine to turn our backs upon people we have
given a cruel sip of freedom to before we abandon them, we must ask
ourselves two questions: What do we as a nation believe anymore about
ourselves and the inalienable truths upon which we were founded; and
what manner of dedication can we portray to the world and to ourselves
as to its preservation?
{time} 1930
And then we must ask ourselves a very cruel question: What other
nascent democracies under terrorist attack will the United States
abandon? Because that is the question that the enemy wants us to
confront in what they are doing in Iraq.
If the United States is defeated in Iraq, and make no mistake, with
the euphemisms that are bandied about, if we leave we lose, and the
terrorists will remind us of this. The gutter snipe, Osama bin Laden,
will be more than happy to proclaim it through every Internet site and
every broadcast media available to him and his ilk for domestic
American consumption.
If we leave and are defeated in Iraq, everything that the enemy has
done in Iraq will be transferred to Afghanistan. Already, as we found
out earlier today, we have seen the hand of the Iranians in putting
exploding devices and other material to support the Taliban insurgents
against the NATO forces and our own U.S. troops who are part of that
coalition.
Let us not forget that it was in Afghanistan that al Qaeda, and
especially bin Laden and others, learned to kill as they chased the
Soviets out through
[[Page H6084]]
measures that they are now applying in Iraq and Afghanistan. And let us
not forget that an emboldened enemy will then, on much more familiar
ground where the al Qaeda was housed before the attacks of September
11, it will prove a much more fertile ground for their incipient brand
of insurgency, which we will have already been unable to quell in Iraq,
which will now devolve into chaos and prove a safe haven for those who
wish to kill us.
But let us not forget, we have one thing left to do in Iraq. That is
why it is so bloody, that is why it is so bitter, and that is why it is
so frustrating to the vast majority of Americans. But if we maintain
our prudence and perseverance and clarity, we can see this through
until the mission is accomplished. We can see that the United States,
which is a revolutionary experiment in human freedom, can remember the
lesson that Lincoln taught us: When we extend liberty to the enslaved,
we ensure liberty for ourselves. President Lincoln understood that
liberty is not static. It does not remain in a perpetual stasis where
we can enjoy our liberty while others have it denied unto them.
If freedom is advancing or eroding in the course of human events, let
us rededicate ourselves not only to accomplishing the mission in Iraq
and Afghanistan so that our world can experience a new birth of
freedom, let us rededicate ourselves to the proposition that we who are
born into freedom also bear the responsibility where we can to extend
liberty to those who also yearn to breathe free, as do all of God's
creatures.
Mr. WAMP. I thank the gentleman.
We all desire a better course in Iraq. We all desire changes, not
just General Petraeus' leadership and the increase in security forces
from our country necessary to prevail in Iraq, but even more regional
cooperation, and some of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group so
that people in this country will truly recognize, especially in the
Congress, that this is not our President's war. This is our country's
war. This is our country's fight.
Now a very prominent person from my State wrote a book called ``The
Inconvenient Truth.'' He wrote it about the environment, but I have to
say tonight on the floor of the House that a bigger inconvenient truth
than the one he wrote about is the inconvenient truth that is lost
around here a lot, that over half of the Democratic Members of the
United States Senate and almost half of the United States House of
Representatives voted to remove Saddam Hussein by force. Now, many
people are running from that commitment and decision, but it is an
inconvenient truth that they said it needed to be done and they
committed us to doing it. And we went as a nation and there was not
that much criticism as there is now, but it is convenient to blame or
cast aspersions or to say that intelligence went wrong instead of
accepting the responsibility that we removed a genocidal mass murderer
from the world stage in an important time in the history of the Middle
East and an important time in the history of the world.
I have two pages, and I am not going to go through these quotes like
I did the time line, but two pages of quotes from the most prominent
leaders in the Democratic Party in this country saying why Saddam
Hussein had to be removed by force.
The quotes I will go through tonight, though, are from the terrorists
themselves because I think they must be quoted so we understand what
they are doing.
Zawahiri, al Qaeda's top leader in the region now, we don't know
where Osama bin Laden is, but Zawahiri said, ``The jihad movement is
growing and rising. It reached its peak with the two blessed raids on
New York and Washington. And now it is waging a great heroic battle in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and even the crusaders' own homes.''
Al Manar said, ``Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the
Great Satan, America, is absolute. Regardless of how the world has
changed after September 11, death to America will remain our
reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America.''
Zarqawi said, ``They are aware that if this Islamic giant wakes up,
it will not be satisfied with less than the gates of Rome, Washington,
Paris, and London.''
Bin Laden's top lieutenant said, ``The fire has not and will not be
put out, and our swords, which have been colored with your blood, are
thirsty for more of your rotting heads.''
The leader of Hezbollah said, ``We have discovered how to hit the
Jews where they are most vulnerable. The Jews love life; so that is
what we shall take from them. We are going to win because they love
life and we love death.''
Zawahiri said, ``Knights under the prophet's banner, al Qaeda's most
important short-term strategic goal is to seize control of the state,
or part of a state, somewhere in the Muslim world.'' He wrote,
``Confronting the enemies of Islam and launching jihad against them
require a Muslim authority established on Muslim land. Without
achieving this, our actions will mean nothing.''
Osama bin Laden said, ``The whole world is watching this war and the
two adversaries. It is either victory and glory or misery and
humiliation.''
Osama bin Laden has said, ``The most important and serious issue
today for the world is this Third World War.'' That's what he said.
``It is raging in the land of the two rivers, Iraq. The world's
millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate.''
These are the words of jihad.
Before yielding to the gentlewoman from North Carolina, I would like
to encourage people to open a book called ``America Alone'' by Mark
Steyn. The gentlewoman has just finished the book. It is on our reading
list as we are trying to educate Members of the House on the threats.
We all know you can't believe everything you read. But if you do your
homework and you follow people who do their research, reading is the
best way to understand this threat.
Let me say first, I am for pluralism. Every religious view is
welcomed in this country, period. We are tolerant. It is a tenet of our
foundation, religious pluralism is the American way. We do not believe
in theocracy. It doesn't come with freedom, not our way. But let me say
tonight, and this may not be popular in some quarters, that is not the
Muslim way today. It is not.
The Islamists, the radicals, are insulated within Islam and they are
not being challenged by the rest of Islam. And they call for a global
sharia. That is Islamic rule. There were challenges all around the
world right now about whether Islamic law, their law, a theocratic
system, trumps the laws of any country, including this country. And if
you don't think this is infiltrating most of the countries around the
world, you are not paying any attention. This threat is growing and
rising.
All you have to do is study the demographics that are articulated in
this book and you realize that countries like our and Japan and Russia,
they are actually declining in population. Our country is barely
growing. The most rapid growth in the world is among the Muslim
countries. Sheer demographics overtake us if the radicals continue to
be insulated within Islam and not challenged because the numbers are
exponential in terms of how many people are now willing to kill
themselves for a cause. I could spend the rest of the night going
through the latest statistics which ought to shock every American, that
26 or 30 percent, depending on two different questions, of Muslims in
this country, many of whom are citizens, believe it is acceptable, this
is scientific polling 2 weeks ago, it is acceptable to blow yourself up
for a cause. That's a problem. I have to tell you, that is not
acceptable in this country.
It is not acceptable that jihadism is fashionable or a way of life.
How many people in the Muslim world now think that 9/11 was justified.
I have to tell you, America is not perfect, we have made mistakes; but
anybody in the world who apologizes for our country is wrong.
And these apologists who somehow blame us for what happened are
wrong. Many others are here to speak. I yield to the gentlewoman from
North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).
Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congressman Wamp for
organizing this hour tonight and bringing together a group of folks who
have similar feelings to his. I see several of my colleagues have
joined us and so I
[[Page H6085]]
won't take a lot of time. It is always hard to follow such eloquent
speakers as Congressman McCotter and Congressman Wamp. They are both
eloquent people, and I am pleased to be with them to add my few
comments.
As Congressman Wamp has said, I have been reading ``America Alone.''
I want to recommend it. It is written by Mark Steyn, S-T-E-Y-N. It is
an excellent book. It is very, very readable, and it is very, very
frightening.
As Congressman Wamp said, if you don't do anything but pay attention
to the demographics, you will have your attention gotten by this book.
As he indicated, the United States of America is the only western
country that is replacing itself in terms of population. It takes a
birth rate of 2.1 to replace the population. What is happening in
Canada, which I wasn't aware of, Canada has a birth rate of about 1.3
right now, 1.4. All of the European countries have birth rates of 1.3,
1.4, 1.2. Their populations are going to be cut in half within 35
years. That is something that has never happened in the history of
humanity. Their populations are going to be cut in half; and yet the
Muslim populations are growing anywhere from 4.7 percent to over 7
percent which means their populations are going to double in a very
short period of time. And fairly soon, all of Europe is going to be
predominantly Muslim.
The title of the book, ``America Alone,'' we are going to be the only
country in the free world that is increasing our population of people
with western ideals, western religions and western thought. That is
something we really have to be thinking about.
I have been troubled, and I have spoken about this before, about
statements that have been made by Democrats in this body when we talk
about the war that we are in. They talk about failure. They talk about
it being an impossible situation. Well, I want to try to tie this in to
what Congressman McCotter was saying.
When I meet with people and they ask me about the, quote, ``war in
Iraq,'' I quickly say to them as kindly and as nicely as I can, we are
not in a war in Iraq, we are in a war for the freedom of this country
and the freedom of the world. If we lose this war, we are losing to
radical jihadists who see that we have only two choices. We either
convert to becoming Muslims or we should be killed.
Now as Congressman Wamp says, we believe in pluralism in this
country. We believe in inviting people to come to this country, worship
as they please, but not to come here and try to impose their idea,
their radical idea of the world on us. So I think it is very important
that we all do that. We understand this is a war for freedom.
{time} 1945
This country is the beacon of freedom in the world, and failure is
simply not possible.
I am very troubled again by the talk by Senators in the Democratic
party who say the war is lost. It cannot be lost again. If it is, then
we will go out of existence as a society and as a culture. We can't do
that.
We know that we're fighting against extremists. There's Sunnis,
there's Shias and there's al Qaeda and their intent to fortify their
influence in the Middle East and expand beyond it.
The Democrats have claimed that a recently declassified National
Intelligence Estimate concluded that the war in Iraq has made the war
on terror more difficult to win, even though the terrorists see the war
in Iraq and the war against terrorists as one and the same. They see it
that way. We do not.
But the NIE actually concluded that, should Jihadists be perceived to
have failed in their efforts to undermine democracy in Iraq, ``fewer
fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.''
So we have to defeat the terrorists. We have to defeat them not only
in Iraq but in Afghanistan, in New York City, in New Jersey, anywhere
that we find them. Because that is our mission, and that is what we're
here for. If we don't want to see freedom and our way of life
destroyed, then it's our responsibility to do that.
And I will tell you that I am not going to allow the brave men and
women who are fighting to maintain our freedom to think that all
Members of Congress have no backbone and are weak-kneed and look only
to political advantage. I want them to know that there's some Members
of Congress who appreciate what they're doing, who understand the
sacrifice that they're making and understand the consequences of our
winning or losing.
Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman.
One of the most articulate and knowledgeable Members of the U.S.
House of Representatives on radical Islam is Representative Trent
Franks from Arizona, and I yield to him.
Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. As usual,
he's always more kind than he should be.
Mr. Speaker, today, as we embrace the grave responsibility of
discussing an issue that will have a profound impact on future American
generations, it seems very appropriate to remind ourselves of the ideal
that gave birth to the United States in the very first place. We hold
these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among
these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It puts us all on even ground, Mr. Speaker, but, whether we realize
it or not, most of the important discussions in this Chamber, including
the one in this moment, center around whether we still believe those
words.
In these hours, America finds herself at war with an inexpressibly
dangerous ideology that is the antithesis of those words and everything
that is the American ideal. What concerns me most, Mr. Speaker, is that
this is a war between an ideology that is committed to the death and
destruction of freedom and the subjugation of the entire world and is
one waged against the world's free people who still remain primarily
asleep.
Mr. Speaker, this ideological war did not begin on 9/11. It began
many years ago when certain Muslim extremists embraced a divergent
Islamist dogma that dictates that all infidels must die. It was called
then, as it should be now, Jihad.
This is the same Jihadist ideology that murdered Israeli athletes in
1972; that took American hostages in Iran; that murdered Marines in
their barracks in 1983; that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993,
Riyadh in 1995, the Khobar towers in 1996, the embassy in 1998, the
U.S.S. Cole in 2000; and that brutally murdered scores of little
children on their opening day of school in Beslan, Russia. And then,
Mr. Speaker, this same dark ideology massacred nearly 3,000 Americans
on September 11.
The ideology of Islamist Jihad leads to the practice of decapitating
humanitarians with hacksaws on television while the victims scream for
mercy. Just last month, one of those most recent videos on the Internet
showed a member of the Taliban beheading a man accused of spying. That
member of the Taliban was 12 years old.
Mr. Speaker, that is a wake-up call to this planet if we will only
listen. This same hatred causes Islamic Jihadists to cowardly hide
behind women and children while launching rockets deliberately
targeting innocent civilians, and continually breaking treaties of
peace, and forcing children to blow themselves to pieces to effect the
murder of other innocents, and all this while their mothers scream for
joy.
As we anticipate future actions of the Jihadists, we should consider,
as Mr. Wamp has so eloquently said earlier today, the words of the
terrorists themselves. And at the risk of repeating some of the things
that Congressman Wamp said, I believe that these kinds of words are so
important for America and for the people in this body to hear.
Al Qaeda's Al-Zawahiri said this. He said, ``The Jihad movement is
growing and rising. It reached its peak with the two blessed raids on
New York and Washington. And now it is waging a great heroic battle in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and even within the Crusaders' own
homes.''
Al-Manar said on BBC, ``Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility
to the Great Satan, America, is absolute. Regardless of how the world
has changed after 11 September, Death to America will remain our
reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America.''
Al-Zarqawi said this of America's leaders, ``They are aware that if
the Islamic giant wakes up it will not be satisfied with less than the
gates of Rome, Washington, Paris, and London.''
[[Page H6086]]
Al-Muhajir, Osama bin Laden's latest lieutenant in Iraq, said this.
He said, ``The fire has not and will not be put out and our swords,
which have been colored with your blood, are thirsty for more of your
rotting heads.''
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, said this, ``We have
discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the most vulnerable. The
Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from them. We are
going to win because they love life and we love death.''
Mr. Speaker, then we hear Democrats in this body say things like,
``The savagery of the terrorists is not relevant,'' or even the most
senior Democrat in this House is quoted as saying, ``I don't take sides
for or against Hezbollah, or for or against Israel.'' The senior
Democrat in the other body said, ``This war is lost.''
Mr. Speaker, that kind of blind relativism that deliberately ignores
all truth and equates merciless terrorism with free nations defending
themselves and their innocent citizens is more dangerous to humanity
than terrorism itself, and it is proof that liberals completely
misunderstand the enemy that we face.
Osama bin Laden's deputy, Al-Zawahiri, said this. He made it clear in
his book, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, al Qaeda's most important
short-term strategic goal is to seize control of a state, or part of a
state, somewhere in the Muslim world. He wrote, ``Confronting the
enemies of Islam and launching Jihad against them require a Muslim
authority, established on Muslim land. Without achieving this goal, our
actions will mean nothing.''
For God's sake, I hope we're listening to people like that. Mr.
Speaker, such a Jihadist state would be the ideal launching pad for
future attacks on the West.
Bin Laden himself has stated, ``The whole world is watching this war
and the two adversaries. It's either victory and glory, or misery and
humiliation.''
Mr. Speaker, the terrorists regard Iraq as their central front in
their war against humanity; and if we're to understand our enemy and
this war, we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war
against Jihad. Our courageous and noble soldiers understand that, and
our enemy certainly understands that.
Osama bin Laden himself said, ``The most important and serious issue
today for the whole world is this Third World War. It is raging in the
land of the two rivers, Iraq. The world's millstone and pillar is in
Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate.''
Mr. Speaker, if Democrats are correct that this struggle in Iraq is
not crucial to winning the war against Islamist Jihad, then for God's
sake I wish they would explain that to the terrorists, because they
don't understand it.
Brink Lindsey put this all succinctly. He said, ``Here is the grim
truth: We are only one act of madness away from a social cataclysm
unlike anything our country has ever known. After a handful of such
acts, who knows what kind of civilizational breakdown might be in
store?''
Mr. Speaker, we simply cannot deny that we are fighting a war against
an insidiously dangerous and evil ideology that is bent on the
destruction of the Western World, and they would like nothing better
than to decapitate this country by detonating a nuclear blast 100 yards
from here. To allow Jihadists to declare victory in Iraq will serve
only to hasten such a day.
The free nations of the world once had opportunity to address the
insidious rise of the Nazi ideology in its formative years when it
could have been dispatched without great cost. But they delayed, and
the result was atomic bombs falling on cities in the world, 50 million
people dead worldwide, and the swastika's shadow nearly plunging the
planet into Cimmerian night.
Mr. Speaker, Jihadists believe they have a critical advantage over
the free world. They believe their will is stronger than ours and that
they need only to persevere; and, Mr. Speaker, the words of neutrality
and retreat have only encouraged them in that belief.
We must realize that this is a war that is fundamentally a battle
between good and evil, between light and darkness, between individual
freedom and totalitarian repression; and we must realize that our enemy
is absolutely blinded with an absolute hate for all the Western World.
They also recognize that America is the flagship of human freedom,
and if America allows terrorists to conquer us both on the battlefield
and in our will to fight the result will be that humanity will be left
to face a future that is dark beyond expression.
Mr. Speaker, I think that probably Ronald Reagan could close this in
the best way. He said to our soldiers who nobly fought in Vietnam,
``Let us tell those who fought in that war that we will never again ask
young men to fight and possibly die in a war our government is afraid
to win.''
And I'm afraid sometimes that we forget the heroism of the past. So
let me just close with a prayer that one of our great Presidents,
Franklin Roosevelt, said many years ago, as today we mark the 63rd
anniversary of the D-Day invasion to liberate Europe from Hitler's
fascism. U.S. forces alone sustained over 6,500 casualties in that 1
day, twice what we've endured in 5 years in Iraq. Knowing the gravity
of the operation, Franklin Roosevelt, one of the Nation's most liberal
Presidents, said and allow me to close in those words:
``Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon
a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion,
and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. They fight
not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to
liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill
among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their
return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these,
Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. And
for us at home, fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and
brothers of brave men overseas, help us, Almighty God, to rededicate
ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons;
faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Thy will be done,
Almighty God. Amen.''
Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Every Member of this body has an obligation to do their best to share
their beliefs in what they think we face with the American people and
their constituents. I believe that this problem in Iraq that we've got
to do better with is not the end of this at all.
For some reason, God spared us again with the JFK plot and allowed us
to actually interdict that before another September 11 or even worse
happened. For some reason, He granted us grace, but it is a matter of
time, given the conflicts that we face.
To the people, this Iraq conflict is a chapter in the war that is
mounted against us, and it's not the end, anymore than the first
bombing in 1993 of the World Trade Center was the end. We denied that
it happened, but we weren't willing to address it, and September 11
happened. But Iraq is no different in the long-term conflict which is a
generational struggle with radical Islam.
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