[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 108 (Monday, July 9, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8761-S8762]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WAR ON TERROR
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona is
recognized.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, most of the activity with regard to the
terrorist plot in Great Britain occurred while we were on our breaks
back home. I wanted to briefly discuss that today.
It seems to me that the terror plots in Great Britain must serve as a
wake-up call to those of us in the United States who perhaps have been
too complacent about the terrorist threat. These plots remind us of the
dangers we really face each and every day, and we need to employ all
possible intelligence and follow-up action in order to stop the attacks
and roll back these terrorist groups.
The war against terrorists and on the radical ideologies that drive
terrorism will go on and is going to go on for a long time, and attacks
will not occur every day. So we have to remain resolute in the face of
this long-term threat, never allowing temporary respites from violence
to tempt us into thinking the terrorists have stopped recruiting and
plotting.
Abroad we must confront the challenges not just of terrorist networks
but of states like Iran and Syria that provide funds and equipment for
the terrorists. At home we have to have adequate intelligence to find,
monitor, and disrupt terrorist cells that could strike at any time. It
requires vigilance and cooperation among many enforcement entities and,
importantly, the support of the American people. Against this threat,
to say ``out of sight, out of mind'' can have no place.
Now, the first point I would like to make today is that as the plot
in Great Britain revealed, this is not about grievances. This is about
ideology.
There are those at home who are members of what is called the Blame
America First crowd, which was a term coined by my friend, the late
Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, who say the Islamists hate us because of
what we do. They allegedly hate us because we don't do enough to fight
poverty, because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because of Iraq,
or because of the latest Danish cartoon, or whatever. Of course, this
is nonsense.
The radical ideology that spawns this terrorism has nothing to do
with such grievances or poverty. The perpetrators of the plots in Great
Britain were doctors, not individuals radicalized by unemployment or
poverty-stricken slums. These plots certainly were not the result of
British policy. They unfolded on the very day that Gordon Brown, a
critic of Britain's roles in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, took office.
Nor did they have anything to do with American policy. From what we
know of the individuals involved, it appears the motivation was the
same as all of the other acts of terrorism in the name of militant
Islam.
This radical doctrine had its roots in the early 20th century and
gained momentum through the writings of radical Islamists such as
Sayyid Qutb in the 1950s and 1960s, long before the Iraq war. It has
everything to do with the hatred of our values, our freedoms, all that
we stand for, and we see the hatred in attacks that go back several
decades.
Review them: The 1979 takeover of our Embassy in Tehran; the 1983
Hezbollah bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut; the 1993 bombing of
the World Trade Center; the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers; the 1998
Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania; the 2000 attack on the USS
Cole; September 11, 2001, and all of the attacks since then, including
Beslan, Madrid, London, and elsewhere. In every case, the rationale was
the same--advancement of the radical ideology of militant Islam; a
perversion of the faith, to be sure, but based on their concept of the
faith nonetheless.
The sheer evil of the acts and the perpetrators shocks our souls,
especially because it is allegedly grounded in religion. People trained
as doctors--those who are supposed to value and preserve life--were at
the center of the plot in Great Britain to destroy innocent life.
We in the West, who believe in reason and rationality, have trouble
comprehending the mentality of radical Islam and those who subscribe to
it. But we need to understand it, to call it what it is, and not too
shrink from this honesty because the terrorists and their sympathizers
hide behind a great religion. Importantly, we must not seek to
rationalize and explain the views and the behavior of our enemies
through our values and experiences. Militant Islam seeks not to change
our policies but to destroy our very way of life and replace it with a
Taliban-like society ruled by Sharia law and its enforcers. Militant
Islam has declared war on the West--be very clear about it. It is
fundamentally at odds with freedom, with democracy, with the inherent
humanity of the individual, with critical thinking, and rational
decisionmaking, not to mention all other religious beliefs.
While it might be fueled by grievances, it is not caused by the West
but, rather, by the very backwardness and ideological rigidity that
they would impose on others.
The second point is this: We should be clear that militant Islam,
though bound together by common ideology, comes in various stripes,
including al-Qaida, responsible for 9/11 and which may have inspired
the recent terror plots in Great Britain; Iran's radical regime, whose
leader promises to ``wipe Israel off the map'' and envisions a ``world
without America,'' and which is speeding toward the development of
nuclear weapons; the Wahabbism of Saudi Arabia, which is funding
radical ideology in mosques and madrassas all over the world, including
here at home; groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which cloaks its
radical ideology in a new veneer of tolerance while its activities
support terrorist groups like Hamas and many others.
But state-sponsored testing of the United States and the West is also
in full force. Iran is testing our resolve in Iraq where it is using
its Revolutionary Guard and its terrorist client, Hezbollah, to train
and arm those who are fighting our soldiers. Iran is testing the
resolve of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan where it is providing
support to al-Qaida. Syria is testing our resolve in Lebanon, where it
is assassinating anti-Syrian officeholders while serving as a conduit
for the weapons that are rearming Hezbollah. Hamas is testing our
resolve in Gaza where it launched a successful coup against the
Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas.
Third, successful American response depends on resolve and support of
the American people. We must understand the nature of our enemy and its
ideology, confronting them head-on, with full confidence in the
rightness of our cause. This is not a matter of moral relativism. We
must not allow ourselves to be gagged by faux political correctness. We
can say that these terrorists were bound together and motivated by a
hateful ideology grounded in their interpretation of Islam without
condemning any other Muslims. We must not embrace groups who tell us
they stand for peace without renouncing violence in the name of Islam.
We must not reward evil with retreat from any of the battlefields where
the fight is raging, including Iraq and Afghanistan. And we must be
willing to support intelligence and enforcement activities, including
incarcerating those who have plotted against or attacked us.
As we celebrate the success of protecting our homeland since 9/11 and
preventing loss of life from the attempted attacks in Great Britain,
let our words and actions prove that we have not forgotten the resolve
that we displayed six years ago today, and let us not fall into the
temptation of blaming ourselves for the actions of those who, inspired
by hatred, have declared war on us. It is not grievances which have
spawned this hatred and these attacks but, rather, the hateful ideology
of militant Islam.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed at this point in the record a
New York Post op-ed by Irshad Manji, dated July 9, 2007.
[[Page S8762]]
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Post, July 8, 2007]
Islam's Problem
(By Irshad Manji)
Last week, two very different Brits had their say about the
latest terrorist plots in their country. Prime Minister
Gordon Brown told the nation that ``we have got to separate
those great moderate members of our community from a few
extremists who wish to practice violence and inflict maximum
loss of life in the interests of a perversion of their
religion.'' By contrast, a former jihadist from Manchester
wrote that the ``real engine of our violence'' is ``Islamic
theology.''
Months ago, this young man informed me that as a militant
he raised most of his war chest not from obscenely rich
Saudis, but from middle-class Muslim dentists living in the
United Kingdom. There's sobering lesson here for the new
prime minister.
So far, those arrested in connection to the car bombs are,
by and large, medical professionals. The seeming paradox of
the privileged seeking to avenge grievance has many champions
of compassion scratching their heads. Aren't Muslim martyrs
supposed to be poor, disenfranchised, and resentful about
both?
We should have been stripped of that breezy simplification
by now. The 9/11 hijackers came from means. Mohamed Atta,
their ringleader, earned an engineering degree. He then moved
to the West, pursuing his post-graduate studies in Germany.
No servile goat-herder, that one.
In 2003, I interviewed Mohammad Al Hindi, the political
leader of Islamic Jihad in Gaza. A physician himself, Dr. Al
Hindi explained the difference between suicide and martyrdom.
``Suicide is done out of despair,'' the good doctor
diagnosed. ``But most of our martyrs today were very
successful in their earthly lives.''
In short, it's not what the material world fails to deliver
that drives suicide bombers. It's something else. And, time
and again, the very people committing these acts have
articulated what that something else is: their religion.
Consider Mohammad Sidique Khan, the teaching assistant who
master minded the July 7, 2005 transit bombings in London.
In a taped testimony, Khan railed against British foreign
policy. But before bringing up Western imperialism, he
emphasized that ``Islam is our religion'' and ``the Prophet
is our role model.'' Khan gave priority to God, not to Iraq.
Now take Mohammed Bouyeri, the Dutch-born Moroccan Muslim
who murdered Amsterdam film director Theo van Gogh. Bouyeri
pumped several bullets into van Gogh's body. Knowing that
multiple shots would finish off his victim, why didn't
Bouyeri stop there? Why did he pull out a blade to decapitate
van Gogh?
Again, we must confront religious symbolism. The blade is
an implement associated with 7th-century tribal conflict.
Wielding it as a sword becomes a tribute to the founding
moment of Islam. Even the note stabbed into van Gogh's
corpse, although written in Dutch, had the unmistakable
rhythms of Arabic poetry .
Let's credit Bouyeri with honesty: At his trial he proudly
acknowledged acting from ``religious conviction.''
Despite integrating Muslims far more adroitly than most of
Europe, North America isn't immune. Last year in Toronto,
police nabbed 17 young Muslim men allegedly plotting to blow
up Canada's parliament buildings and behead the prime
minister. They called their campaign ``Operation Badr,'' a
reference to the Battle of Badr, the first decisive military
triumph achieved by the Prophet Mohammed. Clearly, the
Toronto 17 drew inspiration from religious history.
For people with big hearts and good will, this has to be
uncomfortable to hear. But they can take solace that the law-
and-order types have a hard time with it, too. After rounding
up the Toronto suspects, police held a press conference and
didn't once mention Islam or Muslims. At their second press
conference, police boasted about avoiding those words.
If the guardians of public safety intended their silence to
be a form of sensitivity, they instead accomplished a form of
artistry, airbrushing the role that religion plays in the
violence carried out under its banner.
They're in fine company: Moderate Muslims do the same.
While the vast majority of Muslims aren't extremists, a
more important distinction must start being made--the
distinction between moderate Muslims and reform-minded ones.
Moderate Muslims denounce violence in the name of Islam--but
deny that Islam has anything to do with it.
By their denial, moderates abandon the ground of
theological interpretation to those with malignant
intentions--effectively telling would-be terrorists that they
can get away with abuses of power because mainstream Muslims
won't challenge the fanatics with bold, competing
interpretations.
To do so would be to admit that religion is a factor.
Moderate Muslims can't go there.
Reform-minded Muslims say it's time to admit that Islam's
scripture and history are being exploited. They argue for re-
interpretation precisely to put the would-be terrorists on
notice that their monopoly is over. Re-interpreting doesn't
mean re-writing. It means re-thinking words and practices
that already exist--removing them from a seventh-century
tribal time warp and introducing them to a twenty first-
century pluralistic context.
Un-Islamic? God no. The Koran contains three times as many
verses calling on Muslims to think, analyze, and reflect than
passages that dictate what's absolutely right or wrong. In
that sense, reform minded Muslims are as authentic as
moderates, and quite possibly more constructive.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oregon is
recognized.
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