[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 37 (Monday, March 15, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1416-H1422]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE RULE OF LAW

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. CARTER. Madam Speaker, for the past, about--I don't know--12 to 
18 months, I've been coming on the floor of the House and talking about 
various aspects of the rule of law. The rule of law is the underpinning 
upon which our society is built. We've talked about this over and over. 
We've talked about it in terms of ethical issues that pertain to people 
in this House. We've talked about it in terms of criminal actions. 
We've talked about it in terms of what's going on with our military.
  You heard some speakers here tonight raise some issues concerning how 
we fight wars, rules of engagement. All of these are rules we set for 
ourselves in some form or fashion.
  Well, I've also been on this floor talking about the fact that 
political correctness, in my humble opinion, is becoming so rampant in 
our society that we forget the ``why'' of what we are doing because 
we're so afraid of offending someone.
  I am from central Texas. My district includes the largest military 
facility, as far as soldiers are concerned, on the face of the globe, 
Fort Hood, Texas. I think everybody, those of us from central Texas, we 
know Fort Hood, and when we hear Fort Hood we have a lot of great 
thoughts about the great soldiers out there, we have great thoughts 
about the great commanders that serve at Fort Hood, about the awesome 
accomplishments of the soldiers that have passed through Fort Hood for 
generations, fighting our Nation's battles on every shore you can 
imagine and all over this country, dating back to the Civil War.
  Fort Hood doesn't date back to the Civil War, but Fort Hood is named 
after a Civil War soldier. We are proud of Fort Hood.
  But, unfortunately, because of something that happened this year, 
Fort Hood will also be identified always in the minds of American 
citizens as a place where a terrorist stabbed people in the back by 
walking down the line of soldiers and shooting soldiers just standing 
in line, either checking in from going to war or checking out, getting 
ready to go to war. They were not armed. They were not doing anything 
more than what's required of them by the Army to process into or out of 
the facility.
  And yet, a man who's now--we call him the accused, but over 200 
people witnessed Mr. Hasan go on a shooting rampage, killing soldiers 
who were doing nothing more than standing in line, or processing 
another soldier. These were not people that were at war or were armed 
to defend themselves. Had they been armed to defend themselves, Mr. 
Hasan wouldn't have gotten over more than maybe one shot before he 
would have died, because these were professional soldiers who knew 
exactly how to take care of business.
  But they were not armed. And, in fact, they were in a safe place. 
That's the sad thing. They were in a safe place, a place where they 
should have been safe or where they thought they were safe, and where 
maybe never again they will think that they are safe because of what 
happened that day.

                              {time}  2015

  Now, this was not some terrorist that sneaked into our country. This 
was a man that had joined the United States Army and, through the 
goodness of the American citizen and the American taxpayer, received a 
medical degree with a psychiatric specialty; and all of this was paid 
for by the United States Army. He did his medical school, his 
residency, his post-residency training and his residency for psychiatry 
all

[[Page H1417]]

while working for the U.S. Army and all paid for by the United States 
Government. He was an American citizen.
  And yet homemade jihadism, we're now calling it, and some of that has 
been in the news this week, caused this man to go out and murder 13 
people and one unborn child and wound or injure 43 additional people. 
There's one soldier right now--I won't mention his name but if he's 
watching he'll know who I'm talking about--he's sitting in a hospital 
in South Austin, he was shot multiple times, he's had a plate put in 
his head and it was rejected and he's going to have another plate put 
in his head. When I talked to his father, his father said: Two 
deployments. We prayed and worried our son all the way through two 
deployments. He came out with not a scratch. He's at home where he 
should be safe and this animal killed him; almost killed him. He's 
surviving through his heart being big and being tough and having a 
family and an Army that supports him.
  This young man had been so successful in his last deployment that 
they were sending him to Officer Candidate School. He was not even 
stationed at Fort Hood. He was just transitioning through there to 
Officer Candidate School when he was shot. He still hopes to be an 
officer in the United States Army, and we are very hopeful that he will 
be, but he's a seriously wounded soldier. But he's going to make it and 
hopefully he'll get back in the Army that he loves.
  And this is this domestic terrorist who decided he would take it upon 
himself to start a fight, right there at Fort Hood. Not a real fight, a 
one-sided fight, where he was the only guy with a gun. He had two of 
them. And he got to selectively shoot who he wanted to shoot, and he 
shot men and women in uniform. I don't know about you, but I think this 
was just another theater of war, a war that we've been fighting in Iraq 
and a war that we've been fighting in Afghanistan, against these 
terrorists who indiscriminately think that they have the right to kill 
in the name of whatever cause they call it. Some would say they are 
religious fanatics. Others would say they are jihadists and they have 
some kind of fanatical following. Whatever it may be. This is who we've 
been at war with now for 10 or 12 years.
  And as we were told when it all started, it's going to be a long 
fight, maybe the longest in the history of the Republic. And it's 
approaching that now. I think these kids, these young men and women, 
were killed on the battlefield of Fort Hood, and that's why I've 
introduced a piece of legislation to have them get the kind of benefits 
of people who get killed in combat or wounded in combat get, and that 
is that if there are medals to be awarded, they should get a medal; if 
they are wounded, they should get a Purple Heart.
  I've already heard a story of a sergeant who was there with several 
of his troops. The sergeant was shot four times and as the man lowered 
the pistol to fire the fifth time, one of his enlisted men, thinking he 
couldn't take anymore, jumped in between the shooter and the sergeant 
to protect his sergeant and took the three other rounds that were 
fired. Had that taken place on the battlefield, I'm sure that would be 
something that would be heroism in the line of fire, and I think that 
young man should be awarded something like the Bronze Star, the Silver 
Star, something like that. I don't know. I'm not saying what medal, but 
he ought to get a medal for it. And if there are families from this 
combat experience who either lost a loved one or were injured from this 
battle at Fort Hood, I think they ought to get the extended combat 
benefits that we give to our soldiers when we send them into harm's way 
on a battlefield. And I think the American people, if they heard about 
that, would think, sure they ought to get that; that this was just 
another battle.
  Because, remember, the testimony will be when this trial comes out, 
because I've talked to a lot of these soldiers that were there, that he 
was shooting soldiers. If he hit any civilians, it's just because he 
missed. But he was walking down the line shooting soldiers. He was 
declaring war on the American soldier.
  I wanted to talk tonight about Fort Hood and what's going on there, 
the fact that we've got a report out that doesn't even mention radical 
jihadists or mention even the name of the shooter, and I'm afraid it 
was done because somebody was afraid they were going to step on 
somebody's toes. I've had some tell me they did it because they wanted 
to protect the prosecution of this man. Being a judge who tried cases 
in his courtroom for 20 years, including, I believe, five or six 
capital murder cases, I can assure you that if you can't prove a case 
with 200 eyewitnesses, you've got a serious problem with your lawyers. 
So I don't hesitate to say what I think about this thing because I 
think it was wrong for them not to report accurately who the person was 
and what he did.
  I am joined by a good friend of mine who is a former Federal 
prosecutor, Mike McCaul. He's my friend, my colleague from Texas, my 
neighbor, right down the road. I'm glad he's come to join us, and I 
will yield to my friend from Texas whatever time he wishes to consume.
  Mr. McCAUL. I thank the gentleman from Texas and your hosting this 
leadership hour and your great leadership on this issue. You and I see 
this the same way. You were a judge. I was a Federal prosecutor. We 
respect the rule of law, but we respect the truth. We call it like it 
is. We call it like we see it. That's what Texans do. And the way I see 
it is this matter has been swept under the rug; we're not calling it 
what it is.
  You and I, I think, were some of the first two Members of Congress to 
stand up and say, you know what, that was an act of terrorism that 
occurred the other day at Fort Hood. That was an act of a terrorist. 
Not some criminal defendant. This was an act of terrorism. You stood 
up, in representing Fort Hood in your usual way, and said that's what 
it was and I stood up and said the same. And it took months before the 
Secretary of Homeland Security came before our committee and finally 
acknowledged what we had said all along and that this was truly an act 
of terrorism.

  I want to congratulate you for your bill, which essentially 
acknowledges it for what it was, and that was an act of war on U.S. 
soil, combat, recognizing the victims and their families, giving them 
the combat pay that they deserve. You and I were at the ceremony, the 
memorial service, one of the most dramatic memorial services I think 
I've ever attended. I know the gentleman feels the same way.
  I just wanted to hold up a picture of that tragic day, where we had 
13 pairs of combat boots, 13 rifles with 13 helmets honoring the dead 
and, of course, one unborn child; 43 injured, two of those injured 
standing next to me in this photograph. I asked them the question, 
because they are the best evidence, what happened that day? They were 
shot by him. What did he say to you? And these two said: Congressman, 
he said ``Allahu Akbar.'' He screamed ``Allahu Akbar'' as he gunned 
down my colleagues in cold blood, as he wounded 43 soldiers on the 
base, the largest military installation in the country.
  And who is this man? I met with General Cone at the ceremony and I 
said, Would you have liked to have known that a major on your base was 
making communications with the top al Qaeda operative?
  Sure I would have.
  What happened that day? The Joint Terrorism Task Force who I used to 
work with when I was a prosecutor had that evidence; a Department of 
Defense representative on the JTTF had that evidence; but for a variety 
of reasons--and I've questioned witnesses on this--did not want to 
share that with the commander of Fort Hood; for a variety of reasons. 
But for God's sake at least let the commanding officer know that he's 
got a major--this is not some ordinary event--a major on his base 
talking to an al Qaeda operative in Yemen, a man who it has come to our 
attention in a big way recently with the Christmas bomber, the same 
radical cleric who talked to the Christmas bomber.
  But who is Mr. Hasan? And thank God he's a terrorist that is going to 
face a military tribunal. Well, he was born of Jordanian immigrants. 
Each of these, as the case unfolded, if you will, raised a flag as to 
who is this man. We talk a lot about connecting the dots, but these 
were dots that popped up that were failed to be acted upon. Why weren't 
these dots acted upon?
  A man who said his allegiance was to the Koran, not the Constitution.

[[Page H1418]]

  A man who described the war on terrorism as a war against Islam, 
according to a doctor who was in a graduate program with him.
  A man who argued that Muslims are being targeted by U.S. anti-terror 
campaigns. A former classmate said of Mr. Hasan, he was very vocal 
about the war; very up-front about being a Muslim first and an American 
second.
  And if that's politically incorrect for me to say that, all I'm 
saying here in this Chamber is the truth. You take it for what it is.
  He was also concerned that Muslims in the military were being 
persecuted. On his business cards--this is all the evidence of this 
man--his business card said Soldier of Allah. We know that the morning 
of the shooting he wore traditional Pakistani garb at the 7-Eleven that 
morning. He was known to wear that off-duty. Certainly there are 
religious protections in this country for that.
  But all these flags put together shows us an individual who was 
presenting a threat to the soldiers. We know al Qaeda has targeted 
military installations. We know they targeted Fort Dix. The question 
that General Cone asked me was, We just don't know how many more Hasans 
are out there. How many more Hasans are out there who are a direct 
threat to our military installations? The cleric in Yemen basically 
said that Hasan trusted him and praised him as a hero after the 
shooting. ``God is great,'' that's what he screamed when he shot those 
men in cold blood. I can't think of anything more sickening to my heart 
as a God-fearing man, a Christian, or anybody who believes in God, to 
believe in a God where you could say, ``God is great'' as you're 
killing somebody. That's a perverted, twisted religion. That is what we 
are dealing with.
  I have asked the Homeland Security Committee through letters. I am 
ranking on the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee. I asked 
Chairwoman Jane Harman to hold hearings on this. We asked Bennie 
Thompson, the majority chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, to 
hold hearings on this matter, because the American people are entitled 
to know what happened that day. And yet we got a report, a report that 
really didn't say a whole lot, a report that was so politically 
correct, it didn't even mention radical Islam. Well, in my view, that's 
what this war is all about that we're in right now, is a war against 
the extremists, against a radical, perverted teaching of Islam that 
says it's okay to kill in the name of Allah. The day we recognize that 
in this country, I think is the day we're going to be a lot safer.
  I have a lot more to say, but I know the gentleman probably has some 
comments, but I do want to thank you for being one of the first ones to 
step out of the box and say this was an act of terrorism. I'm glad that 
Napolitano has come around to that same conclusion. And I want to thank 
you also for your steadfast support for our troops. You represent a 
base that has more soldiers than any in the world, and I know how proud 
you are of them and how well you represent them, and I want to 
personally thank you for that.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. CARTER. I thank my friend, Mr. McCaul, for those kind words. And 
let's look at this exhibit we have got here. Congressman McCaul, you 
have touched on a lot of these things. But you know, it was said by Mr. 
Nidal Hasan that he felt that he was being persecuted by people. And I 
have an old Gulf War colonel who said, You know, the Army must have 
changed a whole lot since I left the Army, because I never did know any 
enlisted men that would persecute a major in the United States Army. It 
makes to sense what he says, that enlisted men were persecuting a 
major. It makes no sense.
  But the first question you need to ask yourself is how does a man who 
has shown the signs of radical Islamic behavior on multiple occasions, 
who has acted erratically for months before the attack and, I would 
argue and the evidence will show, actually for years before the 
attack--in fact, one of our Members of this House has talked to a 
doctor who went through medical school with him and said he was doing 
this in medical school, which is long before this period of time. And 
he promoted radical Islamic views at Walter Reed Hospital. He exchanged 
emails with this al-Aulaqi character, this radical imam character. How 
does a guy do those things and get promoted to major? He didn't start 
out in the Army as a major. He got promoted to major. He got moved down 
the line.
  Well, I am going to tell you. And this is only my opinion, but it is 
based upon some experience I have had in my life. I tried a case one 
time back in the eighties that involved a nurse. And in our case she 
was accused of killing a baby while giving it its injections for 
typhoid-tetanus at a doctor's office and intentionally killing that 
baby. And there was an awful lot of evidence that while working in an 
intensive care neonatal unit in San Antonio, a lot of other babies died 
very mysteriously on her watch. And unless I am mistaken, she got life 
imprisonment and she is still there.
  But what is interesting is the system she was working in, when they 
started seeing unusual behavior, rather than doing something about it 
for fear of offending someone, they just recommended her for another 
job. And this pediatrician who was operating in Kerrville had asked 
whether this nurse would be a good nurse to go to work for them. And 
she got glowing reports from people who were looking at records and 
saying something is wrong when this lady is on duty.
  You ask why would people do that? Well, because people have gotten to 
where we are so afraid of stepping on somebody's toes or offending 
someone because of their class, sexual classification, whatever it may 
be, that we don't just speak the truth. Something smells here. 
Something's bad. This doesn't make sense. We need to ask questions 
about this. We can't have a society like this. We have to be able, when 
we see something that looks wrong, to say that is wrong.
  That is why I have got a bill that I introduced and will be working 
on it even further, the Military Whistleblower Protection Act. We have 
whistleblower protection which is very effective in the United States 
in many categories. And one of the things that happens in the military 
is your progress report; how you are doing in your job in the military 
is very important to whether you are going to be promoted to the next 
rank. And if you don't get promoted in the military, your days in the 
military are numbered. So you need to be promoted.
  Many people fear to speak out in something like this for fear that 
someone might think they are exhibiting some sort of prejudice or 
prejudicial behavior which would go on their record and maybe prevent 
them from being advanced in the military even though everything else 
says they should be advanced. So they fear speaking out for fear of 
retribution. And they have made movies about whistleblowers. People 
know that in our society today the guy that steps up and says something 
and gets fired because he said it has a protection under the law called 
the whistleblower act. So I have asked us to look at granting to the 
Members of Congress the right to create a whistleblower act and doing 
it to protect our soldiers.
  So we have got a whistleblower act that basically says that 
servicemembers can report unusual, bizarre behavior by other members, 
whether they be equal rank or other rank, without fear of retribution, 
and especially as it relates to radical Islamic threats, as we saw in 
this case.
  Mr. McCaul mentioned one of the things that we need somebody in the 
Department of Defense to say is that this involved a radical Islamic 
terrorist event. I have had my differences with Ms. Napolitano, but I 
will give her credit: when she was asked both in Mr. McCaul's committee 
and in the Appropriations Subcommittee of Homeland Security, she made 
the statement that this was a violent Islamic terrorist act that took 
place at Fort Hood. She had the courage to call it what it is.
  It is time for the Defense Department to call it what it is, to 
recognize these were men and women put in harm's way because they were 
serving in the United States Army in the presence of an enemy combatant 
with a gun. And that is why they should get the kind of benefits, 
including medals that should be awarded for heroism, if they deserve 
them and they earned them. So I commend Secretary Napolitano for being 
a person who speaks the truth.
  Mr. McCAUL. If the gentleman would yield.

[[Page H1419]]

  Mr. CARTER. Yes, I will yield.
  Mr. McCAUL. It was refreshing to see that. And I don't always agree 
with her either, but she had the courage to call it like it is, like 
you and I called it for quite some time. The sad thing is there are 13 
dead, one unborn, and 43 wounded because people didn't have the guts to 
stand up and call it what it was. You know, the day that happened it 
seemed to me there was a systematic process of trying to--like you 
said, I was a prosecutor too. If you can't win this case, you know, you 
need to get out of the business. The sweeping under the rug and not 
wanting to hold hearings on this issue and not willing to brief us.
  We finally got a briefing on this just a couple of weeks ago for the 
first time. And you saw the impact this administration was trying to 
have on this whole thing that no, this wasn't--you know, we can't 
really call it what it is because we don't want to offend anybody. 
Well, that is the same type of attitude that led to this monster 
killing 13 people to begin with.

  It was when all these red flags popped up and these dots, if you 
will, when they popped up, no one had the guts to act on it. And they 
want to sweep it under the rug, and they swept his promotion. They 
promoted him, even though all this was out there, swept it under the 
rug. And now even after the tragic events that happened that day, there 
is an attempt, in my view, to try to sweep all this under the rug and 
trying to move forward.
  You know, this is one example of many things that have happened this 
past year. I always said that they like to attack a President in the 
first year of office, al Qaeda. They did it with Bill Clinton, '93 
World Trade Center. They did it with George W. Bush with 9/11. And I 
predicted that this was going to happen under this President's watch 
this year. And not only did this happen, but we had the same radical 
cleric tied to the Christmas bomber. Fortunately, Mr. Hasan will face a 
military tribunal. The Christmas bomber, on the other hand, will not.
  We had several events over the last year of threats to the United 
States and multiple attempted terrorist attacks on the United States of 
America. And I think it is high time we recognize it and see it for 
what it is to better protect the American people and our military bases 
that we know are being targeted right now. The idea that the Joint 
Terrorism Task Force and, again, these are friends of mine, that they 
had this information and they didn't--I understand compromising 
investigations. But you could at least let the general at the base know 
that he has an individual, a major, in his outfit talking to a top al 
Qaeda recruiter, and you may just want to put him under observation. 
You don't have to question him, you don't have to dig into his files, 
you don't have to put him on alert that we are looking at him; but you 
may want to kind of just monitor his actions because there is some 
radical stuff going on, and potentially he could be a threat.
  This man did not believe in the mission. The irony of Mr. Hasan is he 
was the man trained and paid for by the taxpayer in the United States 
Army to counsel people coming back from the theater of war, and he 
didn't believe in the mission. I can only imagine what kind of 
counseling he was giving to these troops coming back from the war 
theaters that you and I have been to in Iraq and Afghanistan and what 
he was telling them when he himself didn't believe in the mission they 
were sent to do. That is the absurd irony of Mr. Hasan.
  And, again, as General Cone asked, how many more Hasans are out 
there? I think we have a duty in the Congress. I think the Department 
of Defense has a duty. I hope the Webster report will uncover more of 
this. But we have a duty to better protect our soldiers not only 
abroad, but right here in the United States. And that is the great, 
awful tragic event of what happened was that it happened on American 
soil and it happened in their home. That is just not supposed to occur 
in this country.
  It needs to be taken seriously. It shouldn't be swept under the rug. 
And I think we should continue to do this and continue to ask the 
majority to hold hearings on this. And you know, as Secretary 
Napolitano admitted, it was a violent Islamic terrorist attack. I think 
the Department of Defense needs to come forward with that as well, and 
I think we have an obligation to the American people not to sweep this 
under the rug, to prevent future actions from occurring. Our oversight 
responsibilities under the Constitution I take very seriously, and we 
have a duty here in the Congress to hold those hearings and get to the 
bottom of this case so we can stop it in the future.
  I went down to Guantanamo after the President decided to close it 
down, and I saw Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. And it was during prayer hour. 
And he was laying on his rug, bowing to Mecca. And it was one of the 
most chilling things I have ever seen in my life. A man responsible for 
killing 3,000 Americans, and the idea that we are going to bring him 
into the United States. And look, I am a Federal prosecutor. The 
Southern District of New York is one of the best U.S. Attorney's 
offices in the country. But are we going to treat these people as 
criminal defendants or enemy combatants? Are we going to say that this 
is a war or a criminal prosecution?
  It seems to me that we are slipping back into the Clinton years, 
where we really looked at these as really just illegal criminal 
prosecution, not an act of warfare perpetrated against the United 
States of America. It seems to me, particularly with the top 16 al 
Qaeda operatives, many of whom were responsible for 9/11, that was an 
act of warfare, and it should be treated as such.

                              {time}  2045

  Mr. CARTER. This exhibit right here has a picture actually of the 
Pentagon right after it was hit. We have this displayed here because in 
talking about the receiving of medals by our soldiers at Fort Hood and 
getting the kind of benefits that you get from being in combat, we 
awarded the people killed and injured by the plane that flew into the 
Pentagon with exactly those benefits. And I am told by members of the 
Armed Services Committee that it was done without an act of Congress; 
although, I will ask for this Congress to act.
  I have also written a letter to Secretary Gates asking him for the 
same administrative remedy for these casualties of the war on terror on 
American soil. We gave it to them. It was a horrendous act. That 
picture, and other pictures from that time, should be cemented in our 
memory forever. Whether you kill 3,000 or whether you kill 14 and 
injure 43, these are still American people who lost their lives at the 
hands of terrorists in the middle of the war on terror, a war on 
radical Islamic jihadism. It's time for us to step up to the plate for 
these people and do this for them.
  Mr. McCAUL. If the gentleman would yield, I was proud to be a 
cosponsor of your bill. I hope we see it pass in short order.
  I agree with you. That was an attack on American soil by the 
terrorists. According to the Secretary of Homeland Security, so was 
Fort Hood, and American soldiers were killed. So how can we 
differentiate between the Pentagon and Fort Hood? Both are symbols of 
military might and power in the United States. I think it is fitting to 
the families. I would hope the majority would see it the same way, that 
this was an act of terror perpetrated on American soldiers and on a 
symbol of military might and power, and give them the just compensation 
that they gave the victims of 9/11 and the Pentagon.
  I can think of no reason why that legislation should be blocked by 
the majority.
  Mr. CARTER. Let me state that many Members of both sides of the aisle 
have joined in cosponsoring this bill. I think when we get through some 
of this other business that is taking forever around here we might get 
down to something like this. I agree with you. This was supposed to be 
an oversight Congress, and I think in many ways, there is a valid 
attempt to try to be an oversight Congress.
  Nothing is more important for oversight than an issue like this, and 
that is, just what happened and how it happened. And you say, Well, 
okay, people were killed. It has got bigger ramifications than that. 
That is what is so hard to understand. This was a man wearing the same 
uniform of the people he shot.
  I want to share a story, and I have shared it before on the floor of 
the House. The day after all this took

[[Page H1420]]

place, I was at Fort Hood. I was out at Darnall Hospital where there 
were wounded out there who had been transported both there and all over 
our district. Our community, from all the way down into Williamson 
County, Bell County, and Coryell County, the whole surrounding area 
just united behind the medical community, behind this terrible act and 
gave the very best medical care available anywhere for these people.
  I was talking to a nurse, and she said when she was deployed to 
Afghanistan, she worked in a hospital with Australians. And she got an 
email from an Australian nurse the morning I visited Fort Hood, which 
was the day after the shooting, and in that email the lady said, you 
know, Soldiers in the Australian army are starting to question and 
asking this question of mental health professionals in our army already 
today: If the Americans can't trust the people in their uniform, can we 
trust the people in our uniform?
  Now, remember, if you're in the military and you're a soldier, we 
like to say we depend on each other in this place. But when they say 
they depend on each other, they mean they put their life in the hands 
of the man behind them and the man on either side of them and the man 
in front of them, and they in turn have those people's lives in their 
hands. The military functions by knowing that each can do their job and 
trusting the other one to do it.
  And so there is something that strikes in the psyche of a soldier 
when a fellow soldier publicly executes 13 people and ultimately 
results in the death of an unborn child, 14 deaths, wearing the same 
uniform as the people who were shot, and so it strikes to the soul of a 
soldier. We are doing our very best and I would say doing a good job of 
overcoming that. These are awfully, awfully talented young men and 
women in the army, but it's still there. It's still creating distrust, 
driving a wedge in our military, and, arguably, it's as effective a 
strike as you can have if you cause folks to distrust. So this has big 
scope. In truth of fact, what will we think if somebody we trusted to 
have our backs started shooting people in this place? We would wonder 
who we could trust.
  Mr. McCAUL. I agree. I think this is, in some ways, worse than 9/11 
because, there, the enemy was foreign, radical Islamic terrorists. In 
this case, these soldiers are saluting their colleagues who lost their 
lives, who were killed by a major in the U.S. Army who was wearing the 
very same military uniform that they are. And the idea that he could 
betray his soldiers like this, and not only betray, but kill them, 
that's what I think makes it so very, very hard to accept.
  Aulaqi, the Yemeni cleric, said that Hasan trusted him. The radical 
cleric said that Hasan trusted him. Unfortunately, the Army trusted Mr. 
Hasan and promoted him through the ranks. Because of political 
correctness, he was never called out for his behavior, which we know 
was a problem. We know the flags were raised. I'm not making this stuff 
up. He had business cards that said ``soldier of Allah,'' the jihadist 
line he used when he killed them in cold blood, talking about the war 
on terrorism is a war against Islam. It just makes you wonder how could 
we have promoted someone in the United States Army and the United 
States military with these types of flags going up? He said his 
allegiance was to the Koran and not the Constitution.
  Judge, you are absolutely right. The morale, which is so important in 
a time of war that we are in, is critical here. And if we can't act 
upon cases like this in the United States Army in the United States out 
of fear that we won't be politically correct and we may hurt someone's 
feelings, where have we gone in this country? We can't call it out like 
it is and say it for what it is, that this man did not love his 
country, that he had more loyalty to radical Islam, and that is 
precisely why he killed those 13 soldiers that day.
  Mr. CARTER. I will make another argument besides that, and then I'm 
going to let my good friend Mr. King from Iowa talk a little bit.
  I would also argue that the way this thing has been treated, I would 
say with kid gloves, makes the next homegrown terrorist, of which we 
have seen, what, two or three in the last 2 weeks up here, Jihad Jane 
and I think there is another one now, Jihad Jenny or somebody, these 
women who are American citizens who are now promoting jihadist 
terrorism, and the underwear bomber on Christmas Day. So these people, 
I think, by looking at the soft kid gloves activity of a murderer on a 
military base, I think it encourages them to get involved in this 
stuff. If they have got a screw loose, which most of these people do, I 
think it just encourages them.
  Mr. McCAUL. I point to the same radical cleric who praised Mr. 
Hasan's actions and called him a hero is the same radical cleric who is 
behind the Christmas bomber. This is no coincidence here. It is 
connecting back to a radical al Qaeda operative out of Yemen. Why in 
the world General Cone didn't know about this, a major on his base, is 
really beyond me. And that's what we have got to fix looking forward 
with the JTTFs and with the Department of Defense.
  We have talked to them about the Christmas bomber. But how many 
Christmas bombers are out there? How many more people is the radical 
cleric Aulaqi influencing? Jihad Jane and others, they all go to these 
Web sites. And not only do we have to deal with the al Qaeda operatives 
overseas, but this kind of act inspires them, and the fact that we 
could have let this happen inspires them. And then how many more 
radical homegrown terrorists are potentially out there in the United 
States?
  We know that the radical cleric has now said just one man, one 
incident. They are decentralizing. They are saying one man can carry 
out, take a gun, take an explosive device. That is in a very radical 
departure from how al Qaeda had worked in the past, and it is coming 
from the same individual who is tied to Mr. Hasan and the Christmas 
bomber, and we better wake up to that.
  Mr. CARTER. Let me say as a comment that I have huge respect for 
General Cone and the outstanding job he did with the situation that 
happened at Fort Hood. And this is the same man who was preparing to 
deploy three corps to Afghanistan to start the very serious business of 
pulling American soldiers out of that combat zone. With that on his 
plate, this fellow in his lap, I think he did an outstanding job of 
handling it. And by the way, he still, on time, deployed the third 
corps to Iraq, and he is right now, today, over there doing our bidding 
and our job of pulling down, making elections work, and pulling down 
the forces for the taking out of 50,000-plus soldiers in August. He is 
a great American and an outstanding soldier.
  I want to yield to Mr. King from Iowa however much time he wants to 
take to talk about these issues of radical Islamic jihadism and not 
letting political correctness silence our mouths.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the Judge from Texas for yielding and my 
friend from Texas for being here to lead on this Special Order tonight, 
and you especially felt it more than anyone else outside of Texas, the 
pain of the 14 that were murdered by Major Hasan. And the question 
arises that we need to face, and it is something we talked around a 
little bit here, and I don't believe we talked about it directly, and 
that is the issue of profiling. What is it about people that makes us 
think we should be a little more suspicious of them than somebody else?
  I grew up in a law enforcement family, and a couple of things never 
occurred to the law enforcement extended family that I grew up in. One 
of them was to ignore the law or the rule of law, and another one would 
be to ignore the very evidence in front of your eyes. The good thing 
about police work and investigation is you see things that are out of 
order, you notice those, turn your focus on that and wonder why it is 
out of order. And the instincts and the training, which is profiling to 
one fashion or another, causes the law enforcement resources to be used 
in a far more effective fashion, and time after time, crimes are solved 
because there have been police officers that understood the anomalies 
in the people.
  I'm opposed to using law enforcement to go out and target people 
because of race, religion, or ethnicity. But when it's before your very 
eyes, and when you see people going in and out of the airports and who 
has been blowing up our planes and who has been hijacking us, that is 
young Muslim men. And so

[[Page H1421]]

I would suggest that, instead of spread-eagle searching the 80-year-old 
Norwegian grandmother with blues eyes and white hair, we ought to turn 
our focus in a higher percentage on the people that fit the profile of 
the kind that are likely to bomb us.

  Now, it's unfortunate that there are a lot of innocent people that 
would fit that profile, but it's far more unfortunate if we waste our 
resources searching people that have no history and then their profile 
doesn't fit anyone that would be bombing an airline. And that is just 
simple common sense, and it is good police work. But we are so 
politically correct in this country, we wallow in self-guilt in 
America. We go back and look at ourselves and figure out, somebody once 
pointed the finger and said, Well, you're bigoted and racist, so, 
therefore, we have to bend over backwards to demonstrate we will do all 
kinds of foolish expenditures of our taxpayer dollars to avoid anybody 
being able to point statistically to the focus of resources where the 
resources should be focused.
  And I don't suggest, Madam Speaker, that we ought to simply profile 
and put all of our efforts into one particular profile; I just suggest 
that we score them according to a weight system and turn our focus on 
those in proportion to the degree of the score. That makes sense. And I 
would assume that that would have been the thing we would have done 
after September 11, but in reality, no. We are a nation with self-
guilt.

                              {time}  2100

  Another component of this would be Major Hasan. The question that 
came out was, whatever happened that he got radicalized? We use the 
term ``got radicalized'' as if it somehow is not their fault; we 
allowed an environment or nurtured an environment. Every individual 
that attacks people and kills them is responsible for their own 
actions. And if the radicalization does take place, it is by their will 
and by the will of people like Awlaki.
  We are also so politically correct that we won't go in and listen to 
the radicalization taking place. We won't tape the sermons in the 
mosque. We simply wait for something bad to happen and, therefore, 
nobody can point their finger to us and accuse us of being politically 
incorrect. Of course, they point their finger at me every day as 
politically incorrect, Madam Speaker.
  I think this Nation needs to utilize their resources, utilize them 
wisely, and do so in a fashion that is clearly for the purposes of 
enforcing the law and protecting the safety of the American people.
  We should look into the psychology of the Army--and I have an Army 
tie on today, you might notice--that they need to also understand that 
they have the ability to speak up and keep an eye out for the kind of 
people that would come and kill us, the people that believe their path 
to salvation is in killing Jews, Christians, and capitalists, in that 
order. And if they can get a twofer, they are happy. They believe that 
is the eternal bliss for them if they can get that done. I say there is 
a place for them in the next life, and it is not where they think.
  I yield back to the judge from Texas, and thank him for indulging me.
  Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentleman for his comments.
  I think the most important thing we ought to do as Americans is be 
willing to stand up for what is right. And if it means that someone 
might get their feelings hurt, I don't have a problem with that.
  I am not for dragnets. I am not for going out and shaking up 
communities like used to happen in the olden days, older than me 
anyway. In fact, there used to be a television show called ``Dragnet'' 
and a radio show called ``Dragnet.'' Those are wrong, and we aren't 
talking about that. But we are talking about using good intelligence. 
And if we are going to kill our intelligence and not look at things 
because we are afraid we are going to hurt somebody's feelings, then we 
are going to get hit again. And if we get hit again, we are going to be 
standing around still asking the same questions we are asking here 
tonight: Why? What happened? Why did this happen? Why didn't we know? 
As my friend Mr. McCaul had been saying, we had the information to ask 
the question. Somebody should have asked it. That is the key.
  Mr. McCAUL. If the gentleman would yield. We had the information in 
both the Hasan case and the Christmas bomber. I made all the points 
about the Hasan case, all the flags that popped up, a failure to act 
upon those red flags.
  Indeed, in the Christmas bomber case you had a State Department cable 
coming out that warned the father had come in warning that his son was 
in touch with Islamic extremists in Yemen. Yet, when I asked the Under 
Secretary of the State Department, Mr. Kennedy, in God's name when he 
found that out, why didn't he revoke his visa, his response was, You 
know, a lot of people come into embassies and a lot of people give us 
tips, and they are not all credible. And I said, Well, this was not 
some anonymous source coming in, it was his father.
  Meanwhile, in the intelligence community there is specific threat 
information coming in about this individual. The State Department has 
got the cable, the intelligence community has got the threat 
information. It is not put together. Both sides could have acted on it. 
The intelligence community could have asked the State Department, Does 
this guy have a passport? Does he have a visa? Can we revoke that? And 
the same with the State Department. Yet, that doesn't happen.
  We need to move forward to make sure the Christmas bomber never 
happens again, and to make sure, with all the evidence coming in with 
Mr. Hasan, to make sure that with individuals like this the evidence 
isn't swept under the rug out of political correctness.
  Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time. Mr. King made the comment about crazy 
conservatives, so let's look at some crazy conservatives that made the 
same statements we are asking.
  I wouldn't classify Time magazine as one of the great conservative 
magazines of the 21st century, but here is an article from Time 
magazine asking the same question: ``The Fort Hood Report: Why No 
Mention of Islam?''
  Here is another, I would say, not very conservative organization, The 
San Francisco Chronicle, asking the same question: ``Political 
Correctness on Fort Hood at Pentagon''
  I think that you cross all boundaries here when you start getting 
down to the logical things we ought to be doing to fight people trying 
to kill us. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to say, Daddy says he is 
crazy, and he may do something crazy. And when you get reports that 
this guy is out there talking to this guy over in Yemen, these things 
start to fit together. Maybe you ought to check him when he hits the 
airport or before he takes off from either Brussels or Amsterdam. 
Fortunately, he had a misfire and it didn't work. But he could have 
killed all the people on the airplane, hurt a whole lot of people on 
the ground in Detroit. Detroit has enough problems right now without 
having somebody blowing up an airplane over their city, and God bless 
them.
  Mr. McCAUL. If the gentleman will yield. It was preventable. There is 
a lot of information coming in, and we have a lot of good men and women 
working counterterrorism. They have got a tough job. There is a lot of 
information coming in. But we had these two major focal points that 
just were never acted upon and never put together in the Christmas 
bomber case. And Mr. Hasan, my God, how many points of error popping up 
on him? How many red flags are popping up?
  And why weren't they acted upon? I think it goes back to your 
original point: We didn't want to hurt someone's feelings.

  And do you know what? We see this in the Federal Government. They 
would rather just kind of promote and move on somebody rather than have 
to deal with the problem. Gee, we have someone who is making these 
radical statements, but I would rather not deal with the problem. Let's 
just push them along in the system. Let's transfer him from Walter 
Reed, where he was a major problem--we know that, poor performance 
evaluations--to one of the largest military installations in the 
country, and let's promote him to major in spite of the fact all these 
points of evidence were out on him. I think that is the real tragedy.
  I know my good friend from Texas has probably one of the most 
difficult

[[Page H1422]]

jobs out of any Member in this body, and that is because you have more 
soldiers in your district than any other, and you are the one who has 
to comfort them, as we all do, but you, many more times than any other 
Member, have to comfort the loved ones whose son or daughter has been 
killed in a time of war. I know you personally have comforted the 
families of the victims here and Fort Hood, and the biggest tragedy is 
that it could have been prevented.
  With that, I yield back.
  Mr. CARTER. We are about to run out of time for this evening. Once 
again, we are talking about the rules we make for ourselves and how we 
should apply them. I think it is honestly said here that let's don't be 
so politically correct that we oversee ills that may fall upon our 
society. That is why we make rules. That is why we have laws and order 
in our society, so we can protect our citizens, whether they be 
civilian or in the military.
  It has been a great evening, and I thank my friends Mr. McCaul and 
Mr. King for being here to join me in this conversation. I am going to 
thank the House for allowing me to continue to talk about issues that 
relate to rules or to the law.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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