[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 162 (Wednesday, October 26, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H7129-H7132]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      AMERICA'S RELIGIOUS HERITAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 30 minutes.

[[Page H7130]]

  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend, the gentleman from 
Illinois. He knows something about struggling for civil rights, and 
he's done a great deal for civil rights, and I respect that very much.
  As a Christian, it's okay to talk about our religious beliefs as long 
as we don't ram it down somebody else's throat trying to force them to 
believe as we do, but the First Amendment allows our right to discuss 
that.
  I'm very grateful for Abraham Lincoln, and as I was just talking with 
some constituents down in Statuary Hall about John Quincy Adams 
believing he was called to try to end slavery in the United States 
after he was defeated in 1828 for a second term, so he did the 
unthinkable after being President: he ran for the House of 
Representatives.
  And some thought it was extremely strange, and as I told my 
constituents, my friends, it was reputed that when someone asked him 
about that, he said he was prouder of being elected to the House of 
Representatives after being President than he was after being elected 
President, which seems strange to some of us until you realize that it 
means after he was President his neighbors still liked him. That's a 
big deal because most Presidents don't end up going back to their 
earliest hometown; they go somewhere else. John Quincy Adams got 
elected nine times, preached sermons over and over down the hall about 
the evils of slavery.
  We really couldn't expect God to keep blessing America while we were 
treating our brothers and sisters by putting them in chains and 
bondage. Seventeen years he fought that fight, believing he was called 
to bring an end to slavery.
  His last year there, there was a young, tall man from Illinois who 
had been elected to Congress one time, most people don't know that he 
was ever elected anything but President, but Abraham Lincoln was 
elected.

                              {time}  1950

  John Quincy Adams liked him and took him under his wing. It was 
reported that after Lincoln was defeated after just 2 short years, went 
back to practicing law, made some money working doing some legal work 
for the railroads and other things, after the compromise of 1850, he 
knew he couldn't allow slavery, as even more States were coming in with 
slavery, and he got back involved and fought the battle. He didn't get 
elected to the Senate. In 1860, he got elected President.
  It was reported that someone asked him if there was anything 
memorable that happened in his 2 brief years in the House of 
Representatives, and he replied not other than those powerful sermons 
John Quincy Adams used to preach on the evils of slavery. He knew it 
was wrong, but it just etched it on his soul. He had to do something. 
John Quincy Adams died in 1848 not achieving what he was originally 
called to do--end slavery.
  But a man who believed in God, who read the Bible constantly, whose 
Second Inaugural Address is etched in marble on the north inside wall 
of the Lincoln Memorial, one of the greatest theological dissertations 
on how, if there's a just God, there could be something as horrible as 
a Civil War, brothers killing brothers. As he said, they all read from 
the same Bible, pray to the same God. The prayers of both can now be 
answered; the prayers of neither were fully answered.
  But as Lincoln came to realize, if it is that God chooses to have 
every drop of blood that was drawn by the master's lash be equal with 
blood from the sword, then as he said, we still must conclude what was 
concluded 3,000 years ago from the Old Testament: ``The judgments of 
the Lord are just and righteous altogether.''
  Powerful theology of a very difficult subject, but those beliefs 
drove him to give his life for others.
  Downstairs, I just saw the statue of Father Damien, a Catholic priest 
in the Hawaiian Islands who knew that going to the island where the 
lepers were, where they had no basic life, that eventually he would get 
leprosy and he would die from it, but he knew that he had a calling, 
that God called him to minister to those lepers so they could have a 
life, they could have a society, a place to worship, a priest to come 
to for ministering and consolation and direction.
  So it is entirely appropriate that despite the existence of the ACLU 
wanting to tear down so much of what the Founders did and the great 
things that are emblazoned in the soul of this country, the statue, the 
plaque starts with John 15:13: ``Greater love hath no one than this, 
that a man lay down his life for his friends.''
  Basically, Abraham Lincoln did that. But there was not full equality 
in this country. That was clear.
  Bobby Rush can talk about that authoritatively; I really can't. He 
can talk about it authoritatively.
  And along came an ordained Christian minister named Martin Luther 
King, Jr. He believed it was his calling, God's calling on his life to 
bring about real equality in America. As he said, he had a dream that 
one day people would be judged by the content of their character, not 
the color of their skin. He had a dream.
  I'm so grateful for that heritage that God moved in the hearts and 
minds of great men like that. Some would say Martin Luther King, Dr. 
Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his life to help African Americans, black 
men and women in America to have equality, but it goes much deeper than 
that. For those of us who are Christians, he created an environment 
where white Christians could finally really be Christian and treat 
brothers and sisters as brothers and sisters. That's a big deal, 
because before that there were too many white Christians who didn't. He 
freed them up. Now you can treat your brothers and sisters as true 
brothers and sisters where the color of skin doesn't matter. Powerful.
  But the country we have come to know and love is under attack. We, 
many of us, I was in the Army at Fort Benning in 1979. We look back and 
we think the war started, radical Islam started at war against us in 
1979. More recently, some who know more about the history of radical 
Islam say it actually started quite a bit before that. But in 1979, it 
became clear, President Carter, well intending, meaning well, hailed 
the Ayatollah Khomeini as a man of peace, just like this country did 
with President Mubarak. We would not assist and, in fact, encouraged 
rebels and the leader of a country with whom we had agreements. We 
reneged on our end, not that the Shah was a fine, great, upstanding 
man. From reports--I never met him--apparently he wasn't. Not that 
Mubarak was a fine, loving, cuddly fellow--apparently, from reports, he 
wasn't. And there wasn't equality as there should have been, but he 
kept radicals at bay from destroying the peace agreement between Israel 
and Egypt. We had agreements with him, and apparently this 
administration looked the other way and wouldn't honor those 
agreements.
  I sure never thought much of Qadhafi, but I could not celebrate a man 
being captured, tortured, and then shot; and then all the adoration and 
excitement by the same people who get so upset if a terrorist who is 
trying to kill Americans has water poured on his face, knowing that the 
water won't hurt him, that there's a doctor right there, and that when 
he reveals information, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did, it will save 
lives and lead to the saving of many more lives. But he won't be harmed 
because the doctor would be there if there was any problem. Yet those 
same people that went ballistic over pouring water on a guy's face, not 
pleasant, how excited they could be about a man being captured, 
tortured, and shot in the head routinely. How excited people could be 
about having a drone take out an American citizen. Well, he had 
declared war on the United States. You declare war on the United 
States, the United States has every right to declare war on you back. 
You are an enemy combatant and the rules of war apply, such as they 
are.
  But we have come so far in the last 10 years from being careful and 
concerned that it seems that we've gotten careless, gotten ridiculous. 
Our obligation, even those of us who are Christians, is not to turn the 
other cheek as part of the government, not to reward evil with good as 
individual Christians are supposed to. Our obligation is to provide for 
the common defense. The same thing is set out in Romans 13: ``You do 
evil, be afraid, because the government is not given the sword in 
vain.'' You are supposed to encourage good conduct and punish evil, 
provide for the

[[Page H7131]]

defense so that individuals, whether they're Muslims, Christians, 
Hindu, Scientologists, whatever, they can worship as they wish. But 
when we fail to protect this Nation and provide for the common defense, 
we're not doing our job.

                              {time}  2000

  We've had a very interesting time today with Secretary of Homeland 
Security Janet Napolitano. There's some things that have come out that 
have been very deeply troubling to me, and I would hope that they would 
be very troubling to many.
  I have got numerous articles, things that I have taken out to talk 
about here today. One is a news segment here about Secretary Napolitano 
appointing a deradicalization expert, Mohamed Elibiary, to the Homeland 
Security Advisory Council. Originally, he was made by Homeland Security 
a member of the Countering Violent Extremism. It's a little strange, 
violent extremism. Then you realize that's because this administration 
does not want to use the terms ``radical Islam'' about the people who 
are radical Islamists.
  And when you get to digging a little deeper, you find out that the 
OIC Islamic group years ago figured out, We need to go on the attack 
and start calling anybody who mentions radical Islam an Islamophobe. 
Even if it's a lie, it doesn't matter. Call them Islamophobes. They 
found if you give universities--even great universities; proud heritage 
in this country--massive amounts of money, you can also get them to 
teach seminars on Islamophobia. You can get them to teach courses on 
Islamophobia. And you can paint the picture that anybody, no matter how 
open-minded, no matter how well read, how well studied they are, you 
call them Islamophobes enough, then maybe it will catch on, and people 
will be afraid to call radical Islamists what they are.
  Now, I don't know of anybody who was in Judiciary today that believes 
that Muslims are terrorists. They're not. The only disagreement among 
those I know concerned about radical Islam is whether the radical 
Islamists are 1 percent, 5 percent, maybe a little more. Some might say 
as much as 10 percent. But at least 90 percent, maybe 99 percent of 
Muslims are peace-loving people. If you have got a Muslim friend, they 
are your true friend. And people have experienced that. They have seen 
that. But those who study radical Islam also come to know that it's 
very difficult for a moderate, peace-loving Muslim to speak up against 
radicals because under some of the contorted thinking by people like 
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who helped plan 9/11, that basically makes him 
an apostate. They're not really Muslim. They're Muslim in name only. 
They think that means they're okay to be killed because they don't 
really believe in true Islam.
  So when you get down to it, it appears from a studied look at the 
issue, when you don't worry about what the OIC or Muslim Brotherhood 
may try to paint you as, or the mainstream media, for whatever reason--
though many in the mainstream media would be one of the first ones 
killed if radical Islam takes over this country. They nonetheless do 
some of their bidding for them without realizing just how ignorant 
they're being. But if they were to take over, any area where they take 
over, as they did in Afghanistan, the moderate, peace-loving Muslims 
are often the first ones brutalized and killed because they don't see 
them as true Muslims because they're not radical like that small 
percentage.
  But documents have been discovered going back to the 1993 meeting in 
Philadelphia of those who would be part of the Muslim Brotherhood and 
other groups trying to plot a strategy for the years ahead, they 
believed a number of things that we're now seeing carried out. You 
intimidate people, you make them think they're much more intellectually 
elite. They say, Well, gee, we're not going to even say the name of 
radical Islam. In fact, as Speaker Pelosi led in the last Congress, the 
2006 military tribunal bill was changed, the law was changed so we 
didn't call them ``enemy combatants'' anymore. We changed the name--big 
deal--changed the name from ``enemy combatants'' to ``unprivileged 
alien enemy belligerents.'' I guess we just hope that the word 
``enemy'' wouldn't offend them, even though they have shown, as they 
did with Pearl, they will take a jagged knife and cut your head off.
  They don't do it in the name of Scientology. They don't do it in the 
name of the Southern Baptist Convention. And if they did, I would be 
calling them out for doing so. They do it in the name of a perverted 
form that they believe is Islam. But it's radicalized jihadist Islam.
  So here's an article, October 21, 2010. Secretary Napolitano appoints 
Islamist to Homeland Security panel. It turns out Mohamed Elibiary had 
been appointed to her Countering Violent Extremism Working Group and 
apparently impressed somebody to the point that a year ago, October 21, 
2010, Secretary Napolitano swore him in as being part of the Homeland 
Security Advisory Council. As we found out today from Secretary 
Napolitano, he was also given a secret security clearance.
  We've also seen from other articles we've talked about here before 
that the White House--and as we found out today, Homeland Security--has 
implicit trust in the president of the Islamic Society of North 
America, ISNA, even though ISNA was found to be a named coconspirator 
in funding terrorism in the Holy Land Foundation trial. CAIR, same way, 
named coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. The original 
prosecutor's thoughts were that the Bush administration, those I have 
talked to, intended to do everything they could to get convictions 
because they saw--they had the documentation--that these groups were 
doing some charity work, and actually doing some, but then sending 
money--really, the basis of their group--sending money to Hamas to fund 
terrorism. And that's what they were convicted of. It was 105 counts, 
as I recall.
  There was a move by CAIR, ISNA, some named coconspirators, to have 
their names struck from the pleadings so the people would not see that 
they were named coconspirators. But both the judge at the trial court 
and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found there was sufficient 
evidence to show that they were coconspirators in funding terrorism and 
therefore they did not, as the Fifth Circuit ruled, they weren't going 
to have their names removed.
  The evidence was there. In fact, I have got some of it here. There 
were boxes and boxes and boxes of documents that have these kind of 
checks and ledgers and deposit slips and things like that that make a 
clear case that these groups ended up providing funding that funded 
terrorism. But this Department of Justice, headed by Attorney General 
Holder, decided not to pursue all of these other named coconspirators. 
They let the cases drop.

                              {time}  2010

  And not only did they not pursue them, they ended up--actually, we 
have the president of ISNA, who we find in the comments that have been 
on the White House Web site, actually led the Iftar prayers a year ago 
at the White House and actually has a very nice relationship, from what 
the Deputy National Security Adviser said, with the National Security 
Administration, the National Security Advisor, and the President.
  We found out from one article that, with two individuals who were 
going to participate in training law enforcement at one of our 
intelligence services, all it took was CAIR calling the White House, 
reporting to the White House that people were going to say bad things 
about radical Islam, and that people that wanted to kill us were 
radical Islamists, and explain how you could look for people who were 
radicalized, look for telltale signs.
  The White House, according to one article, intervened, and we know 
for sure the conference was canceled immediately before the conference 
was to start.
  And we have an article indicating that actually now they are 
rewriting the rules so that if you are a government employee, you will 
not be able to do briefings on the threat of radical Islam. And, also, 
they will not pay for outside contractors who've spent their adult life 
studying the issue, so that it will be left to volunteers, like those 
from the Muslim Brotherhood, who will come brief our intelligence, our 
State Department, our Justice Department

[[Page H7132]]

and the White House on issues to do with violent extremism.
  And then we find out more about this person. I'm told he's a very 
nice gentleman, Mohamed Elibiary, that he's done a lot of nice things. 
But you don't have to look very far and you find out he was one of the 
featured speakers for the tribute--in fact, there's a flier--a tribute 
to the great Islamic visionary, the Ayatollah Khomeini, who has done 
more to bring hate and war and death and torture into the modern age 
than most anybody in the last 40 years. And he is a named presenter in 
the tribute to the great Islamic visionary.
  Then we find out not only did he speak at that, but also he's written 
articles. He got after the administration for the prosecution of the 
Holy Land Foundation, thought the trial was unfair and unjust and 
uncalled for. He also speaks glowingly of Qutb, who is the Muslim who 
was executed in Egypt in the 1960s after being convicted or found to 
have conspired to kill the leader of Egypt. But he has many writings. 
And, well, he's held in high esteem not only as a basis for Osama bin 
Laden, feeling that he should be a barbaric killer and destroyer, but 
also for Mr. Elibiary. And so we have an article he wrote about the 
verdict misrepresenting the situation with the Holy Land Foundation.
  Then we have an article from the Dallas Morning News where they go 
through and cite so many of these things that seem to indicate we 
should be very careful about giving Elibiary access to secrets; but he 
has been given, by this Homeland Security group, secret clearance.
  Then there's an interesting article from May of 2007. The OIC, the 
Organization of the Islamic Conference, reported in 2007--their words--
that Islamaphobia is the worst form of terrorism. In fact, that means 
it's worse than flying commercial airliners into high-rise office 
buildings, worse than beheading three teen Christian girls on their way 
to school, worse than launching attacks from civilian areas in order to 
use retaliatory actions to score propaganda points. Yeah, worse than 
that is to be an Islamaphobe.
  Then we find out that the ACLU and the Islamists are joining hands. I 
found out yesterday that actually Mr. Elibiary is working with the 
ACLU, but he's got a secret security clearance so he can work from the 
inside and from the outside working with the ACLU to try to get 
documentation that will ultimately, if he gets it--and this 
administration may just do this--it will reveal sources and methods of 
how we are dealing with radical Islam or violent extremism, and he's 
working with these guys. But the ACLU and Islamists are going after the 
FBI and trying to destroy their ability to actually fight those who 
want to destroy our country.
  There's an interesting article by Bill Gertz October 5 of this year, 
and he points out that the anti-terror trainers were blocked. And 
according to people close to the conference I mentioned awhile ago, the 
event was ordered postponed after Muslim advocacy groups contacted the 
Department of Homeland Security and the White House, including 
scheduled speakers Stephen Caughlin and Steve Emerson, both specialists 
on the Islamic terror threat. Mr. Caughlin, a former Pentagon joint 
staff analyst, is one of the most knowledgeable counterterrorism 
experts specializing in the relationship between Islamic law and 
terrorism. Mr. Emerson, head of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, 
is a leading expert on Islamic violent extremism, financing and 
operations.
  But, anyway, it looks like they're rewriting those rules so people 
like that--since they're not Muslim Brotherhood--will not be able to 
instruct law enforcement on the threat that radical Islam creates for 
the country.
  And then we find an article here, ``Holder Firmly Committed to 
Eliminating Any Muslim Training.'' But just so people understand--and 
I'll close with this--I understand that the vast majority of Muslims 
are dear, wonderful people, peace-loving people. But the radical 
Islamists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other four at Guantanamo 
Bay who said they wanted to plead guilty in December of 2008--the judge 
was going to accept it until this Justice Department rushed in and said 
no, no, no, we'll give you a show trial in New York City, and threw a 
bunch of gum in the works.
  So now there has still been no trial; there has still been no 
justice. And in his own writing he says, in quotes from the Koran, ``We 
fight you with almighty God. So if our act of jihad and our fighting 
with you cause fear and terror, then many thanks to God because it is 
him that has thrown fear into your hearts which resulted in your 
infidelity, paganism, and your statement that God had a son and your 
trinity beliefs.'' Then he quotes from the Koran: ``Soon shall we cast 
terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, for that they joined 
companies with Allah, for which he has sent no authority; their place 
will be the fire; and evil is the home of the wrongdoers.''
  People like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are radical Islamists, and we need 
to recognize it so that we can perpetuate the freedom that we've had 
for 200 more years.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________