[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 27 (Friday, February 17, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H930-H934]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hurt). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, a lot of things going on in the Middle
East, a
[[Page H931]]
lot of things needing to be addressed at this point. I have grave
concerns about the manner in which this administration is handling the
things in the Middle East, maybe continuing with the policy on
international affairs of this administration, which is, apparently,
from what we see them doing, if you've been an ally to the United
States, if you have been our friend, if you have fought with us, if you
have had friends and family that fought with us and lost their lives,
then this administration's message is we're going to throw you under
the bus and we're going to negotiate and help your enemy and our enemy.
So it almost looks like the best thing to do for people in the United
States that want help from the Federal Government: move to an island,
declare war against the United States, and then this administration
will send you all kinds of money and help, buy you an office in Qatar,
all kinds of things we're willing to do if you're an enemy.
One of the latest things to be occurring, this week we're hearing
reports from Egypt, after this administration, through an ally with
whom agreements had been signed, negotiations continue to be ongoing
with Mubarak in Egypt. The man certainly wasn't a Teddy bear by any
stretch of the imagination, but he had had some success in keeping some
semblance of peace with Israel.
And yet this administration was quick to tell Mubarak, as our ally,
he had to get out. Kind of the way that President Carter failed to
support another guy that was not a nice man, but the Shah in Iran. And
the Carter administration also welcomed the return from exile of a man
commonly called the Ayatollah Khomeini. The Carter administration
welcomed him as a man of peace. As a result of that, Americans have
lost lives and will continue to lose lives. There was nothing
intentional in that fiasco by the Carter administration.
{time} 1210
They meant well. They intended good for the country and the Middle
East. They just simply didn't know what they were doing.
Right now we're seeing reports this week that the Muslim Brotherhood
in Egypt--who certainly made clear from their actions they're not our
friends. They are certainly not a friend of Israel. They've been making
noise for some time that they did not intend to recognize Israel, they
did not want to keep the peace treaty with Israel. In fact, there is an
article from February 14, 2011, by Dean Reynolds from CBS Interactive
that points out that Egypt's influential Muslim Brotherhood--this was
supposedly before the Arab Spring even--never supported the Camp David
Accords, and a leading secular politician, Ayman Nur, says they should
be renegotiated.
The people that this administration has been so out front and
welcoming, sending people over there--those that have been able to get
out and come back that aren't being held by this obviously anti-
American government that has taken shape--are indicating, at least
those in the administration, gee, we've got to send a bunch of money to
Egypt, we're going to try to buy them off and buy their allegiance.
I've been saying for many years now every term since I've been here
something that should be clear to all Americans: When it comes to all
this money that we throw at people around the world that hate our guts,
that want to see the United States brought down, places where they
laughed when 3,000 Americans were killed on 9/11, we're sending them
money. The thing I've been saying ever since I got to Congress is: You
don't have to pay people to hate you. They will do it for free.
I've had a U.N. voting accountability bill that I've filed in each
Congress. It got over 100 votes at one point, and hopefully that will
continue to grow. The bill is very simple and it follows the adage that
I have been saying for all these years: You don't have to pay people to
hate you. They'll do it for free.
The bill is very simple. Any nation that votes against the United
States' position in the U.N. more than 50 percent of the time would get
no money, no assistance of any kind from the United States. These
countries are autonomous, they're independent, and they're free to make
whatever decisions they wish, but if they are going to be anti-American
and be against all of the human rights positions that we hold dear,
whether it is for religion or gender--as we see women's rights being
abused so badly around the world in countries we're pouring in money,
as we see in areas in the world where we have poured in hundreds of
billions of dollars, and yet they are doing all they can to eliminate
churches--some have been successful--to persecute Christians and Jews,
yet we continue to pour in money.
Since we've seen the position of this administration being anti-
religious here in recent days, it's starting to come together and make
more sense that this administration is simply being consistent. We
admire consistency; but when they want to send money to countries that
persecute Christians and persecute those who want to worship freely, I
guess that is consistent with what has been done in the President's
ObamaCare bill and the latest pronouncement that Catholics just needed
to set aside their religious beliefs because they were inconsistent
with what the President wanted done.
We've got an article here from February 18, 2011. This headline from
Reuters says: Peace Treaty with Israel is Up to the Egyptian People.
This was a year ago:
Spokesman for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood responds to U.S. National
Intelligence director, who said he assumed Brotherhood was not in favor
of maintaining peace treaty with Israel.
Well, that's a nice thing for this administration to plant in the
head of the Egyptians, the Muslim Brotherhood taking control in Egypt,
that, gee, we kind of just assumed you wouldn't want to support the
treaty with Israel.
Well, that allowed the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to say, you know
what, gee, we thought you were going to be upset with us if we didn't
support the treaty with Israel, but thanks for letting us know that
your assumption would be that when you helped us take over that we
wouldn't support Israel being there.
Great move. That was the Director of National Intelligence, James
Clapper. He said this regarding the Muslim Brotherhood:
I would assess that they are not in favor of the treaty.
What kind of diplomatic fiasco is that?
We go to September 12, 2011. This September 12, 2011 article one day
past the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, and the headline reads, Muslim
Brotherhood: Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty Needs to be Reviewed.
The subtitle: Muslim Brotherhood tells regional Asharq al-Awsat daily
peace treaty is of great importance; says Israel generally does not
honor the agreement.
Then they quote Mahmoud Hussein, the group's secretary general, as
saying:
And like the other agreements, it needs to be reviewed, and
this is in the hands of the parliament.
There are others in which some in a position of power in Egypt have
called for the complete elimination of any agreement with Israel. There
are those who have said, let's put it up to a national vote, and since
the Muslim Brotherhood is all about Israel no longer existing and since
the Muslim Brotherhood has taken a slim majority in the government
there in Egypt, then it would seem that it's likely their position
would prevail.
In all of those years, the one crowning glory that the Carter
administration can point to, the Camp David Accords, this
administration has even thrown the Carter administration under the bus,
just like they have some of our allies like the Northern Alliance in
Afghanistan, like those who were loyal to Americans in Iraq, like the
Kurds in many ways in northern Iraq, like Israel, for example, in the
manner in which we've treated them publicly.
It was May 2 years ago that this administration did what some thought
was unthinkable, that this administration or any administration would
never do, they voted with all of Israel's enemies in demanding Israel
disclose their weaponry, particularly nuclear weapons, any that they
have. We had never done that before.
For those that bother to look in the Old Testament or the Jewish
Bible--the Old Testament to some of us--you can read the account of
Hezekiah welcoming leaders from Babylon. Isaiah
[[Page H932]]
was sent to Hezekiah and asked--he knew the answer, but he asked
Hezekiah, what have you done? In essence, Hezekiah, King of Israel
said: These wonderful leaders--of course this is a Texas paraphrase--
these wonderful leaders came over from Babylon and I showed them all
our treasure and I showed them all our defenses, our armaments.
{time} 1220
In essence, Isaiah basically said, You fool. Because you've done
this, you'll lose the country.
Now, it has been hard for some administrations that took the position
in thinking, Gee, if you're just completely open, as Hezekiah was,
about our defenses and what all we have, if you bring people on and let
them review your nuclear submarines, if you let them see the abilities
we have, if you bring them into our military bases and show them how we
operate, and if you show them our tactics, that they'll just all of a
sudden fall in love with us, and that it will make us stronger.
The lesson throughout history, including the one Hezekiah and his
sons had to learn the hard way, is that you don't show your enemies all
your defenses. You don't climb into political relationships with those
who want to destroy you, with those who want to destroy your best
friends. It's not a good message.
In an article from Fox News, it reads:
Al Qaeda on the rise in Syria has a ``marriage of
convenience'' with Iran, U.S. intelligence director says.
I would think that was pretty obvious. I'm glad someone with our
intelligence department has been able to figure that out. Hopefully,
they'll be able to figure that out with regard to Lebanon. Hopefully,
our intelligence department will be able to figure that out with regard
to Iraq; that the leader in Iraq has shown hostility to this government
and to the people in this government.
It's to the point that when five of us were over there, a bipartisan
group, we had a couple of questions that Maliki did not particularly
appreciate, one about, hey, there were people who were assuring us back
in 2001, 2002, 2003 that if we came and got rid of this terrible
dictator who hated the United States named Saddam Hussein, that because
Iraq was so oil rich, that once we were able to turn the country back
over to the Iraqi people after wresting it away from a totalitarian
dictator who killed and abused and tortured Iraqi citizens, Iraq would
be so grateful once the oil got to flowing that they would help
ameliorate some of the vast amounts of treasure that Americans spent to
allow them to elect their own leaders, to allow them to elect a leader
like Maliki.
He was deeply offended, it appeared, as he was when I brought up Camp
Ashraf and the maltreatment--in fact, the killing--of residents of Camp
Ashraf, who were Iranian refugees. The concern was the United States
had promised the residents of Camp Ashraf, the Iranian refugees in
Iraq, that we would make sure they were protected. When Maliki's
government took over from us, he, himself, promised Camp Ashraf
residents that he and his government would make sure they were safe.
Maliki promised the United States that he would keep them safe.
Yet, apparently, the pressure from Iran and the fear that Iran has
instilled in the leadership in Iraq, particularly in Maliki, is so
profound that since he knew President Obama had made clear we were
pulling out completely and that we weren't going to be around to
protect them, to help them, and that we were getting out completely and
that we were not going to be around to make sure that our investment of
American lives and treasure was not wasted--we were pulling out,
leaving everything to him, going to leave everything to chance despite
the investment--Maliki showed no gratitude. In fact, he showed
hostility.
In fact, when our group of five bipartisan Members of Congress was
flying out on one of the luxurious C 130s--I am prone to sarcasm. The C
130s are no better than they were when I was in the Army 30 years ago.
You're sitting on web seating just like the paratroopers used back
then--and still use--and the back end opens down. They're the same C
130s. We were flying out, and we got word by radio that Maliki's
government had told us that our group of five Members of Congress was
no longer welcome in his country. The man seems to have thrown in with
Iran.
I know we have some brilliant intelligence officers. I've interacted
with some of our intelligence community. I'm quite impressed with the
intelligence of many of our intelligence officers, and I am hopeful
that the intelligence at the lower levels of our intelligence agencies
will eventually affect those in top positions in our intelligence
agencies so they will begin to realize what others have known for a
very long time.
In Afghanistan, I understand President Karzai is not terribly pleased
with the position that some of us have taken, but some of us are not
terribly pleased with the positions of the Karzai Government in
throwing in--well, at least in accommodating--the Taliban, in
accommodating those who are supplying the Taliban, and in the Taliban
itself, as it continues to plot and kill Americans.
But, in fairness to President Karzai, when you look at his situation,
President Obama has made clear that the United States is completely
getting out of Afghanistan, and that we're going to leave them just as
we did Iraq, just as the Democratic Congress demanded in 1974 from
Vietnam. We were going to leave our allies, those who had fought with
us and assisted us, who had lost family, friends, treasure to support
our position because they were enemies of our enemy. This
administration was going to leave them high and dry, and this
administration has already shown in Iraq that that's what happens.
So, from President Karzai's position, he has got to be sitting there,
going, They're about to leave. The Taliban has gotten stronger and
stronger with Pakistan's supplying and assisting them. The United
States Government will not be here to protect me. Gee, maybe I'd better
start being nicer to the Taliban and the radical elements in the
Pakistan Government because that's who's going to determine whether I
stay in power or not.
I found out in a meeting with some Afghan officials from the Northern
Alliance--and then I've done subsequent research since--that the
Government of Afghanistan has about a $12.5 billion budget. They,
themselves, collect enough revenue--taxes and whatnot--in Afghanistan
that they're able to supply about $1.5 billion of their $12.5 billion
budget. The rest comes from other countries, and most of that is from
the United States.
It was interesting traveling around Afghanistan before New Year's and
after New Year's and going to forward operating bases, talking to some
of our troops. We've got some terrific folks on the ground over there,
but there is a problem. Those of us who majored in history know and
those of us who have bothered to read any history have learned that
that is a tough area in which to be an occupier as a foreign country.
Foreign countries occupying or trying to occupy in Afghanistan don't do
very well. It's not a place we ought to be occupying.
{time} 1230
So I hear some, like some in this administration, it sounds like
they're throwing up their hands saying, Well, let's just get out and
let happen whatever is going to happen, because they know occupying
forces don't do well. They're right about that. But by simply
withdrawing without using some intelligence and some lessons learned
from history means that we may have to fight the Taliban again. And it
may, again, be after a massive loss of American lives. And perhaps the
next time it will be when they're armed with nuclear weapons where they
can kill hundreds of thousands instead of thousands.
Of course, if you read the communications that were intercepted about
9/11, they were hopeful there for a while that there would be maybe
50,000 people in the Twin Towers that were going to be killed, they
hoped were killed when the planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New
York City. They didn't care about innocent American lives or all those
foreign visiting folks that were in the Twin Towers. They could care
less. They wanted to make a point, and make a point by killing tens of
thousands.
Well, with the inappropriate strategy of this government, of this
administration, the Obama administration, we
[[Page H933]]
could end up having this Nation pay a far greater price than has even
been paid to date.
Unfortunately, there are consequences for bad decisions. It is
important that we select proper leadership in this country. Anybody
that reads through the book of Hosea will find a verse--and I had never
had it jump out as it did until a few weeks ago. And there are
different translations, but I like the translation in which the
communication from God to Hosea was:
He was angry with the people of Israel because He said they
had chosen leaders who were not God's choice.
There needs to be a lot more praying in this country as we select our
leaders, as we select our national leaders for President, for his
administration, for those who are elected to Congress, for those who
are elected to the Senate, for those who are elected in State and local
elections, and a lesson for us in Congress that we elect, within
Congress, the proper leaders because, as the Founders believed, we are
endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.
One-third of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were
not just Christians; they were ordained ministers. One of them has a
translation of the Bible--one of the signers of the Declaration--which
still can be found in print today. These people understood the lessons
from history, and they did not want to make those mistakes.
Here we have, from February 13, an article by Patrick Goodenough
entitled, ``Hamas Leader Promises Iran Never to Recognize Israel.''
Now, we've had some in this country, in this administration, who have
indicated privately, you know, we don't really have to worry; Sunnis
and Shias hate each other. They're never going to come together. So
that can help keep one from getting too much power because there is
that conflict. Well, because, in small part--but the small part is
growing into a larger part due to some of the actions and inactions of
this administration--Shias and Sunnis are coming together.
So here you have a Hamas Gaza leader, Ismail Haniyeh, delivering a
speech at a rally in Tehran, Iran, last Saturday, marking the 33rd
anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. He's speaking, and behind him
are the portraits of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and his
predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini. Here he is in the Gaza Strip as a
leader of the terrorist organization Hamas, and he's speaking on behalf
of Iranian leaders. We are bringing Shia and Sunni together, like
people 10 years ago would never have believed possible, by the
ineptitude of what's happening in this administration.
But, the article points out:
Amid growing speculation of a split within the top ranks of
Hamas, Iranian leaders at the weekend urged the terrorist
group's Gaza leader to continue its campaign of violent
resistance and pledged continuing financial support.
This from a terrorist group of leaders who are pledging to support
the terrorist Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip. And the Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei told the Gaza Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, people
do not expect anything except endurance from Palestine's resistance.
It's time to wake up to what's going on with this administration and
their help for groups that hate America, that hate Israel.
Here's an article from February 12, which says, ``Muslim Brotherhood
Lawmakers: U.S. Aid to Cairo Assured.'' Well, isn't that special. He's
gotten an assurance from this administration, as he told Al-Hayat, that
if the U.S. cut aid to Egypt, it would be a violation of the 1979 peace
accords. They've indicated they're not interested in keeping the 1979
peace accords.
Here's an article from February 13, ``Muslim Brotherhood Warns U.S.
Aid Cut May Affect Egypt's Peace Treaty With Israel.'' But apparently
they're getting assurances--hey, we're going to make sure you keep
getting money from us. You hate our guts. You hate Israel. You want
Israel gone. So, you know, hey, we're going to keep supporting you.
And, in fact, in another article from February 13 of this year, the
headline reads, ``Obama Proposes $800 Million in Aid for `Arab Spring.'
'' Well, we've seen what the Arab Spring has done. If you were a
Christian while Mubarak was in power, there was some persecution, and
it wasn't pretty. But now, all semblance of any efforts to allow
Christians to worship freely in Egypt is gone. We saw a headline last
year that the last public Christian church in Afghanistan had to be
closed. We continue to pour in aid.
Here is a February 8, 2012, headline, ``Pentagon Counters Dim
Assessment of Afghan War.'' Then there's another article, ``The
Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to Read,'' by Michael
Hastings. There's one by Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, ``Truth,
Lies, and Afghanistan: How Military Leaders Have Let Us Down.'' Here's
one from February 10, 2012, ``Roads to Nowhere: Program to Win Over
Afghans Fails.''
In talking to some of our troops in forward positions in Afghanistan,
some were a bit down, particularly those who have been training Afghans
to farm, because we are sending around $3 billion for nothing but
projects in Afghanistan, including these types of farming projects, so
the people can make their own way.
{time} 1240
Yet we were told they were training the Afghans, they have been
training the Afghans; but the billions of dollars the United States
Government, the Obama administration has sent to Afghanistan to help
them develop farming projects, at least in this one region, has never
gotten past the corrupt regional government.
So the projects where they could use these farming skills that are
being taught don't exist, and they are not anticipated to exist. We set
up a corrupt government in Afghanistan. And I don't know how honest
anybody in the Karzai regime was before they got there, but there
should be a lesson that can be learned from King David, the only person
mentioned in the Bible to have had a heart after God's own, that when
there is no accountability, even the best among us can do terrible
things.
So when you set up a government in Afghanistan and we, the United
States, supported their constitution that said sharia law ruled, that
meant there were not going to be any more Christian churches in
Afghanistan, and now there're not. Not publicly. And Jews have had to
flee from Afghanistan. The last report I read said there was one
publicly acknowledged Jew in Afghanistan.
With all of the blood and treasure we shed to eliminate the Taliban,
the Taliban has now come back, and now this administration has
announced to the world and to the Taliban, Look, we will release all of
the people we have in detention that have murdered American troops, we
will let them come back. They can keep murdering when we let them go.
We'll even buy you a wonderful office in Qatar if you'll just come talk
to us.
That is the kind of proposal that everyone has heard, and that's what
has allowed Taliban leaders, as one of them did in Afghanistan earlier
this month, to announce to all of Afghanistan in their largest
television station that, look, we're about to be in charge as soon as
the American Government leaves.
So here's the deal. The American Government is--they basically
acknowledge we've whipped them, they've lost. So they're doing
everything they can to get us to negotiate. So here's the situation. If
you have not been totally supportive of the Taliban here in
Afghanistan, they say, then it's time to come to us, ask forgiveness,
and ask for our providing safety for you. Because if you don't, when we
take over, as soon as the U.S. pulls out, you know, you're in trouble.
And the result could be the death penalty.
There is a way around totally abandoning the investment we had for a
peaceful Afghanistan without a powerful Taliban. It's common sense. You
see it throughout history. What you do is support friends who are
enemies of your enemy. The Taliban is our enemy. We know that the
Taliban can be defeated because they were when we had less than 1,500
American troops in Afghanistan, Special Ops guys, incredibly trained,
and some of our best intelligence officers over there from our
intelligence agencies, obviously not top intelligence officials because
these guys were really competent. And they
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whipped the Taliban, had them completely on the run. And then we kind
of took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan and started looking at
Iraq, and the Taliban has made a resurgence, and they have become
powerful again in Afghanistan.
In meeting with leaders from the Northern Alliance--even though
Secretary Clinton and former Secretary Albright did what they could to
keep us from meeting because, apparently, when this administration
throws our allies under a bus, this administration wants them to stay
under the bus. Some of us believe if somebody has been our ally, has
helped fight our enemy, then they need to remain our friends. These are
Muslims. These are our friends, and their enemy is our enemy. And I'm
told by some of the military, American military leaders, that the
Northern Alliance has plenty of weapons; but they don't have all the
weapons that they had when they defeated the Taliban before. We do not
have to stay in Afghanistan. But if we do not want to have to come back
and fight the Taliban again, the thing to do is rearm and reempower the
enemy of our enemies.
Afghanistan has never been strong and never had a strong central
government. What made us, in our arrogance, think we could force a
strong centralized government that would work in that country? It is a
very tribal nation. In the northern area, this administration wants to
call our allies, our former allies warlords, war criminals, blood on
their hands. They were fighting for us and with us. So in this
administration's effort to manipulate the U.S. media, they leak all
kinds of stories about how terrible our allies were. They're fighting
terrible people. They're fighting people who were training others to
come kill thousands and thousands of Americans. These are not nice
people, and war is not a pleasant thing.
The Northern Alliance leaders had two asks: one, help us get a
constitution amended so that we get to elect our regional leaders. Each
province in Afghanistan should be able to elect their local governors.
Each province should be able to elect the mayors of the towns within
that province. Let them select their own police chief. Let them do as
the United States came together to do, not so much in 1983 with
Articles of Confederation, but in 1987 with our U.S. Constitution that
allowed people to elect local government officials, State government
officials, and national officials.
We have a constitution that has been set up in Afghanistan that
basically lets the Karzai administration appoint the regional
governors, the mayors. They select the police chiefs. That is a system
fraught with corruption. No matter how honest anybody is going in,
including President Karzai, how in the world could you stay honest and
above corruption when you have set up a system that lends itself to
corruption?
Well, that's what's happening. So it doesn't seem so much to ask, let
the Northern Alliance, as every other area of Afghanistan, elect their
local leaders, elect their governors, and then those regional areas
become strong again.
And then just as States fuss when the Federal Government of the
United States tries to get too powerful, as we've seen with ObamaCare,
let's empower those regional provincial governments in Afghanistan to
be powerful enough to call down their national leaders when they are
corrupt. Let's empower them to fix their own problems, and you don't
have to have massive numbers of American troops to do that, but you do
have to be smart in the way you deal with a country that has lots of
your enemies that want to kill you.
So they asked, let us elect our local, regional leaders. Give us
enough equipment where we can defeat the Taliban again, for you and for
us.
Now, in meeting and talking to people in Afghanistan, they knew, as
did the Baluch leaders in southern Pakistan, that the Taliban is being
supplied and equipped with armaments. IEDs that are dismembering and
killing our soldiers in Afghanistan are being supplied through the
southern area of Pakistan.
{time} 1250
This is an area of Pakistan that hadn't been Pakistan until 1948 when
international leaders arbitrarily took pencils and just drew boundary
lines, and they included most of Balochistan in with Pakistan. The
Balochistanis did not want to be there. They have a very mineral-rich
area that is supplying Pakistan with most of their minerals. And yet
the Pakistan Government is so badly mistreating the Baluch people. They
raid, they torture, and they terrorize the Baluch people in southern
Pakistan.
And if Pakistan is going to so terribly mistreat our Muslim friends
in southern Pakistan, in the Balochistan area of Pakistan, then it's
time to push for an independent Balochistan that will be a nation of
Muslim friends of the United States, and we will remain their friends
because their enemy is our enemy, and we won't have to sacrifice
American troops, American lives, and massive amounts of American
treasure like we have been doing. You simply empower the enemy of our
enemy and let them do the work for us.
That is the solution. That would be in keeping with holding dear the
American lives that have been lost in fighting the Taliban in
Afghanistan. That would be true to our beliefs and our desire only to
fight those who want to destroy what we are and who we are. That would
truly honor those who have given so much in honor of this country.
And with that, Mr. Speaker, I have a friend, Mr. Mo Brooks, here. I
yield back the balance of my time so Mr. Brooks can be recognized.
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