[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 18 (Wednesday, February 6, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H399-H400]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE GLOBAL JIHADIST THREAT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, outgoing Secretary of State 
Hillary Clinton recently issued a stern warning in her testimony before 
the House and Senate committees responsible for oversight of U.S. 
foreign policy. She referred repeatedly to the need for our country to 
recognize and respond to what she called a ``global jihadist threat.''
  Mr. Speaker, rarely have I agreed more with Secretary Clinton. Yet if 
Mrs. Clinton has been worried about this threat before now, she has 
done an impressive job of concealing it. The same is true of the Obama 
administration more generally. For the past 4 years, the executive 
branch has gone to extraordinary lengths to obscure the danger posed by 
those who practice holy war, or jihad, against our country. The 
administration has also sought to silence, and in some cases punish, 
those who have spoken the truth about this menace.
  Mr. Speaker, I sincerely welcome the Secretary's warning, belated 
though it may be. However, it would have served this country and the 
cause of freedom far more if she had so openly recognized the threat 
posed by militant Islamic jihad--and to have led in countering it--at 
any point during her tenure other than its conclusion.
  One of the most important architects of that see-no-jihad policy over 
the past 4 years has been John Brennan, President Obama's homeland 
security advisor and his pick to become the next Director of the 
Central Intelligence Agency. In May, 2010, Mr. Brennan publicly 
declared that:

       We do not describe our enemy as ``jihadists'' or 
     ``Islamists'' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate 
     tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, 
     and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about 
     murdering innocent men, women, and children.

  Mr. Speaker, the unavoidable reality is that self-described jihadists 
have routinely gone about murdering innocent women and children for 
decades. It should alarm us all that neither John Brennan nor Hillary 
Clinton--nor seemingly anyone else in the Obama administration--has 
fully recognized the scope of this jihadist threat. They seem blind to 
the fact that the Islamic jihadists here and elsewhere in the West are 
even now engaging in a pre-violent form of holy war against infidels 
and the free world. And the administration has refused to face the 
incontrovertible fact that the driving force behind this practice is 
the Muslim Brotherhood. The brothers themselves call this form of holy 
war ``civilization jihad.''
  Mr. Speaker, this reality is in direct conflict with the Obama 
administration's insistence--long-promoted by John Brennan--that we 
confront only al Qaeda and its affiliates. We are told that we can 
safely cultivate relations with ``moderates'' in Islamist groups like 
Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. This has led to helping

[[Page H400]]

jihadists extend their power elsewhere and allowed them to gain 
dangerous footholds in America.

                              {time}  1250

  Mr. Speaker, we need as a Nation to understand the true nature and 
ominous implications of the global jihadist threat in both its violent 
and pre-violent forms.
  The unavoidable truth is that there are individuals who adhere to a 
political Islamist doctrine of shari'a, and they are willing to become 
involved in the jihad it commands, and they pose a potential mortal 
threat to this Nation and its people. And Congress has a duty, Mr. 
Speaker, among other things, to question the ways in which such 
individuals and organizations tied to the Muslim Brotherhood have been 
given access to and preferential treatment from the Obama 
administration.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe the success of this stealth jihad has been 
significantly enhanced by remarks and public statements made by John 
Brennan over the past 4 years. He should, therefore, not be allowed 
anywhere near--let alone actually be given responsibility for running--
America's premiere intelligence agency.
  It is my hope that, among other things, my remarks on the floor today 
will encourage our colleagues in the Senate to scrutinize critically 
the record and judgment of John Brennan and his suitability for the job 
of CIA Director.
  Mr. Speaker, may I commend to my colleagues on both sides of Capitol 
Hill regarding this issue and to the American people a powerful new 
documentary that examines, in part, some of the issues I have discussed 
today and their grave implications for our national security, public 
safety, and freedoms. This documentary, entitled, ``The Grand 
Deception,'' is a product of counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson's 
Investigative Project on Terrorism, and it provides critical insights 
into the true nature of the ``global jihadist threat,'' including its 
expanding successes overseas and the danger it poses here at home. It 
chronicles the history of what I believe has been an officially 
sanctioned and willful blindness to that threat. It also lays bare the 
various ways in which such a practice is contributing to the 
emboldening of our enemies, the undermining of our allies, and the 
steady erosion of our economy and our security.
  Mr. Speaker, let me close by noting, as the previous gentleman did, 
that today is Ronald Reagan's birthday. It is particularly appropriate 
to recall on Mr. Reagan's birthday his admonition of August 1961. He 
said:

       Freedom is never more than one generation away from 
     extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the 
     bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on 
     for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset 
     years telling our children and our children's children what 
     it was once like in the United States when men were free.

  Mr. Speaker, today, in our time, we also face the prospect of a 
generational threat to freedom. We must bend every effort to awakening 
our countrymen to that threat and equip them to contend with it, and we 
must ensure that our government's policies and our capabilities are 
conducive to and employed effectively to fight for our freedom, to 
protect it, and to hand it on to future generations in the hope that 
they will do the same.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, John Brennan has shown himself time and 
again to be at cross-purposes with those requirements. For that reason 
alone, his nomination must be rejected.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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