[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 70 (Friday, May 9, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H4048-H4053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FASCIST INTOLERANCE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I am going to read the background of an
incredible woman. We have different religious views because I am a
Christian and she is apparently an atheist at this time, but what an
extraordinary woman: Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is a visiting fellow with the
American Enterprise Institute:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an outspoken defender of women's rights in
Islamic societies, was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. She
escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the
Netherlands in 1992 and served as a member of the Dutch
parliament from 2003 to 2006. In parliament, she worked on
furthering the integration of non-Western immigrants into
Dutch society and defending the rights of women in Dutch
Muslim society. In 2004, together with director Theo van
Gogh, she made ``Submission,'' a film about the oppression of
women in conservative Islamic cultures. The airing of the
film on Dutch television resulted in the assassination of Mr.
Van Gogh by an Islamic extremist. At AEI, Ms. Hirsi Ali
researches the relationship between the West and Islam,
women's rights in Islam, violence against women propagated by
religious and cultural arguments, and Islam in Europe.
Her background, as mentioned, she was a member of the parliament in
the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, the Netherlands, 2003 to
2006. She was a researcher at the Wiardi Beckman Foundation in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2001 to 2002. And she had been an
interpreter and adviser in the Office of Intercultural Communication,
Leiden, the Netherlands, 1995 to
[[Page H4049]]
2001. She has her master's from Leiden University, the Netherlands.
So this extraordinary woman should be paid tribute. It was wonderful
to see recently that Brandeis University was paying tribute to her.
But we have had an interesting development in the United States of
America from the time I was in college. I attended what was at the time
a conservative university, Texas A&M University, and a majority there
had very conservative views, but we loved to have liberal speakers come
speak in my college, not because it was liberal but because we welcomed
the exchange. There were always people coming to my university that
students disagreed with.
{time} 1245
See, at that time, we thought universities were places at which you
could have those debates and where you could have a liberal speaker
come speak, even though you disagreed with him, but we have seen the
rise of fascism in American universities.
Back 30, 40 years ago, students could get involved and listen to
liberal speakers, conservative speakers, moderate speakers, far right,
far left speakers at universities and then make their own conclusions
because, back then, that is kind of what we thought education was; but
now, with this new intellectual fascism that has arisen in our
universities, some of them--far too many of them, actually--say: if you
disagree with our position, we don't want you here. We want you
eliminated. We don't want you to have work. We want your family
defiled. We just don't want you to succeed in any way whatsoever.
In fact, we see these kinds of receptions for conservatives, for
Judeo-Christian believers and followers, people eliminated from being
on television because they hold the view espoused by Moses and by Jesus
of marriage being between a man and a woman.
It is as Moses said and as Jesus repeated, after He said a man will
leave his mother and a woman will leave her home and the two will
become one, what God has joined together, let no one pull apart.
Now, we find out that there was a show yesterday that we were told
was considered hateful because it believed what a majority of Americans
does and what Moses believed and what Jesus believed, which is that
marriage would be between a man and a woman.
People like me are vilified--oh, you are hateful--but the people
whose show was canceled made what sounded like a very Christian
response of, look, we love homosexuals, we love all people, if you
don't, then you are not following the teachings of Jesus, to be sure,
but it doesn't mean that you have to support, embrace, encourage
particular lifestyles that you believe are harmful to the individuals
and harmful to society in general.
So it is amazing that, in the name of liberality--in the name of
being tolerant--this fascist intolerance has arisen. There are people
who stand up and say: I agree with a majority of Americans--I agree
with Moses and Jesus--that marriage is between a man and a woman.
Now, all of a sudden, people like me are considered haters--
hatemongers--evil, which really is exactly what we have seen throughout
our history, going back to the days of the Nazi takeover in Europe.
What did they do?
First, they would call people haters and evil and would build up
disdain for those people who held those opinions or religious views or
religious heritages. Then next came: those people are so evil and
hateful, so let's bring every book that they have written or has to do
with them, and let's start burning the books because we can't tolerate
their intolerance.
As shrinks testified before me during my days as a judge, it was
called projecting. It is those who have a characteristic and to divert
condemnation on themselves, they project their characteristic on
someone with whom they disagree--so the most intolerant in America.
Then especially people like they who were going to be on the
television show before it was canceled--people like me--yes, we can get
upset. We can't stand to see our Nation torn apart. We can't stand to
see our Judeo-Christian values, on which the Nation was founded,
demeaned, depicted as somehow evil.
We stand up for those things, but there is no hate for individuals,
yet those who are the most hate-filled, who do not follow the teachings
of Jesus, seek to impose or to project upon those of us who are
Christians--and some orthodox Jews and even atheists or secularists,
like Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali--their own hate, their own intolerance. We
really need to understand what is going on.
It is not tolerance that becomes intolerant and says a woman who was
tortured--I don't know what else you would call some of the procedures
that were done to her most private areas in the name of religion. It
was not voluntary.
She was ordered into a marriage she wanted no part of. She did not
want to have to be covered up and stay in a back room and never own
property and never drive. She kind of thought, like most of us do in
America, except for the intolerant fascist liberals, that: gee, women
ought to be able to own property, we ought to be able to marry whom we
wish, we ought to be able to espouse our own views without being called
hatemongers.
Brandeis University chose to honor the intolerant and turn against
someone who went through a living hell in Somalia. Because she has
stood up for what she believes, including in the Netherlands, and put
together a film with Mr. van Gogh, her partner was assassinated--
murdered; yet Brandeis University, in having some cowards in the
administration, without one fraction of the courage of Ms. Hirsi Ali,
says: we are going to back off and not honor this woman who has
overcome so much.
To honor someone doesn't necessarily mean that you embrace everything
about his life. Like I say, I stand in tribute to a woman who has
overcome so much, who has been fighting against the true war against
women.
I don't believe at all in her religious views as, apparently, an
atheist, but I can recognize this is a woman of courage, that she is a
woman who is brilliant, who has overcome so much.
It is really heartbreaking that universities around this country,
which were once beacons to debate and to disagreement, have now been
taken over by so many liberal fascist cowards that, if you disagree
with something they think or if you disagree with something somebody
who is more violent than you thinks, then they are going to succumb to
the fascist violence and say: oh, we don't want to snub you, really,
but there is this other group over here that may get violent with us if
we stand up for your rights and acknowledge your courage.
So we are going to be cowards, and we are not going to acknowledge
your amazing courage. We are going to snub you because we are afraid of
these people who may become violent.
You have to wonder if the State Department of the United States,
under the leadership of Secretary Hillary Clinton, may not have
succumbed to this same type of fear: gee, we don't want to make the
terrorists mad, so let's don't stir them up.
There was a time, for example, when Thomas Jefferson was President
and radical Islamists in northern Africa were attacking American ships
and taking crews hostage and selling them back to America if we came up
with the price required, the extortion fee.
Jefferson finally had had enough and had sent this group of--at that
time--men, called Marines. They went to the shores of Tripoli, and they
fought with everything they had against the radical Islamists.
They fought hard enough and showed that we were not weaklings who
would lay down in the face of Islamist terrorism, but that we would
fight. Those Marines fought hard enough that the radical Islamists
said, okay, all right, we will leave you alone--because that is all
radical Islamists understand.
We have this article from The Wall Street Journal, May 8, written by
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is the same lady I was just speaking about. She
knows something about radical Islam. She has had people she has cared
about and loved killed by radical Islam. She, herself, was physically
harmed by radical Islam.
She knows a lot about it, and she also knows about intolerance, the
type that was seen--and the lack of courage--at Brandeis University.
Hopefully,
[[Page H4050]]
someday, someone at Brandeis will recall the Jewish influence in the
university that understood the threat of intolerance--like fascist
intolerance--and, instead of succumbing to fascist intolerance, stand
up and acknowledge courage and extraordinary human behavior.
For those who may be tempted to say: Now, Louie, how in the world
could you put radical Islam and fascism or the Nazis together?
All one would have to do is look back at the history prior to and
during World War II, and the connection was already made. The alliances
were made. One type of intolerance, Nazi fascism, seemed to ally and
work well and become allies of radical Islamist fascists.
In this Wall Street Journal article, as Hirsi Ali says:
Since the kidnapping of 276 school girls in Nigeria last
month, the meaning of Boko Haram--the name used by the
terrorist group that seized the girls--has become more widely
known. The translation from the Hausa language is usually
given in English language media as ``Western Education is
Forbidden,'' though ``Non-Muslim Teaching is Forbidden''
might be more accurate.
But little attention has been paid to the group's formal
Arabic name: Jam'at Ahl as-Sunnah lidda'wa wal-Jihad. That
roughly translates as ``The Fellowship of the People of the
Tradition for Preaching and Holy War.'' That's a lot less
catchy than Boko Haram, but is significantly more revealing
about the group and its mission. Far from being an aberration
among Islamist terror groups, as some observers suggest, Boko
Haram in his goals and methods is, in fact, all too
representative.
{time} 1300
The kidnapping of the schoolgirls throws into bold relief a
central part of what the jihadists are about: the oppression
of women.
Boko Haram sincerely believes that girls are better off
enslaved than educated. The terrorists' mission is no
different from that of the Taliban assassin who shot and
nearly killed 15-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai--as she
rode a schoolbus home in 2012--because she advocated girls'
education. As I know from experience, nothing is more
anathema to the jihadists than equal and educated women.
How to explain this phenomenon to baffled Westerners, who
these days seem more eager to smear the critics of jihadism
as ``Islamophobes'' than to stand up for women's most basic
rights. Where are the Muslim college-student organizations
denouncing Boko Haram? Where is the outrage during Friday
prayers? These girls' lives deserve more than a Twitter
hashtag protest--
As we saw from former Secretary Hillary Clinton.
Back to the article. It says:
Organizations like Boko Haram do not arise in isolation.
The men who establish Islamist groups, whether in Africa
(Nigeria, Somalia, Mali), Southeast Asia (Afghanistan,
Pakistan), or even Europe (UK, Spain and the Netherlands) are
members of long-established Muslim communities, most of whose
members are happy to lead peaceful lives. To understand why
the jihadists are flourishing, you need to understand the
dynamics within those communities.
I might insert parenthetically that the Muslims who wish to live in
peace can be and are our friends. Though we disagree on our religious
beliefs completely, we can be friends.
I was with my dear friends Michele Bachmann and Congressman Dr.
Michael Burgess, and I turned to see a very surprised look on their
face when we made it through the midst of the Afghanistan capital.
There were people holding rocket-propelled grenades as we turned down
the alley to get to the Masood family compound.
We pulled into the gate in the drive there within the inner part and
I saw my Muslim friends coming out on the porch and down the stairs.
So I jumped out. And I looked back and saw they looked a little
surprise as I jumped out and these well-known Muslim Northern Alliance
members spread their arms open wide, as I did, and we embraced strong,
heartfelt embraces. Because I knew what they had been through in
fighting radical Islam. I know that they do not want radical Islam
taking back Afghanistan when we leave.
I know that because this administration has turned its back on those
Muslim non-extremists, we are putting their lives in danger as we leave
them to the radical Islamist extremists poised and ready to take over
in the vacuum that we leave. We owe our allies who fought and defeated
the Taliban by early 2002 better than that.
And my heart breaks as I think about the absolute horrors that will
unfold in Afghanistan as our former allies have to defend themselves
against radical Islam because they dare to be our friends and allies.
That is no way to treat people who fought with you, for you, for
themselves, because of that common desire not to be under the yoke and
threat and hate of radical Islam.
Back to Ms. Hirsi Ali's article. She says:
So, imagine an angry young man in any Muslim community
anywhere in the world. Imagine him trying to establish an
association of men dedicated to the practice of Sunnah, (the
tradition of guidance from the Prophet Muhammad). Much of the
young man's preaching will address the place of women. He
will recommend that girls and women be kept indoors and
covered from head to toe if they are to venture outside. He
will also condemn the permissiveness of Western society.
What kind of response will he meet? In the U.S. and in
Europe, some might quietly draw him to the attention of
authorities. Women might voice concerns about the attacks on
their freedom. But in other parts of the world, where law and
order are lacking, such young men and their extremist
messages thrive.
Where governments are weak, corrupt or, nonexistent, the
message of Boko Haram and it counterparts is especially
compelling. Not implausibly, they can blame poverty on
official corruption and offer as an antidote the pure
principles of the Prophet. And in these countries, women are
more vulnerable and their options are fewer.
But why does our imaginary young zealot turn to violence?
At first, he can count on some admiration for his fundamental
message within the community where he starts out. He might
encounter opposition from established Muslim leaders who feel
threatened by him. But he perseveres because perseverance in
the Sunnah is one of the most important keys to heaven. As he
plods on from door to door, he gradually acquires a
following. There comes a point when his following is as large
as that of the Muslim community's established leaders. That's
when the showdown happens--and the argument for ``holy war''
suddenly makes sense to him.
The history of Boko Haram has followed precisely this
script. The group was founded in 2002 by a young Islamist
called Mohammed Yusuf, who started out preaching in a Muslim
community in the Borno State of northern Nigeria. He set up
an educational complex, including a mosque and an Islamic
school. For 7 years, mostly poor families flocked to hear his
message. But in 2009, the Nigerian government investigated
Boko Haram and ultimately arrested several members, including
Yusuf himself. The crackdown sparked violence that left about
700 dead. Yusuf soon died in prison--the government said he
was killed while trying to escape--but the seeds had been
planted. Under one of Yusuf's lieutenants, Abubakar Shekau,
Boko Haram turned to jihad.
In 2011, Boko Haram launched its first terror attack in
Borno. Four people were killed, and from then on violence
became an integral part, if not the central part, of its
mission. The recent kidnappings--11 more girls were abducted
by Boko Haram on Sunday--join a litany of outrages, including
multiple car bombings and the murder of 59 schoolboys in
February. On Monday, as if to demonstrate its growing power,
Boko Haram launched a 12-hour attack in the city of
Gamboru Ngala, firing into the market crowds, setting
houses aflame, and shooting down residents who ran from
the burning buildings. Hundreds were killed.
I am often told that the average Muslim wholeheartedly
rejects the use of violence and terror, does not share the
radicals' belief that a degenerate and corrupt Western
culture needs to be replaced with an Islamic one, and abhors
the denigration of women's most basic rights.
This is Ms. Hirsi Ali saying this.
She says:
Well, it is time for those peace-loving Muslims to do more,
much more, to resist those in their mist who engage in this
type of proselytizing before they proceed to the phase of
holy war.
Parenthetically here, Mr. Speaker, it should not have even required a
FBI or CIA investigation into the older Tsarnaev brother to find out
that he had been radicalized. It should not have required the Russians
tipping our intelligence and the FBI that they were ignorant of how
radicalized Tsarnaev had become. It shouldn't have required the FBI to
go out to the mosque and make inquiry about Tsarnaev and what Muslim
teachers he was drawn to, what Muslim books he was reading.
It shouldn't have required that, but it did.
Unfortunately, the FBI didn't do those things. Unfortunately, the FBI
didn't even bother to notify the Boston police, as far as we can tell,
that Tsarnaev had been radicalized--or, at least the Russians said he
was--because I would be willing to bet if he
[[Page H4051]]
had, the Boston police would have gotten to the bottom of it before the
Boston marathon bombing occurred.
Ms. Hirsi Ali says in her article:
It is also time for Western liberals to wake up. If they
choose to regard Boko Haram as an aberration, they do so at
their peril. The kidnapping of these schoolgirls is not an
isolated tragedy; their fate reflects a new wave of jihadism
that extends far beyond Nigeria and poses a mortal threat to
the rights of women and girls.
If my pointing this out offends some people more than the
odious acts of Boko Haram, then so be it.
It should be also pointed out Ms. Hirsi Ali is a fellow of the Belfer
Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She is the founder of
the AHA foundation.
So I commend Harvard for having the courage to have someone to
espouse the views that Ms. Hirsi Ali does. She has been there. She has
courage.
I hope and pray that universities across the United States, even
though many of them are offered major Middle Eastern money if they will
do this, and have a seminar on Islamaphobia and help eradicate anyone
or any thought that radical Islam is a threat, and let's just suppress
anything like that. I applaud universities that have the courage to do
that. But too many don't. And they don't stand up as they should.
And what is amazing is, we have people in this country and in this
city and in the media who take the gutless position that they will try
to portray Republicans or conservatives as hating women. Why? Because
they know we are not going to kill them. We will disagree with them, we
will debate them, we will say they are wrong, but we are not going to
kill them because of what they believe.
In Western society, in every State and Federal law it has always been
true, except those that are allowing sharia law to creep in, but it has
always been true that provoking words are never an offense to a
physical assault. That is kind of 101 criminal law in most any law
school, except, of course, if it is teaching sharia law.
Under sharia law, provoking words, no matter how minor, can be the
basis for capital punishment. You offend a radical Islamist, that is
the basis for killing them.
We have never believed that in Western society. As Judeo-Christian
ideals have spread even among atheists, secularists, and other
religious believers, that has been a good, sound doctrine. Provoking
words--or a cartoon--may evoke anger and may provoke anger, but it
should not provoke physical violence.
{time} 1315
It is time liberals rose up with enough courage to say: You know
what? Wow, there is a war against women, and it is killing women.
There are laws in some places of radical Islam that say: if you are a
woman who is raped, if you don't have four men who are respected
Muslims who can stand up and be eyewitnesses that you were raped, then
we may need to stone you to death for allowing such to occur.
That is not an American ideal. That is a war on women. I have
prosecuted, and I have sentenced enough rapists that it is something
that is very difficult for me to sit and listen to, and to think that
so many of the cases for which I sentenced rapists to prison could
never have been brought and the woman would have to live in fear and
horror if we were living under the kind of law where there really is a
cultural war on women and, sometimes, a physical war on women.
In the United States, I know families where the parents are
Christians and the children chose not to believe in Jesus as Lord, and
it breaks the hearts of the parents; but the thought would never, ever
cross their mind to engage in violence.
I have been told about someone we are trying to help, whose family
was Islamist, radical, in another part of the world. When he became a
Christian, that made him worthy of the death penalty. It made his child
worthy of the death penalty, in their opinion. He has been killed.
Other family members that have tried to help, who were moderate
Muslims and didn't believe someone who became a Christian should be
murdered, have paid the price with their lives.
These things are happening around the world, and it is time liberals
fought a more courageous fight and stood--and instead of screaming
about Islamophobia, stood and said, you know, there are Muslim friends
and allies, but there is a radical Islamist part in this world, a sect
in this world that wants to kill, destroy anything, including what we
consider to be innocent children, women, men.
Until we confront that fact, this country is going to continue to be
subjected to threats against American lives here and abroad. It is
easier to attack Americans abroad.
Americans, including this body--I mean, we were outraged at what
happened to those Nigerian children, boys killed, the girls threatened
with being sold into what basically would be a slave-type marriage. It
is outrageous.
So you wonder why in the world the State Department would not have
the courage to take a stand. There was an excellent article by Andrew
McCarthy, and he incorporates much of a fantastic article from Josh
Rogin, from the Daily Beast, and it is dated May 8.
It says:
``We must stand up to terrorism,'' bleated Hillary Clinton
a few days ago in a tweet expressing outrage against Boko
Haram, the jihadist organization that has abducted hundreds
of young girls in Nigeria. Yet, when she was actually in a
position to stand up to Boko Haram's terrorism as Secretary
of State, Ms. Clinton instead protected the group.
Josh Rogin reports at the Daily Beast:
The State Department under Hillary Clinton, fought hard
against placing the al Qaeda-linked militant group Boko Haram
on its official list of foreign terrorist organizations for 2
years; and now, lawmakers and former U.S. officials are
saying that the decision may have hampered the American
government's ability to confront the Nigerian group that
shocked the world by abducting hundreds of innocent girls.
While Ms. Clinton now issues indignant tweets, Rogin
elaborates on her failure to mention that her own State
Department refused to place Boko Haram on its list of foreign
terrorist organizations in 2011, after the group bombed the
U.N. headquarters in Abuja. The refusal came despite the
urging of the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and over
a dozen Senators and Congressmen.
``The one thing she could have done, the one tool she had
at her disposal, she didn't use, and nobody can say she
wasn't urged to do it. It's gross hypocrisy,'' said a former
senior U.S. official who was involved in the debate. ``The
FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department really wanted Boko
Haram designated, they wanted the authorities that would
provide to go after them, and they voiced that repeatedly to
elected officials.''
In May 2012, then-Justice Department official Lisa Monaco
(now at the White House) wrote to the State Department to
urge Clinton to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist
organization. The following month, General Carter Ham, the
chief of the U.S. Africa Command, said that Boko Haram
provided a ``safe haven'' for al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
and was likely sharing explosives and funds with the group;
and yet, Hillary Clinton's State Department still declined to
place Boko Haram on its official terrorist roster.
As Mr. Rogin further details, placing an organization on
the terrorist list enables the government to use various
investigative tools for law enforcement and intelligence-
gathering purposes. It also squeezes the organization by
criminalizing the provision of material support to it and the
conduct of business with it.
After numerous Boko Haram atrocities, Republicans attempted
to force Secretary Clinton to designate the group or explain
why she refused to do so. The State Department heavily
lobbied against the legislation. Only after John Kerry
replaced Clinton and after a series of jihadist bombings
against churches and other targets did the State Department
finally relent and add Boko Haram to the terrorist list last
November.
The excuses now being offered in explanation for Clinton's
dereliction are specious. As Rogin explains, Clinton's State
Department claimed that Boko Haram was merely a local group
with parochial grievances that was not a threat to the United
States.
Have a look, though, at the State Department's list here.
Several of the listed groups are waging local terrorist
campaigns that do not threaten our country, the Basque ETA,
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Real Irish
Republican Army, et cetera. A significant reason for
having the list is to promote international cooperation
against terrorism and discourage its use against anyone,
anywhere. The fact that a terrorist organization may have
only local grievances and may not directly imperil the
U.S. has never been thought a reason to exclude it from
the list.
Fox News has further reported about another rationale of
Clinton apologists: Hillary did not want to raise Boko
Haram's profile and assist its recruiting which, they reason,
would be the effect of designation by the Great Satan. That
is ridiculous. The main point of having the list and the
sanctions that accompany a terrorist designation is to
[[Page H4052]]
weaken the organization by depriving of it assets and
material support. The logic of what Clinton supporters are
claiming is that U.S. counterterrorism law--much of which was
put in place by the administration of Bill Clinton--does more
harm than good. Does anyone think they really believe that?
What happened here is obvious, although the commentariat is
loath to connect the dots. Boko Haram is an Islamic-
supremacist organization. Ms. Clinton, like the Obama
administration more broadly, believes that appeasing
Islamists--avoiding actions that might give them offense,
slamming Americans who provoke them--promotes peace and
stability. See Egypt for a good example of how well this
approach is working.
Furthermore, if you are claiming to have ``decimated'' al
Qaeda, as the Obama administration was claiming to have done
in the runup to the 2012 election, the last thing you want to
do is add jihadists to the terror list--or beef up security
at diplomatic posts in jihadist hot spots or acknowledge that
jihadists rioting in Cairo or jihadist attacks in Benghazi
are something other than ``protests'' inspired by ``an
Internet video.''
It is very simple. Most of us on the national-security
right recognize that Islamic supremacism is an ideology
rooted in Muslim scripture--a strict, literal, ancient
interpretation of Muslim scripture, that is. Essentially, it
advocates the adoption of shari'a, Islam's legal code and
societal framework. It is not the only way of construing
Muslim scripture.
And I add, fortunately.
He said:
And we certainly hope that more benign constructions become
dominant, but Islamic supremacism is far more mainstream than
the West likes to admit, particularly in the Middle East and
growing swaths of Africa. It is an ideology that endorses
violent jihad, the treatment of women as chattel, sex
slavery, child marriages, and the horrible stuff that outfits
like Boko Haram are into. Even though these organizations--
quite naturally--terrorize locally, their aspirations are
global, and they are a threat to us because their ideology
unites them and regards the West as the enemy.
The left, by contrast, seems to believe that
``Islamists''--which are adherents of Islamic supremacism--
are motivated not by an ideology derived from scriptural
commands, but by American policies that promote national
defense, pursue U.S. interests, and regard Israel as a key
ally. Indeed, progressives like Ms. Clinton are anti-
antiterrorists in the sense that they portray the national
security right as a greater threat than Islamic supremacism.
Ms. Clinton and her cohort do not deny that they are
terrorists motivated by Islam, but they see terrorists and
Islamists as separate categories, not united by single
ideology.
{time} 1330
Anyway, the article goes on and makes very clear that there are too
many in America who think they will just beat up on conservatives, beat
up on Republicans, beat up on conservatives who have the same ideas
about marriage that Barack Obama did during the campaign of 2008, that
John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, people that were considered liberal
did in prior years, to beat up on Americans who hold those same beliefs
in the Bible. It is easier to beat up on conservatives because we are
not going to kill you. We will argue with you. We will get frustrated
with you.
But real courage is found in people like Ms. Hirsi Ali who know that
her life and their lives are at risk every day, every minute of every
day because, to this supremacist ideology, provoking words are not only
a defense, but they are a reason to kill people, to brutalize them
unmercifully.
And then we have this article from May 7 by Patrick Goodenough from
CNSNews.
A man displays copies of several local newspapers during a
demonstration calling on the government to rescue the kidnapped
schoolgirls outside defense headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, May 6,
2014.
Secretary of State John Kerry, on Wednesday, underlined the issue of
the poverty as a recruitment tool for extremist groups like Boko Haram,
although analysts and Nigerian officials have for months been reporting
that the organization is forcibly conscripting civilians, including
children, into its ranks.
During his recent Africa trip, leaders had told him that much of the
challenge in confronting violent extremist groups like Boko Haram lies
in fighting poverty, Kerry said at a Council of the Americas conference
in Washington. ``They all talked about poverty and the need to
alleviate poverty, and that much of this challenge comes out of this
poverty where young people are grabbed at an early stage, proffered a
little bit of money,'' he said. ``Their minds are bended, and then the
money doesn't matter anymore. They've got the minds, and they begin to
direct them into these very extreme endeavors.''
The Islamist terrorist group has waged a violent campaign against
Nigerian Christians and government targets since 2009, but shot to
global prominence in recent weeks with its kidnapping of more than 200
schoolgirls in the country's northeastern Borno State. Its leader has
described them as ``slaves'' and is threatening to sell them or
``marry'' them off.
In a new attack this week, as many as 300 people were reportedly
killed.
But it is interesting. This follows the Obama administration's
ideology campaign rhetoric: Gee, we are not at war with radical Islam.
The real problem here is poverty. If we can eliminate poverty, then we
can eliminate radical Islam. And that flies in the face of the facts.
People that have looked under the surface at all are aware Osama bin
Laden was wealthy. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is credited with
planning the 9/11, not tragedy, as might be said here, but murders of
thousands of Americans and is proud of it, and he has said in his own
pleadings that he, himself, prepared and that have been declassified:
If our efforts on 9/11 caused you terror, then praise be to Allah. And
he points out in his pleadings that it is Allah who has commanded them
to be at war and kill people, such as Christians and Jews--Jews because
they are vermin and, as Muslim Brothers have said, are descended from
apes and pigs.
But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in his pleading, points out that also it
is fine to kill Christians because they believe in a Holy Trinity. They
believe and say that God had a Son, Jesus. And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
in his pleading, points out the verse in the Koran that there is no
authorization to combine anyone or anything with Allah; and, therefore,
if you do that, as Christians do, believing in the Holy Trinity,
believing that Jesus is the Son of God, then that justifies capital
punishment, killing you, torturing, whatever they care to do, because,
under their way of thinking, you are worthy of death.
Well, because of the approach of Secretary Clinton's State Department
and of this administration, when the Egyptian people went to the
streets by the millions--the estimates, 33 million. Even 20 million
would have been larger than any protest in the history of the world.
Morsi only claimed to have gotten around 13 million votes to be
President. There were many who believed with all their hearts and had
evidence, they say, that he got the vote by fraud. But threats were
made behind the scenes: If you contest this election, people will die,
and we will burn this country down.
Well, when the Egyptian people--the moderate Muslims, the Christians,
the Jews, the secularists--had had enough of radical Islam, they rose
up and demanded Morsi's removal, as he continued to usurp more and more
power not given to him under the constitution. And since the
constitution didn't allow for impeachment, the only thing the people
could do was rise up before he got the kind of power Chavez had in
Venezuela. Because when a dictator begins pulling power into himself,
you have got to stop him early, or it will cost so many more lives.
And that is why this was one of the banners that Egyptian protesters
held up. On one half, an American flag with a green checkmark; on the
other half, they had our great President's face with a red x. What they
were saying and what they made clear in other banners and statements
was that this administration is supporting the radical Islamists, and
that we moderate Muslims, we Christians, Jews, secularists, we don't
want the Muslim Brotherhood, these radicals that have been properly
classified as a terrorist organization.
And this administration has kowtowed repeatedly, just as Brandeis
University did, to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, who
were cited by a U.S. district judge and upheld by the Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals as being a front organization. They had plenty of
evidence to support that they were a front organization for the Muslim
Brotherhood and were related and working with the Holy Land Foundation,
as it supported terrorism.
[[Page H4053]]
It is time Americans woke up. The Egyptians certainly woke up as they
raised their hands and said: We don't want radical Islam.
Now, I don't agree with this, but this is what the Egyptians were
marching around Egypt with. And why would they say Obama supports
terrorism? It is because the United States, under this administration,
supported Morsi, supported the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Egyptian
people had had enough, and they decried anyone in the United States
that was supporting these terrorists.
And as some of us travel around the Middle East, moderate Muslim
leaders say: Why are you not helping us in the war against terrorism
anymore? You are helping the bad guys. You helped the al Qaeda-backed
rebels in Libya.
And as I speak, there are training camps in Libya, like there were in
Afghanistan before we went in with less than 500 Americans. But we
helped the Northern Alliance Muslims take out the radical Islamic
Taliban.
My friend is coming to the floor. He and I have traveled around those
parts, and he had been engaged with many moderate Muslims in fighting
the Russians, even, back before my predecessor Charlie Wilson was in
Congress.
I am very proud to consider him a friend. I am proud of the efforts
we have made to reach out to our allies. It was my friend from
California (Mr. Rohrabacher) who introduced me to Massoud and General
Dostum and so many of the moderate Muslims that just want out from
under the oppression that radical Islam brings.
So, Mr. Speaker, as we conclude this week, I want to encourage those
in Egypt who are standing up to radical Islam. I want to encourage
universities to stand up against radical Islam and have the courage to
recognize moderate Muslims who will stand up and have the courage to
speak up against the real war on women in this world. And it is not by
conservatives. It is by radical Islam.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. GOHMERT. My time is about expired, but I will certainly yield to
the gentleman from California.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would like to note for the gentleman--and I am
sure we will have your support--that the gentlewoman from California,
Loretta Sanchez, and myself today are starting a Support Egypt Caucus,
which will be aimed at supporting General el-Sisi in his fight to make
sure radical Islam does not take over Egypt and thus threaten the
entire stability of the world.
Mr. GOHMERT. And I greatly appreciated being with you and Ms. Sanchez
in Egypt. And my dear friend from California knows good and well, I am
totally on board. Count me in.
And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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