[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 139 (Friday, November 14, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H7986-H7988]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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THE NEW OTTOMAN EMPIRE
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cramer). 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.
Keystone XL Pipeline
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, this is an important day for a number of
reasons.
It is an important day in that we passed the Cassidy bill here in the
House that will open the door to the Keystone XL pipeline being built.
Since this administration has dallied so, the Chinese have entered the
picture and are desirous of having a pipeline going to the west coast
of Canada so that, apparently, when this administration does, finally,
get around to deciding what is best for Americans instead of what is
best for his political situation, then we will have to compete with the
Chinese, who will be seeking the oil to go in their pipeline as opposed
to the United States' getting it to come through our pipeline.
We understand that our friend Ms. Landrieu, Senator Landrieu, will
have a bill in her name come to the Senate floor for a vote. I am
really proud Bill Cassidy is a friend. I am proud that we had a chance
to vote on the Bill Cassidy bill, and I am proud that it passed. I
think it is such a shame that Mary Landrieu will not be able to likely
get her colleagues to vote for the Keystone pipeline and pass it as
Bill Cassidy has been able to do here in the House.
Make no mistake. Since I live in east Texas and the pipeline will
come through part of my district and come across private land, nobody
who has private land wants a pipeline coming across their land. Anybody
who has ever had one knows it is no fun. You don't like having an
easement across for a pipeline like that. So it will require great
diligence to make sure that it is properly maintained and that damage
is avoided, and if damage occurs, then I will certainly want to fight
for our landowners to make sure they are properly addressed and taken
care of and compensated.
That is one thing today, but it really pales in comparison, Mr.
Speaker, to what happened 100 years ago today.
The New Ottoman Empire
Mr. GOHMERT. In recent years, after this administration blindly
supported what it called--and others in North Africa and the Middle
East called--an Arab Spring, we have come to find out what many of us
suspected even at the time and said was likely to be even more of a
devastating winter than an Arab Spring. It has seen the fall of the
government in Libya. It has seen the chaos arise in many parts of
Libya. It has seen terrorists take control of parts of Libya. It has
seen the fall of the governments in Algeria, Tunisia, and the takeover
of radical Islam.
I was amazed at the ignorance of many in the mainstream media when I
said back at the time that what radical Islamists--what the Muslim
Brotherhood--were seeking to re-create was the beginning of the Ottoman
Empire and that, in its ignorance, our executive branch--this
administration here in the U.S.--actually helped jump-start what the
Muslim Brothers are hoping will be the new Ottoman Empire. I was
surprised how many reporters asked what did I mean by ``Ottoman
Empire.'' They had not had the kind of education that I was fortunate
to have had in public schools in east Texas and in public school by way
of Texas A&M University and then law school at Baylor. So they didn't
know what the Ottoman Empire was. Hopefully, they did some research.
Many of us did not realize that the date 9/11--when the worst attack
on America occurred--also marked the anniversary of the worst defeat
that the Islamic caliphate ever suffered in history. That was the
devastating defeat to the caliphate. The radical Islamist caliphate had
made it all the way to Vienna. It laid siege upon Vienna, and on 9/11
of 1683, the radical Islamic caliphate suffered its worst defeat in
history. Amazingly, that was the date that Osama bin Laden and the
mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed--currently in Guantanamo, who
hopefully will stay there until his death--chose to inflict the worst
attack in American history.
To many people, dates mean things. My anniversary means a lot. I have
never forgotten one. Our birthdays mean a lot to most Westerners. Some
of us begin to try to forget them, but major dates in caliphate history
mean a great deal to radical Islamists.
There was an article today written by Dr. Sebastian Gorka, and I
would like to read this in for the Record. He does a good job of
incapsulating this issue today.
Dr. Gorka says:
One hundred years ago today, the last caliph, or emperor of
Islam, declared the last jihad against the infidel, and today
is the first time ever that the National Cathedral in the
Nation's Capital will host Muslim prayers.
Most Americans will have no idea that, as part of World War
I, the then-caliph of the Ottoman Empire declared a holy war
against infidels as was his right within shari'a law and
Islamic theology. You can read the full fatwa.
In that fatwa, there actually was a typo in the original. It was
provided on this day in 1914, but they had a typo saying it was 1915.
The article says:
That statement by the last sitting head of what was the
theocratic empire of Islam was the catalyst which led to the
religiously fueled genocide against Christian Armenians and
Assyrians.
That is what is pictured. It actually represents a photograph that
was taken of young Armenian Christian girls who were kidnapped,
stripped naked, raped, and then crucified on crosses as far as the eye
could see.
This article points out:
The Episcopal church leaders who agreed to host Muslim
prayers inside the Washington cathedral probably have no idea
what happened a century ago in Asia Minor or that there even
was a caliph in office at the beginning of the 20th century.
However, we can rest assured that the co-organizers do, for
they include the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR), The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the
Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and the All Dulles Area
Muslims Society (ADAMS) Center.
Both CAIR and ISNA will be fully aware of the significance
of November 14th, seeing as both organizations were declared
by a Federal court to be unindicted coconspirators of Hamas,
the Muslim Brotherhood terror group, in the largest terrorist
financing trial in U.S. history.
Those Muslims who have a supremacist understanding of their
religion, such as members of al Qaeda and the Muslim
Brotherhood, which was recently declared an illegal terrorist
organization in the country of its founding, Egypt, have a
special regard for historic dates and anniversaries.
It is, of course, no accident that the 9/11 attacks--the
worst terror attacks in world history--occurred exactly to
the day in 1683 when the Islamic Ottoman forces were defeated
outside the city walls of Vienna, the deepest the Islamic
caliphate's forces made it into the heart of the Christian
West.
There is nothing inherently wrong about interfaith
initiatives as long as they start from the same place: a
mutual respect for the belief system of the other and their
inherent dignity as humans created by God. When one party
acts in bad faith based upon its ideological commitment to
see other faiths destroyed or subjected, then the event runs
the risk of becoming a propaganda coup for the extremists and
their followers.
The fact that this event is occurring just as ancient
Christian communities are being destroyed in the Middle East
and ``nonbelievers'' are being actually crucified by ISIS
jihadists makes it all the more egregious.
We know that the Episcopal church is in trouble with more
conservative believers leaving in great numbers and the
remaining adherents not exactly outdoing their Catholic
cousins in terms of reproducing the next generation of
believers.
The author goes on to say:
But I doubt they also understand the finer points of
jihadist doctrine, one of which is that if a place of worship
is used by Muslims for their prayers that territory
subsequently becomes part of Dar al Islam, sacred Muslim
land, forever.
That author was Sebastian Gorka, Ph.D., and he is the Major General
Matthew C. Horner Distinguished Chair of Military Theory at the Marine
Corps University and is the national security and foreign affairs
editor at Breitbart.com.
Mr. Speaker, it is an important day. The prosecution referred to in
this article was actually the Holy Land Foundation criminal trial in
the United
[[Page H7987]]
States Federal District Court in Dallas, Texas. I have done a great
deal of reading and looking into the issues involved in that case, and
am aware of the massive number of counts of conviction, and also have
read some of the pleadings in this case in which the Islamic Society of
North America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations--CAIR and
ISNA--were named as coconspirators in that prosecution, in which they
were contributors and part of funding terrorism.
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They were not named as indicted coconspirators, but they were named
as coconspirators. And CAIR and ISNA were among parties that filed
pleadings in Federal District Court, demanding that their names be
eliminated from the pleadings.
Yet after the Federal judge in Dallas reviewed all of the
information, the evidence before him, he declared that actually there
was plenty of evidence to support the fact that CAIR and ISNA--which
have such cozy relations with this administration now--that there is
plenty of evidence to support that those two entities are
coconspirators in supplying and financing terrorism.
Well, those convictions occurred in late 2008. And from some who have
been involved in that effort, their understanding was that if the Bush
administration Justice Department, after years of investigation and
effort of prosecution, if they got convictions, then the intention was
to come back--and especially since the courts had said that there is
plenty of evidence to support that these named coconspirators were
coconspirators, then they would come back and actually indict them,
prosecute them. And those parties were not satisfied, though, with the
judgment of the Dallas Federal court.
So they appealed the ruling that there was plenty of evidence to
support CAIR and ISNA being coconspirators, and Imam Majid, who is
their part of the prayer effort at National Cathedral today--they
wanted their names eliminated. The Federal judge in Dallas would not do
that. So they appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
And after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed the record, all
the information, then they stated even more plainly and more directly
than the Federal District Court did that, yes, there really was plenty
of evidence to support that they were coconspirators and that the names
should not be struck. They should not be kept private.
And the thinking was that, you know, gee, any administration, of
course, will understand that once a Federal District Court and a Court
of Appeals find there is plenty of evidence to support that CAIR and
ISNA are coconspirators in helping terrorism around the world that
surely they would not end up being cozy with any American
administration. That would be the common sense, you would think.
There is plenty of common sense back where I come from. But you get
to Washington, and it is not common sense. It is just sense.
And it is rather a shame that organizations who were said by a
Federal court system to have plenty of evidence to show that they are
coconspirators and had radical Islamic efforts at terrorism, that they
would have such an open ear at the White House.
In recent years, there was a 2-day seminar that was going to take
place out at Langley. And I know one of the instructors very well. He
has made a career out of studying radical Islam. He used to provide
briefings, do research, provide advice to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of
our military about radical Islam. Well, he was one of them. Well, that
rather upset what the Federal courts have said the evidence indicates
were front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood, were suppliers, helpers
in terrorism. They got upset that he was going to be out there and be a
part of the teaching of the seminar. So they burned up the phone line
to the White House. The White House canceled the seminar.
And it was CAIR that had an ongoing partnership that they developed
with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. And I was
surprised that it took so long after the FBI had spent a couple of
decades investigating what, ultimately, we understood was the Muslim
Brotherhood. It was surprising, with Federal courts saying that there
is plenty of evidence to show that they are complicit in supplying
terrorism funding, helping with terrorism. I was surprised that the FBI
decided, with all that evidence they furnished the prosecutors, that
they ended up turning around and making CAIR their partner.
So I was surprised that the letter took so long from the FBI
eventually to the leaders of CAIR, saying that, in view of evidence in
essence there in the Holy Land Foundation trial, we need to suspend our
partnership in the outreach program that the FBI had to them.
When I was questioning the immediate previous director of the FBI,
Director Mueller, about the Tsarnaevs and the lack of investigation
into their backgrounds, even after the Russians warned this
administration twice--after the first time, apparently the Russians
were surprised that we didn't do anything with the knowledge they had
provided, that Tsarnaev had been radicalized and would likely kill
people here. They warned a second time and had to be totally shocked--
and, to the best I understand, basically the investigation included
talking to Tsarnaev, himself, and to his mom. There may have been some
other peripheral things.
But as I questioned the director of the FBI, saying, you guys didn't
even go out to their mosque to ask questions to help you determine
whether Tsarnaev had been radicalized. And, in essence, he ended up
saying, we did go to the mosque. When he gave the answer, I didn't hear
the little add-on he gave until my staff replayed it with the little
add-on he gave after: We did go out to those mosques, but he added,
``in our outreach program.''
So just as I suspected, the FBI didn't go out and investigate.
Michele Bachmann, Lynn Westmoreland reviewed some materials. Trent
Franks looked at some of the materials. But we were concerned because
CAIR, this named coconspirator in supplying and helping terrorism, as a
front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, we were surprised that CAIR had
such powerful inroads into the FBI, enough to the point that they could
demand to have the training materials for the FBI reviewed and had them
purged of things that they, as apparently a front group for the Muslim
Brotherhood, found offensive. As named coconspirators in funding
terrorism, they were offended.
So a massive number of pages that radical Islamists might find
offensive, that people who wanted to kill Americans might be offended
by, were purged from our training materials. The State Department
apparently purged materials. The intelligence community purged
materials. And, as one intelligence officer told me, we have blinded
ourselves of the ability to see our enemy.
So, Mr. Speaker, it breaks my heart, grieves me deeply when innocent
Muslims are maltreated, killed, tortured. It is a grievous violation of
human rights. But in the same way, the things that have been done and
are growing and spreading in numbers never before seen in human
history, of Christians being persecuted around the world, as America
basically remains silent.
But today, being the 100th anniversary of the caliph's public fatwa,
demanding the murder, killing of Christians in 1914 by the last Islamic
caliph, also is the first day in our history when the National
Cathedral, run by the Presbyterian church, conceded to the named
coconspirators in funding terrorism, their demands to have prayers
today on this 100th anniversary of the fatwa that caused the deaths of
countless Christians, especially Armenian Christians, as depicted in
this blown-up photograph from the newspaper, as depicted in this
drawing that we have blurred, depicting what was actually seen along
the road as massive numbers of young Christian girls were raped and
crucified.
We don't want a holy war. No Christian should ever go to some kind of
holy war. But for heaven's sake, when there is an international group
about which moderate Muslim leaders in the Middle East have said to me:
The Muslim Brotherhood is your enemy; they have been behind every
attack that has occurred onto America and Americans; they have been
behind the killing of Americans all over the Middle East and the
world--why do you keep helping the Muslim Brotherhood?
[[Page H7988]]
When the largest uprising in the history of the world occurred over a
year ago in Egypt, when moderate Muslims, Christians, even the Coptic
Christian Pope, secularists, over 30 million came to the streets of
Egypt and said, we don't want radical Islam controlling our country, it
was a day of historic proportions. Never before had there been a crowd
of that size gathered. Even when 20 million came out or when the
estimated 33 million came out, they demanded the same thing. It was not
a military coup, as CNN and this administration tried to paint. It was
the largest uprising in the history of the world, in Egypt.
And the Egyptians, instead of being called stupid, foolish by this
administration and some media, they should have been congratulated. We
should have rushed to their assistance. And, instead, this
administration said, Unless you put Muslim Brother Morsi back in power,
then we are not going to help you. The Apache helicopters that were
coming, that you use to keep the Suez Canal open, that you use to fight
terrorism in the Sinai, that help Israel, we are not going to send
them. You are not going to be able to keep the Suez Canal and the Sinai
terrorism down until you put the Muslim Brothers back in charge.
Many in the media made a big deal about the Christian churches being
burned and about Jews and Christians being persecuted, tortured, and
killed, and, for some unbelievable reason, tried to blame it on those
who ousted the Muslim Brothers. And anybody that will do any modicum of
research in Egypt will understand, it was the Muslim Brothers that
burned the churches, that killed Christians and Jews there. It was not
the government. It was not the military. The military, under General
el-Sisi, was doing everything it could to stop it.
I talked to a former CIA operative in the Middle East last year who
said that he had talked to a guy who said, Morsi, President Morsi, had
tried to contract through him to have General el-Sisi murdered.
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I asked our Embassy personnel if they had heard of anything like
that. They said they had not.
In our meeting with General el-Sisi, I asked him directly, ``Did you
have evidence when you arrested President Morsi that he was trying to
hire someone to kill you?'' He beat around the bush twice and
ultimately answered, ``Yes, we did.''
Yet we even had even Republicans go to Cairo and say, ``Put back the
Muslim Brothers.'' And I met the brilliant gentleman--Muslim, seemed to
be a very fine man--that was put in charge of the committee to draft a
new constitution because the constitution the United States helped and
this administration helped Egypt to get that led to the Muslim
Brotherhood control of the country had no provision for impeachment.
So as Muslim Brother President Morsi began to usurp power, kind of in
the same vein, and Noriega and other dictators who get elected and then
start grabbing power, he was doing it in Egypt. There was no provision
for impeachment.
There was nothing they could do except what they did, go to the
street in the tens of millions, demand his removal and, in the largest
uprising, cause the removal of an unconstitutionally acting President,
and he was removed, thank goodness.
I was thrilled earlier this year when I think it was over 90 percent
of the Egyptian voters voted to ratify the new constitution for Egypt.
I really wished that all of the American media could have grasped the
significance of what happened.
That constitution actually included provisions that required the
Egyptian Government under the constitution to rebuild and replace the
churches or synagogues that had been damaged or destroyed by the Muslim
Brotherhood. They felt so badly for what the Muslim Brotherhood had
done to the Christians and Jews that they put it in their constitution
that they had to be repaired and replaced. That should have been a big
day for freedom, and most of the American media missed it entirely.
Well, they are also missing today. As the left often wants to do--
maybe they want to vilify me. You can try to rewrite history, but you
can't change what has happened in the past, and what happened 100 years
ago today, the first day, November 14, that the National Cathedral, run
by the Presbyterian Church, has allowed Muslim prayers by named
coconspirators in the terrorist funding trial to come lead prayers in
this Christian cathedral.
I thank God that the massive majority of Muslims, including some of
my Muslim friends in the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, they don't
want radical Islamists controlling anything. They don't want to be at
war with Americans. They don't want to kill Americans. Thank God for
that.
But it is sheer lunacy not to recognize how important anniversaries
are to radical Islamists, to the Muslim Brotherhood, to those who would
kill and persecute and wipe out Jews and, as they say, wipe the Great
Satan America off the map and the Little Satan Israel off the map. It
is lunacy not to recognize the way these radical Islamists feel. We can
live at peace with moderate Muslims.
When I visited Nigeria not long ago to mourn with the Africans--23
mothers who had had their daughters kidnapped, brutalized every day
still in Boko Haram, radical Islamist controlled, it was a beautiful
thing. Nigeria, until the radicals got involved, had Muslims and
Christians living peacefully together.
Meeting a government official, a devout Christian, who had in his
wedding party one of his best friends in the world who was a Muslim, it
is a thing of beauty to see people with different backgrounds and
beliefs living at peace together.
But until the American media, until a majority of Americans realize
there really are radical Islamists that think that the fatwa that was
declared by the last Islamic caliph of the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago
today was a great thing, then this country remains at great risk.
It is bad enough that we have enemies publicly saying they want to
wipe us off the map, destroy our freedom of worship, free speech, the
freedoms we hold dear and love, but to be blind that they want to
destroy us is negligence, reckless indifference that can cost a
country's freedom.
Mr. Speaker, today is a big day. I hope Americans will wake up and
understand the Muslim Brotherhood is not our friend. They want us all
to be living, if we live at all, as Muslims or to pay the fine that
acknowledges that we are subjugating ourselves to radical Islam. People
have got to wake up. This country is at risk.
Mr. Speaker, with prayerful regard to the masses of young Christians
who were kidnapped, raped, crucified as a result of that fatwa issued
100 years ago today, I hope that we will not be so blind that we could
allow this movement to continue to grow as it has grown and grown.
Some say a good way to avoid destructive forces overtaking civilized
society is to watch Israel--that Israel could be looked at as the
world's miner's canary, as miners used to take canaries into mine
shafts. They knew canaries were more sensitive to poison gas, so if
they saw a canary getting in trouble, falling, then they knew they
better get out of the mine because it was very, very dangerous.
When we see Israel being attacked, our best friend in the Middle East
being attacked, when we see anti-Semitism, hatred for Jews, hatred for
Israelis growing in Europe, of all places--I never thought that would
happen again after Hitler--but it is growing again around Europe. It is
growing on American campuses.
These young, wonderful, brilliant students who have been miseducated
to think that they need to get involved in anti-Semitism on their
campuses in America will hopefully wake up and realize they have been
played by people that are not about freedom.
It is time for America to wake up. Because today, as an anniversary
of what happened 100 years ago, is a really big deal for those who want
to destroy our way of life and our lives if we are Christians.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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