[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 18 (Tuesday, February 3, 2015)]
[House]
[Page H753]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                  THE MINDLESS, HEARTLESS EVIL OF ISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Franks) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, there is nothing that I fear more 
for America than that, as a country, we might allow ourselves to grow 
numb to human atrocity in our own country and across the world.
  Eight years ago, President George Bush warned that: ``To begin 
withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would mean 
surrendering the future of Iraq.''
  He said: ``It would mean that we would be risking mass killings on a 
horrific scale. It would mean increasing the probability that American 
troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy 
that is even more dangerous.''
  Mr. Speaker, many of us in Congress warned President Obama, both in a 
private letter and in open declaration, of the danger that ISIS 
represented as it began to rise in Iraq.
  We also warned the President that negotiating with terrorists by 
trading high-level Taliban leaders would lead to an increase in 
terrorists trying to leverage America and the world by taking hostages. 
Yet, this President ignored this, and so many other commonsense 
warnings, and atrocity after atrocity has occurred since.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, the world watched in abject horror as 26-year old 
Jordanian pilot, 1st Lieutenant al-Kaseasbeh, who was taken captive by 
ISIS, was doused in gasoline, placed in a cage, and burned alive.
  Mr. Speaker, this horrifying tragedy is the natural end to the 
timorous policy of appeasing or negotiating with or neglecting to have 
a just response to this mindless, heartless evil cancer called ISIS.
  And the question occurs: When will this President respond decisively 
to this hellish evil?
  Will it take a direct attack on American shopping malls?
  Will it take a direct attack on an American grocery store or a school 
or an American magazine or some other venue where American blood will 
have to be spilled before this President calls the evil of global jihad 
for what it is?
  It has been a full year since ISIS retook Fallujah and wiped out 
America's blood-bought gains. It has been a full 7 months since 55 of 
my colleagues and I beseeched the President to prioritize security and 
humanitarian support for religious minorities in Iraq, including 
the Yazidi people, a group that has now been nearly wiped out 
completely by ISIS.

  Mr. Speaker, this administration can no longer claim ignorance. This 
Nation is at war with Islamist groups like ISIS that support and 
perpetrate the terrorism of global jihad. Terrorists understand it all 
too well. The American people understand it all too well, and it is 
time that this White House begin to understand it as well.
  Mr. Speaker, if the Obama administration continues to sit on the 
sidelines and allows this unspeakable act of terrorism we have all 
witnessed today to go unanswered, as it has so many times before, we 
invite that sinister malevolence to our own shores.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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