[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 27 (Wednesday, February 15, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H1231-H1235]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1830
                 ISSUES OF THE DAY AND REFLECTING BACK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, in our Judiciary Committee today, we have 
been marking up what should have been a couple of rather simple bills, 
but it is really as if the instructions on the Soros-funded website, 
manual, things telling people how to obstruct the current majorities in 
the House and Senate and administration, could possibly be carrying 
over here into the Capitol itself because there are so many amendments 
being offered and things being drug out and people saying the same 
thing over and over. It is about Russia and corruption and one thing 
and the other--on and on and on.
  It is just interesting when people are talking about their dramatic 
concerns over Russia, who, for years, have been totally silent. When 
everybody I know of on the Republican side here had been asking that 
President Obama and his administration do something about the terrible 
hacking problem from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, he didn't seem 
terribly bothered.
  I mean, it was as if he were afraid he might hurt Putin's feelings or 
Khamenei's feelings in Iran and maybe they would want to kill Americans 
in a more brutal way, the Iran terrorists being paid. I can't help but 
think that there will be people in the next 4 years who are Americans, 
who are Muslim, Jews, Christians--especially those groups--who would be 
killed because of the billions and billions of dollars that this 
administration forced into the hands of the largest supporter of 
terrorism in the world: Iran.
  It was as if the world--and in particular, the United States--had not 
been punished enough for the mistakes of the Carter administration in 
thinking that by pushing the Shah of Iran--not a great man. Apparently, 
he could be pretty brutal in his own right, but he kept radical Islam 
at bay.
  When President Carter encouraged his forcing out of office, much as 
President Obama did the same thing with the President of Egypt, in both 
cases, it created a vacuum that was immediately filled by radical 
Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood is who filled it in Egypt. In Iran, 
yes, it was radical Islamists. And probably for the first time since 
the Ottoman Empire, radical Islamist leaders were given a country, a 
country's military with which to wreak their havoc on the world.
  It is just hard to believe that, in the intervening years between 
President Carter leaving office in January 1981 and President Obama 
coming in in January of 2009, all history had been forgotten or 
possibly even not really learned.
  I guess, if you are learning at the hands or at the feet of Jeremiah 
Wright, who has such contempt--GD America was his feelings and 
expression--or if you are at the feet of Bill Ayers, who felt that 
blowing up police stations, things like that, hadn't quite served the 
purpose, or perhaps if we take over educating college students who will 
one day train elementary students and high school students, then we can 
ultimately create the anarchy that we were trying to create in the late 
1960s and early 1970s. Back then, we were unsuccessful, but great 
inroads have been made here recently. You would just have to believe 
that America was the problem for the world in the last 100 years, and 
apparently there are those who feel that way.
  But for those of you who have talked with friends of different 
religions--Muslim, Christians, Jews, secularists--in different parts of 
the world, those who are actually fair minded make it very clear: the 
United States has been the greatest force for good as a nation that the 
world has ever known since the Dark Ages. It just has.
  And thank God we have had such wonderful allies in the endeavors that 
we have undertaken. Of course, in the liberation of Kuwait from Saddam 
Hussein's hands, we had many other countries who joined us. President 
George H.W. Bush was going to liberate Iraq. So many Democrats had 
screamed at President George H.W. Bush as troops were moving into Iraq 
after the liberation of Kuwait, screaming: Stop, stop, stop. They are 
giving up. They are giving up.
  President George H.W. Bush ordered the stoppage, and immediately 
thereafter, the Democrats that screamed for him to stop began berating 
Bush because he didn't finish the job in Iraq. Some of those same 
people were around to condemn his son George W. Bush when he actually 
did finish the job.
  There was yellowcake uranium that was taken out which showed that 
Joseph Wilson had apparently said one thing to CIA agents and testified 
to something totally different, who said something totally different 
from his original interview when he got back from Africa. Of course, he 
was heralded a hero by the mainstream media.
  But it has just been amazing to see the ebb and flow of international 
relations. And reflecting back as I did earlier today, as so much from 
my Democratic friends in Judiciary was made about connections between 
the Trump administration and Russia, it is just hard not to remember so 
vividly the comments by Mitt Romney in a debate with President Obama in 
2012 that Russia was potentially the greatest threat.
  I may be mistaken, but it seems like President Obama even said 
something glibly like, you know, ``The 1980s called and they want their 
foreign policy back,'' something rather cheeky like that, when, 
actually, my friends across the aisle, in Judiciary at least, have come 
to realize that that was one thing Mitt Romney was right about and 
President Obama was wrong about.
  But if you look at what the Obama administration did, as soon as 
President Obama took office, instead of taking a principle stand--and I 
know there was a lot of perceived hatred by those coming in with the 
Obama administration for George W. Bush. Perhaps it goes back to 
President Obama's days when he was growing up in Indonesia and he 
commented in his book, ``Dreams from My Father,'' about how his 
stepfather was apparently paid off by these fat-cat guys from Texas, 
oil guys, fat cats from Texas and Louisiana, something to that effect, 
and you realized, holy smokes, he has had a great disdain for Texas, 
for Louisiana going back to, you know, preteen years. You couldn't help 
but wonder if, in policies, it was carried through. Of course, he 
didn't appreciate his stepfather for working, and working with the 
Americans back in those days. But perhaps that has affected him.

  So if George W. Bush took a principled stand against Russia after 
Russia assaulted the independent nation of Georgia--I mean, some of us 
remember that President George W. Bush, trying to look for the good in 
people, came back from meeting Putin and said, you know: I looked into 
his eyes and saw his soul. He thought that is what he saw--may have 
been looking into shark eyes. But in any event, he soon learned the 
error of his ways. And that is one of the things I liked about 
President George W. Bush. If he made a mistake, he was big enough to 
say that wasn't the right way to go, and he would try to fix it.
  That is exactly what he did in his relationship with Russia. When 
Russia attacked Georgia--unprovoked, really--President George W. Bush, 
his administration, properly took a very principled stand. Some didn't 
think it went far enough, but he immediately caused a cessation of the 
great relations that had been going on and took some steps to chill 
those relations because of Russia's unilateral attack against Georgia, 
hoping to wake Putin up that you can't just go attack a neighboring 
country like that. Even if you want the old Soviet Empire back, you 
can't just do that without repercussions. So because of Putin's 
imperialistic attack, Bush took a strong stance and let Russia know: We 
don't approve of what you have done, and we are cooling things, we are 
freezing things.

[[Page H1232]]

  One of the first things that occurred after President Obama took 
office, he sent his new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to meet 
with the Russians and they had this red plastic button--looked pretty 
cheap, but it was supposed to have said ``reset,'' but apparently, they 
couldn't get the translation right. I am not sure what it said, 
peregruzka. I don't know what it said. I don't know what it was. But 
somebody that didn't know how to translate ``reset'' put it on and 
delivered the wrong message.
  But the more important message that Secretary Clinton and President 
Obama delivered to the rather ruthless imperialist leader of Russia was 
this: George W. Bush overreacted when you attacked your neighbor, 
Georgia, Mr. Putin, and we want you to know, we don't have a problem 
with you attacking Georgia, attacking your neighbors, trying to take 
over their territory. So we are here with big smiles and big laughs 
because we want to be such a good friend of yours, and we think it is 
perfectly fine what you are doing. We think you are terrific.

                              {time}  1845

  That is the message after Bush let Putin know: Wait a minute. We are 
not going to let you be the big bully in the world. Enough.
  But the Obama administration sent a very clear message: We are not 
Bush. We don't have a problem with you attacking Georgia.
  And it is hard to think anything but that message that Hillary 
Clinton and Barack Obama, as our President, sent to Putin was clear: We 
would be okay if you attacked Ukraine, Crimea. You know, we are okay 
with that. If it is adjoining, yeah, yeah, attack away.
  What else is Putin supposed to think when President Bush reacts 
harshly when he attacks a neighboring country, and the new President 
comes in and says: We are fine with everything you are doing. We are 
nothing but smiles and plastic red buttons. We are good. We don't mind 
anything you have done. We want to be your good friend.
  If the message from that was not clear enough, before he was 
reelected in 2012, a microphone he didn't realize could pick him up, 
picked up our President telling the President of Russia: Basically tell 
Vladimir I will have a lot more flexibility after the election.
  Well, now that could only have one meaning, and that is, I got to 
look tough and like I am standing up tough to Putin right now before 
the 2012 election, but make sure Putin knows that after the election I 
can give the farm a whole lot easier. I can let him do a whole lot more 
that he wants to do. We can be a lot more chummy once I get past my 
second and last election as President. So you make sure Vlad knows--my 
bosom buddy over there, my best friend forever--I am going to be able 
to work with him like he wants me to once I get past the next election.
  So with those kind of messages, then, as if it wasn't enough, 
followed up by another message to Russia and the world when he stated 
that, basically, if President al-Assad in Syria used gas on people in 
Syria, that would be a red line. And if he crossed it, obviously we 
would have to do something. He created a red line. Nobody asked him to.
  Putin picks up messages like that. For all of the problems he 
presents, one problem he does not present is where he stands, where he 
wants to go, and what motivates him. He's very clear.
  I have never met the man, but I have studied enough about Russia, and 
I have learned enough about Putin to know exactly who he is, what he is 
capable of, what he wants to do. And it is pretty clear: He wants to 
rebuild his empire. He hates the United States. He blames the United 
States for the fall of the glorious Soviet Union, that great USSR that 
once ruled the waves and the world. He wants a grand return to those 
days, and he wants to be the leader like Khrushchev or Brezhnev. 
Really, he would rather be in the nature of Stalin.
  As Stalin himself once said, a translation: With power, dizziness. 
Stalin said that, and he should certainly know.
  I think probably Putin has run into that as he has gotten all this 
glamour. During the Obama years, so many magazines and journalists just 
couldn't get enough of Putin with his shirt off. I mean, it may have 
helped the sex status of--as the status symbol of people who were bald. 
Maybe I should be proud and happy for that, but it didn't seem to 
affect me at all.
  But there was so much laid on the shoulders--the mantle laid by the 
Obama administration on the shoulders of Putin. And when that didn't 
seem to work out very well, it looked like the next big step was to 
ingratiate this Nation's Presidency, administration to the most evil 
leaders in the world, those who are leading Iran.
  They can be an evil empire all by themselves. They have wreaked so 
much havoc in the world. So many of the Americans that died liberating 
Iraq, lost their lives at the hands of IEDs or other weapons of war 
inflicted on them by Iranians--are sent to Iraq from Iran.
  There is a big price to pay for mistakes in judgment of Presidents.
  I believe Donald Trump will ultimately end up being one of the 
greatest Presidents in foreign relations because I think he is going to 
figure out, as George W. Bush did, Putin is not someone you can trust. 
You need to understand where he is coming from and where he wants to 
go. And you can use him when it is to our advantage against a common 
enemy. But make no mistake, he would glory in the fall of the United 
States.
  He is wrong about why the Soviet Union fell. It fell because it was 
based on communism, totalitarianism, and it was destined to fall.
  I could see that during the summer that I was there as an exchange 
student, and I went out to a collective farm. And being from East 
Texas, I worked on farms and ranches. And during summer, as this was 
sometime in July, I went out to a collective farm there; and there were 
massive acres, huge numbers of acres out there.
  I couldn't really tell what was being cultivated and what wasn't, 
what even the crop was. It didn't look good. It was brown. I couldn't 
get over how sad things looked out there. This was down in the Ukraine, 
the bread basket of what was the Soviet Union at the time.
  I know that if you are going to work around the latitude that that 
was in Ukraine--similar to ours back in Texas--in the summer, you best 
start around sun up so that you don't have to work when the Sun reaches 
its hottest time in the day.
  Seeing all of the farmers gathered in the shade there near the center 
of the village--a little town they had there--they were all sitting in 
the shade midmorning. I tried to use my best Russian that I could speak 
at the time and asked them, tried to use a smile: You know, when do you 
work out in the field?
  They laughed. I thought, well, maybe I messed up a word and made it 
into a weird translation.
  Then one of them spoke up in Russian, and he said: I make the same 
number of rubles if I am out there in the field or if I am here in the 
shade--if I am out there in the Sun or here in the shade, so I am here 
in the shade.
  I thought at the time that is why socialism, communism could never 
work. If you are going to pay people the same thing not to work as you 
do the people who are working, then eventually most people are not 
going to work.
  It is a good thing to have a safety net for those who, through no 
fault of their own, find themselves unemployed; but you can't turn into 
a Socialist nation where you reward people--provide the safety net, 
sure--but you can't provide incentives to sit in the shade and not work 
at all. Because eventually some day, your people will go hungry and 
your nation will fail as a nation-state, and it did. There were many 
factors that contributed, but the bottom line is that type of system 
can never work in this world, in this life.
  The Pilgrims tried it in that beautiful Mayflower Compact where they 
were all going to work and bring into the common storehouse and share. 
It was just a beautiful, lovely way to approach things.
  I have loved looking, as I did last night, at the painting there in 
the rotunda reflecting the Pilgrims' famous prayer meeting there in 
Holland. It says ``Speedwell'' right under the platform where they 
were. They were on the ship, the Speedwell, before they left in two 
ships--the big Speedwell and the small Mayflower--and went over to 
England.
  The Speedwell, the big ship that was going to allow them to take so 
many more to the new land, America, began

[[Page H1233]]

taking on water, for whatever reason. There were different things said 
about what may have been the cause.
  But for whatever reason, they had to do a bit like Gideon did. They 
had to winnow it down to the people that had the best chance of making 
it to America so they could fit on that small Mayflower. So they 
winnowed the group down. They came over on the Mayflower.
  It was a beautiful thing, loving, working hard as they did. But when 
such a huge number of their settlers died during that first winter, 
basically, the short version, they ultimately tried something new 
resembling private property: You take your property. You grow. You use 
it however you want. And whatever you grow and produce, that is yours.
  It's amazing that worked out so well. Unlike the collective farms in 
the Soviet Union, there was incentive to work hard, produce, and people 
thrived, did so well. That actually gave a lot of incentive to others. 
Hey, this private property thing can work out well.
  Here, all these years later, we have people wanting to go back to 
that way of life that has failed every time it has been tried. Even 
when the Apostle Paul tried it, he ultimately had to throw up his hands 
and say: Okay. New rule. If you don't work, you don't eat.
  Because the socialist way of doing things in this world is not going 
to work.
  I am glad that my friends who were so vocal about not wanting a 
strong relationship with the current leader of Russia, I am glad they 
finally realized what those of us on the Republican side--most of us--
have been saying for a very long time. Yeah, we can work with the 
Russians to defeat our common enemy, but you should never lose sight of 
the fact Putin does not really want us for friends. He wants to see 
this country gone. He wants to see our way of life fail. So just don't 
lose sight of that.
  It is also interesting--we had amendments being proposed today with 
the same theme being repeated constantly about a Muslim ban, in 
essence, that we should not ever take religion into account when it 
comes to immigration. That has no place.
  Yet, when our chairman, one of our other Members brought up the--I 
believe it was Raul Labrador--the Lautenberg amendment that so many of 
us support, when you know a group of people--such as the Jewish people 
in another part of the world--are being killed and they are being 
persecuted, when we know that is taking place, it is a good thing to 
consider who they are and that their religion is being persecuted.
  When there are Christians in another part of the world being 
persecuted beyond what other religions are, it is a good thing to try 
to help them.

                              {time}  1900

  When there were Muslims being persecuted in Eastern Europe, the 
Clinton administration responded, came to their aid. And for those that 
say, gee, standing up to radical Islam will only encourage more 
recruitment--my word--how much worse can it get than it has gotten 
during the last 8 years?
  There was no ISIS. President Obama took office, Afghanistan, they 
were still fighting; but actually, the Taliban had been totally--any 
organized Taliban had been destroyed by February of 2002, and we hadn't 
lost a single American life. We had used--we had let the Northern 
Alliance, residents, citizens in Afghanistan, we let them fight our 
enemy because, though they were Muslim, most of them, they didn't want 
radical Islamists running Afghanistan.
  A mistake was made after our friends in the Northern Alliance totally 
routed the Taliban. We sent in tens of thousands of American troops, 
and our friends, who loved us and heralded us for our liberation from 
the Taliban in Afghanistan, began to look at us as occupiers. I have 
been to Afghanistan enough. I have seen the way that relationship has 
gone, from us being the heroes that liberated their country from these 
radical Islamists that were a bane to the existence of just peace-
loving Muslims wanting to live and not be terrorized by radical 
Islamists, and somehow we ended up becoming bad guys to so much of the 
country because of our massive presence.
  I do believe, Mr. Speaker, there is potential with all of the chaos 
that is beginning to raise its head again in Afghanistan. I heard a 
report this morning that Afghans had confided to a Republican here in 
town when he was over there visiting that al-Qaida is even back in 
Afghanistan. So it is not just the Taliban back stronger than ever; now 
al-Qaida is back in Afghanistan.
  And what was the cost to America, to our military over the last 8 
years in allowing the Taliban to come back stronger than they were 
originally, to al-Qaida, to come back in Afghanistan stronger than they 
were originally? My personal opinion, I believe it was because of 
President Obama's rules of engagement. But we lost four times more 
precious military lives in Afghanistan during President Obama's command 
than were lost during just under 8 years under Commander George W. 
Bush.
  How could we lose four times more American military and suffer such a 
setback over the last 8 years, where we are back maybe a little worse 
off than things were when we went in to Afghanistan in October of 2001? 
Well, it has to do with the commitment. I heard former Vice President 
Cheney say that when President Obama announced he is committed to 
Afghanistan and he sent a surge into Afghanistan, he also announced, 
what seemed almost simultaneously, and we are going to be out in 18 
months.
  As we know from history, nobody that ever won a war, a police action, 
a confrontation, ever set a deadline: We are going to win by this date 
or we are coming out, whether we have won or not. That message went out 
loud and clear to the Taliban that was growing back that if we can just 
hang on for 18 months, we will own Afghanistan all over again.
  I understand that, apparently, General Harwood, that has apparently 
been named by President Trump as the new National Security Adviser--and 
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I have got to say this because of what Billy 
and Karen Vaughn have come to mean to me since I met them some years 
back, after the death of their SEAL Team 6 son, Aaron. Gosh, I have 
come to know--I never met him while he was alive, but I have come to 
know him and feel like I knew him as a friend and as one of his 
admirers, vicariously, through his parents, Billy and Karen.
  When I heard the general's name come back up as one of those being 
considered, I thought, oh, please, surely not, because Billy and Karen 
made clear, you know, as family members were finding out what happened 
there in Afghanistan that took the most SEAL team lives we had ever 
had, they went onto a Chinook that should not have carried our SEAL 
team members. They went onto this Chinook and, supposedly, going on a 
mission, and yet because of the rules laid down by President Obama and 
his administration, they had to make sure that the Afghans knew exactly 
what was going to occur, where they were going, what they were going to 
do.
  Even knowing that after Vice President Joe Biden's gaffe, where he 
released classified information, that it was the SEALs who took out 
Osama bin Laden, it wasn't supposed to come out. It was another gaffe. 
But immediately, Bill and Karen said, after Biden outed the SEALs and 
it came out it was SEAL Team 6, they got a call from Aaron saying: Hey, 
you need to get off social media. The radical Islamists are going to be 
looking for us, for our family members.
  So this administration put big targets on SEAL Team 6 by disclosing 
classified information that ultimately led to their deaths, and it put 
targets on family members of SEAL Team 6. I know they didn't mean to do 
it. I know it wasn't intentional. They just didn't realize how serious 
things were.
  I know they must not have realized, or at least President Obama must 
not have realized, how serious it was when I watched the video of the 
gentleman that was called his body man, was with him through so many 
days, and he was answering questions at a university in California. It 
has been some years back that I watched. But he was asked, in effect, 
what was it like being with President Obama when he went into the room 
where they were watching SEAL Team 6 go after Osama bin Laden. He 
basically said: Oh, we didn't stay in there long. The President looked 
in but said, ``I'm not watching this,'' and they

[[Page H1234]]

went and played cards, several hands of cards, while the SEAL Team 6 
was putting their lives on the line for their country.
  So if that is your way of thinking, then it is understandable that 
you wouldn't appreciate the dangers in which you put SEAL Team 6 when 
you out them as the people who went after Osama bin Laden. But they 
knew, and the chatter was clear, and it was loud. They wanted to take 
casualties and get a price back with lives of SEAL Team 6 members.
  The mission that they were on should have ended right then, when the 
Afghan commander came up. They knew where they were going. He comes up 
and pulls off their elite soldiers, off the Chinook helicopter, and 
replaced them with people whose names were not on the manifest. Well, 
under the rules, that should have ended the task, should have ended the 
operation right there. They were told to go on, so they went--I have 
seen the transcript of testimony, statements--by gunship, C-130 gunship 
in the area. They had all kinds of imaging.

  And this isn't classified because this was on the DVD that was given 
to the family members. They were later asked if they would give it 
back. They didn't realize quite how much information they had put. 
Yeah, they sure didn't because the family members, like the Vaughns, 
watched it, read it, found out what was on it.
  We had a C-130 gunship, and I--my 4 years on Active Duty in the Army, 
I was never in combat. I think we should have gone into combat in Iran 
when an act of war occurred and our embassy was attacked. But that was 
Commander-in-Chief Carter's call, and he decided not to send anybody. I 
think if he had responded within 48 hours and said, ``You either 
release our hostages, or we are sending our United States military, and 
you better not hurt them or there will be a powerful price paid by you 
and your country,'' I think they would have released them. I think that 
is why, probably--I mean, I was watching closely from Fort Benning. All 
of us were watching the news. Were any of us going to be sent?
  The Ayatollah had a spokesman. I have not seen anything about it 
since I watched back in those days, `79, but I recall him. It was very 
interesting. For a few days, he kept distinguishing that it was the 
students that attacked the U.S. Embassy. It was the students that had 
the hostages.
  I said to some of my Army friends at Fort Benning: I think he is 
afraid Carter's going to send our military, and he is using the 
students as a back door for him. So if Carter shows a backbone and 
says, ``You either release our hostages or we are sending--you are 
going to feel the full vengeance of the United States military,'' they 
had a back door. It gave the Ayatollah an opportunity to save face by 
saying: You don't have to do it. We have negotiated with the students. 
Here are your hostages back. You don't have to invade Iran and take out 
our administration. See, we are your friend. We helped you out.
  But after a few days, I am not sure exactly what it was, but after a 
few days, it was clear, I think, to the Iranian leaders that this 
President is not going to do anything. He is just going to ask us to 
let their people go, and so we don't have to worry. They began to say 
``we have the hostages'' because they knew Carter wasn't going to do 
anything.
  I still believe, based on what I learned at Fort Benning, that if 
President Carter had allowed all the helicopters to go that I was told 
were originally requested, then there would not have been one chopper--
they had to have six to be able to make it the 500 miles into the 
staging area there in Iran. As has come out publicly, they all knew, if 
we don't get six choppers out of the--eight was all the Carter 
administration would allow to go. They should have sent 12 because they 
expected to have a 50 percent loss, turbine engines going across sand 
like that 500 miles. They knew they had to have six or the mission was 
an automatic abort.
  As we know, when only five got there and it was clear there was not 
another one coming, then it was aborted. As I understand, the 
investigation indicated the helicopter pilot, as sand swirled around 
his chopper, must have gotten vertigo and not relied on his 
instruments. The helicopter tilted. The blade went through the C-130, 
and everybody on the chopper and the C-130 was killed.

                              {time}  1915

  But, once again, we were embarrassed because we didn't have a 
Commander in Chief that was totally committed to doing what it took to 
get our hostages out. Again, I will always believe, if he had shown a 
backbone within 48 hours of our embassy being attacked and our hostages 
being taken, there would be thousands of American military lives still 
in being today.
  So having witnessed firsthand lessons of poor decisions by Commanders 
in Chief, having seen the data, the statistics of dead American 
military in Afghanistan, four times more under Commander Obama than 
under Commander Bush in approximately near the same amount of time, we 
haven't learned the lessons of the past very well.
  I feel absolutely confident that the President is going to learn his 
lessons. He has made a couple of mistakes. And certainly I agree, you 
can't have a National Security Adviser that is not completely honest 
with the Vice President and the President; you just can't. You have to 
be able to totally trust him. That has been a problem in our 
intelligence community. They were leaking and undermining President 
Bush, and now it is happening again to President Trump.
  So as I was talking about SEAL Team Six, these devastated families 
that had lost the greatest military members that we could have lost at 
that point, their every life is just priceless, invaluable. But there 
was so much money spent in training up these SEAL teams. It is an 
investment. You need to make sure they have the right equipment, that 
you don't have Afghans pulled off that are the best fighting members 
that Afghanistan has, and you put what they considered expendable 
Afghanistan soldiers on with our elite SEAL Team Six, especially when 
you know there are targets on their backs.
  But when the families met General Harward, they said they were just 
so crushed, they were so devastated, and they found out that this AC-
130 gunship, that there were opportunities to take out this patrol, 
this team, that shot down the Chinook and our SEAL team members. And 
there were other precious American lives on that helicopter in addition 
to the SEAL Team Six members, and they should not be shorted in when we 
owe them and their memories.
  But they asked if they had an opportunity to take these guys out. And 
the crew said they did. They had the thermal imaging. They could see 
these guys moving like military. They could see them moving up to the 
high point and getting ready to fire. They asked for permission to take 
them out, and they were denied permission to take them out. They 
watched them fire over and over at the helicopters with the rocket-
propelled grenades apparently of some kind, and they missed with the 
first one. As I understand it, they were still not allowed to shoot 
them down, take out the Afghan rebels. They fired again, and they fired 
again. And the second and third took out our precious American military 
members along with those precious Afghan lives who should never have 
been on that helicopter to begin with.
  Then they watched them dismantle their equipment and start to climb 
down. They asked permission to take them out, it is my understanding, 
and, once again, they were told there may be civilians in the area, so, 
no, do not fire; and they watched them fade back into the population of 
Afghanistan after killing so many of our SEAL Team Six and others on 
the helicopter.
  They asked the general who is now apparently going to be our National 
Security Adviser: Why didn't you take out these people, these Afghan 
radical Islamists? Why didn't you take them out before they took out 
our military members, our SEAL Team Six? Why?
  His statement, from their memory, as related to me, was, in essence: 
Because we were trying to win hearts and minds.
  Our National Security Adviser is going to be more interested in--or 
at least he has in the past--apparently has been more interested in 
winning hearts and minds of people that hate our guts than he is of 
protecting the most precious assets the United States of America has: 
American lives.

[[Page H1235]]

  We haven't won any hearts and minds by allowing SEAL Team Six--so 
many of those members on that Chinook--to be killed. We haven't. That 
strategy didn't work.
  I am sorry. I want to be supportive. I was excited President Trump 
won, but when I know how this man, who I understand today has now been 
named to be the new National Security Adviser, was given the task of 
encouraging and being empathetic to the family members who lost those 
precious American family members in that Chinook that should never have 
been shot down, it should never have been allowed to take off, and the 
best he could do is say: Sorry, they had to die because we were trying 
to win hearts and minds instead of win the war.
  I hope that his mentality has changed. I hope he will not be willing 
to expend the best trained, the best and brightest military members we 
have, as he tries to win hearts and minds instead of trying to win a 
battle and win the war; but I guess time will tell.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to finish by saluting all those brave Americans 
that have defended freedom, that have fought for America, and who have 
responded in a voluntary military since 1979 and given their lives at 
the hands of radical Islamists. I hope and pray this President will 
pick people from here who will have the same feelings about precious 
American lives.
  I know Donald Trump does, and I think he will be a good President. I 
think he blew it on this call, but time will tell.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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