[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 201 (Monday, December 11, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7938-S7940]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    America's Role in Global Affairs

  Madam President, I wish to turn to a subject of great importance to 
our national security. This morning's terrorist attack reminded all of 
us that danger is never far away from our Nation's shores. While 
details about the bombing in New York are still emerging, we already 
know one thing for certain: This was an attack not only on the American 
people but on the principles that we stand for. It was an attack on our 
freedom and our very way of life.
  The violence we witnessed this morning stands as a stark reminder 
that America has many enemies. Overseas, animosity toward the United 
States grows stronger as the world grows ever more chaotic, so today I 
wish to speak on America's role in these turbulent times.
  As the Trump administration works to return our country back to its 
rightful role as the leader of a broken world, you will find my foreign 
policy recommendations today to be not only intrinsically American but 
also inherently good. My solution to the chaos that now grips the world 
is the simple principle articulated by President Reagan over 30 years 
ago in his ``evil empire'' speech. Addressing the National Association 
of Evangelicals, he said these words:

       America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, 
     America will cease to be great.

  To be sure, we find ourselves in a world very different from that 
which President Reagan faced. Today, the structured diplomatic 
environment we once operated in has come into question with the fall of 
local governments in much of the Middle East. Global alliances, while 
strong in the commitments and connectivity among member nations, are 
weak in direction and long-term purpose. Political narratives of 
states--once stable and predictable--must today compete with the 
conversations being had on the streets and in the classrooms by those 
with access to mobile phones and social media.
  Since Reagan's time, the world has not only grown more complicated 
but also more dangerous. The threat of state-on-state military 
showdowns seems imminent--particularly with North Korea and Iran.
  Where we had achieved military successes, we remain reluctant to 
declare victory, as is the case with ISIS, and to deal with the most 
intractable issues, such as the conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, and 
Iraq, we seem to rely on partner nations that often work at cross 
purposes with our own objectives.
  How has the United States engaged with this chaos? In many cases, 
President Obama sought to ignore it altogether. Indeed, if his foreign 
policy could be boiled down to two words, they would be these: ``Stay 
out.'' The Obama administration spent the better part of 8 years making 
disengagement a cornerstone of American foreign policy, captured by the 
euphemism ``offshore balancing''--in other words, deferring to local 
actors to manage regional problems.
  The Obama doctrine offered easy answers to complex problems, but easy 
answers are rarely the right answers, and a gradual U.S. withdrawal 
from an increasingly chaotic world under President Obama only made 
matters worse. Thanks to the hands-off approach of his predecessor, 
President Trump inherited a truly unprecedented state of world 
disorder.
  Despite these great challenges, our ability to achieve good in the 
world has not diminished. If we are to achieve good in the world--if we 
are to restore peace and stability in these troubled times--then we 
must first rediscover our purpose in global affairs. We must make an 
honest assessment of where we have gone wrong in the past and how we 
can improve in the future.
  In our engagement with the world, we seem to have drifted far from 
how we used to do things. The foreign policy of President Obama, for 
example, chose to transact in one of two words: ``threats'' and 
``interests.'' How big is the threat to national security that ISIS or 
a nuclear Iran possesses? What is the U.S. interest in Syria? How do we 
preserve American security and interests in the South Pacific? Under 
this myopic approach, anything that didn't fit neatly into either a 
threat or interest was of little importance. The foreign policy of the 
Obama years put the United States in a short-term responsive mode, with 
little capacity to ask about the future.
  Rediscovering our purpose in the world requires us to look beyond 
mere considerations of threats and interests. It requires us to 
reconnect with our core values by making them central to our foreign 
policy. Foremost among those values is promoting freedom. Freedom is 
what we stand for as a nation. As President Reagan said:

       America is freedom--freedom of speech, freedom of religion, 
     freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's 
     fragile; it needs protection.

  President Bush carried this tradition, squarely identifying the 
perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks as enemies of freedom. As he keenly 
observed, what divided the United States from its adversaries was not 
faith, not skin color, not gender or race, but hatred of America and 
the freedoms it stands for.
  President Bush did not mince words in describing exactly who our 
enemy was. Following the 9/11 attacks, he described those who committed 
the attacks as belonging to ``a fringe form of Islamic extremism that 
has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim 
clerics, a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of 
Islam.''
  In his use of the phrase ``Islamic extremism,'' President Bush was 
not

[[Page S7939]]

afraid to call the enemy by its name, and neither were our Muslim 
allies who joined us in the fight against terrorism. In the name of 
political correctness, President Obama refused to use the words 
``Islamic extremism,'' insisting instead on the vague expression 
``violent extremism.''
  This small but consequential change caused deep conceptual and 
bureaucratic damage to our strategy and our institutions. Not only did 
the Obama administration distract us from gaining understanding of who 
the adversary is and the tools needed to fight and understand him, but 
it also deemed irrelevant once-successful government programs on the 
grounds that they did not adequately address this beltway term of 
``violent extremism.'' Meanwhile, jihadist groups outpaced and 
outmaneuvered Obama's sophistry by strategically embedding themselves 
within local populations in Syria and Iraq, disguising themselves as 
moderate and protective of local populations.
  In place of the feckless foreign policy of the Obama years, I offer 
instead of global policy defined by one word: ``purpose.'' With 
purpose, we can look to the future and address the kind of legacy we 
hope to leave behind. With purpose, we can define what it is we seek to 
achieve in the world, where we can make a difference, and how we can 
effect lasting change on a global scale.
  Rediscovering our purpose in global affairs doesn't mean giving up 
our focus on threats and interests. Quite the opposite, it means 
ensuring that the way in which we address threats and interests helps 
us achieve our ultimate goal--that of ensuring freedom in the world.
  Today's world offers many opportunities to act with renewed purpose 
in the defense of freedom. In Syria, for example, a collapsing ISIS 
caliphate and a bloody civil war leave a traumatized population in 
their wake. While a political solution for all of Syria seems remote, 
we can work toward meaningful goals in the near term to help resettle 
internally displaced persons. Although much of the country remains at 
war, we should focus on helping the most vulnerable populations within 
these pockets of promise--those neighborhoods in Northwest Syria and 
along the Jordanian and Israeli borders. Within these pockets of 
promise, we can change people's lives--and ultimately, the region--by 
working with our local partners to build hospitals and schools with 
modern curricula.
  In Iran, too, we can make a difference. The President's recent 
decision to decertify the Iran deal was itself a step in the right 
direction. The Iran deal singlehandedly gave international legitimacy 
to an enemy regime openly committed to the destruction of the United 
States and its allies. This deal was indeed a bad one; its only 
achievement, if it can be called such, was deferring the question of 
when, not whether, Iran will be able to achieve a nuclear weapon. It 
only hardened the hostile voices against the United States, allowing 
them to build a case that those who oppose the deal are enemies of the 
Iranian people. This assertion is plainly false. As the President noted 
in his address to the United Nations, the good people of Iran want 
change, and they are the regime's longest suffering victims.
  The President now has the opportunity to act with renewed purpose in 
the region, dealing a final blow to the Ayatollah's antics. Moving 
forward, as we leverage military strength to disrupt the regime's 
hostile activities around the world, we can also actively use 
diplomatic channels to support the wishes of the Iranian people--to 
promote their freedoms and to help them realize the opportunities their 
government denies them.
  Meanwhile, in North Korea, as we prepare for any scenario that might 
await us, we must acknowledge our ultimate strategic advantage--our 
allies. The greatest threat to Kim Jong Un is that he is completely 
isolated from his neighbors and his people.
  As we seek diplomatic approaches to deescalating the tensions, we 
must ensure that it is the right kind of diplomacy with the right 
message--a message about the future of the region and the future of a 
new North Korea in that region. If Mr. Kim does not realize the need to 
change his ways, then certainly he will get that message when he sees 
the might of his neighbors working with the United States toward shared 
objectives. That is the power of alliances, of strong and loyal 
partnerships.
  Even as we resolve to do good in these situations, we must remain as 
vigilant and aggressive as ever in meeting the threats that no doubt 
will continue to test us. The key will be to stand true to ourselves 
and our allies. That is what we did when the President recognized 
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel last week. That is what I sought to 
do in my meetings with Prime Minister Theresa May and MI5 Director-
General Andrew Parker during my visit to the United Kingdom last month. 
There, I highlighted the need to pass legislation to enable our two 
nations to work more closely together in the fight against terror and 
criminal activity.
  We talked about my International Communications Privacy Act, which 
would create a clear legal framework for law enforcement officials who 
access data relevant to criminal investigations stored in other 
countries. We also spoke about legislation to implement the U.S.-U.K. 
data-sharing agreement, which would give law enforcement in our two 
countries reciprocal rights to access data stored in the other country 
under certain prescribed circumstances. I told the Prime Minister and 
the Director-General that I believe these two pieces of legislation are 
closely linked and that I am actively looking for vehicles to move them 
forward.
  This is precisely what President Reagan meant when he welcomed Prime 
Minister Margaret Thatcher to Washington upon assuming the Presidency: 
Our two countries are ``kindred nations of like-minded people and must 
face their tests together. . . . [For indeed], the responsibility for 
freedom is ours to share.''
  It is when America realizes its purpose--to do good in the world by 
defending freedom--that our greatness will be known. As we bring 
ourselves out from the margins of international affairs and piecing 
together the broken shards of that world order we have worked for 
decades to shape, let us help the administration and the country 
rediscover the purpose we were destined to pursue. Only then, and only 
together, will we be able to make America and the world great again.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. SASSE. Madam President, I rise today in support of the nomination 
of Steve Grasz to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. One 
of the most important things this Senate has done this year and will do 
for the remainder of the year--and, in fact, well into 2018--is to 
consider nominees to the Federal courts.
  When I talk to Nebraskans, I constantly hear from women and men who 
tell me that the No. 1 issue they care about when they vote for 
President is the judiciary. Nebraskans want judges who understand that 
judges are not lawmakers. Nebraskans want judges who understand that a 
lifetime appointment isn't designed to do politics. Nebraskans want 
judges who understand that the courts are to uphold the laws fairly and 
impartially.
  My colleagues and I on the Judiciary Committee agree with those 
Nebraskans from townhalls and coffee shops and Rotary clubs. In the 
Judiciary Committee, we have worked to advance a record number of 
judges who know exactly that. We are looking for thoughtful men and 
women of integrity. That is why it is a pleasure today, it is an honor 
today, to come to the floor in support of Steve Grasz.
  Steve is a Nebraskan through and through. He is a fifth-generation 
Nebraskan who grew up on a family farm--walking beans, raising sheep 
and pigs, branding cattle. When he was a young man, life in the 
Nebraska Panhandle taught him hard work. He then moved east to Lincoln, 
where the University of Nebraska taught him the law.
  Steve graduated at the top of his class and then put his law degree 
to work serving his fellow Nebraskans. He served as the chief deputy 
attorney general for our State for nearly a dozen years. Steve's job 
was to represent the people of Nebraska in court. That means he was 
bound by the law and by his professional duty to defend our laws, 
including our State's ban on the gruesome procedure known as partial-
birth abortion.
  In his role in the Nebraska AG's office, he litigated multiple cases 
in

[[Page S7940]]

front of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Nebraska Supreme Court, and the 
U.S. Eighth Circuit, to which he has now been nominated by President 
Trump. Every time he represented us in court, Steve did so with 
integrity, with humility, and with decency. That is just what 
Nebraskans do.

  Steve bleeds Husker red, but he is now ready to put on a judge's 
black robe. He knows that judges in America don't wear red or blue 
partisan jerseys. He knows that policy preferences, whether his or 
anyone else's, have no role in how a judge applies the law. He knows 
that, in his courtroom, two things matter and only two things--the 
facts and the law.
  Anybody who wants to ensure that Steve will approach his job as a 
judge without partisan or ideological bias should listen to the words 
of hundreds of Nebraskans who have spoken out in support of Steve's 
nomination.
  Democrat Ben Nelson, Nebraska's U.S. Senator from 2001 through 2013 
and, before that, our Governor for 8 years, offered this testament to 
Steve's fitness for office:

       I first got to know Steve when I served as Nebraska's 
     Governor and he served as our state's Chief Deputy Attorney 
     General. . . . With me as a Democrat and him as a Republican, 
     we sometimes found ourselves disagreeing on policy; 
     nevertheless, I quickly learned that Steve was the kind of 
     consummate professional who is capable of putting whatever 
     personal views he may have aside when appropriate in his 
     capacity as a public servant. . . . If Steve is confirmed, I 
     fully expect him to follow the law and the facts in each case 
     because I know his loyalty is first to the rule of law, 
     rather than to any personal views he holds on matters of 
     policy. He possesses first-rate legal skills and a 
     respectful, even-keeled temperament, key ingredients in the 
     making of a good judge. As a Nebraskan, I hope our state has 
     the opportunity to benefit yet again from Steve's public 
     service in this new role.

  Then there is Deborah Gilg, who was President Obama's choice to be 
U.S. attorney for the District of Nebraska, who served in that office 
from 2009 through 2016. She wrote glowingly to our committee of Steve:

       Steve has always enjoyed a reputation for honesty, 
     impeccable integrity and dedication to the rule of law. He 
     possesses an even temperament well-suited for the bench and 
     always acts with respect to all that interact with him. . . . 
     Without a doubt, he would be a tremendous asset to the bench 
     as he demonstrates excellence in all that he does.

  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that these letters be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                 October 31, 2017.
     Hon. Charles E. Grassley,
     Chairman, U.S. Senate,
     Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC.
     Hon. Dianne Feinstein,
     Ranking Member, U.S. Senate,
     Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein: I 
     write to you today to express my strong support for the 
     nomination of L. Steven Grasz to the United States Court of 
     Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. I have no doubt that Steve 
     possesses the skills, character, and temperament necessary to 
     make him an excellent member of that court.
       I first got to know Steve when I served as Nebraska's 
     Governor and he served as our state's Chief Deputy Attorney 
     General. During his nearly twelve-year tenure in that senior 
     position, Steve won my respect by putting his considerable 
     skills to work as an effective legal advocate for our state. 
     With me as a Democrat and him as a Republican, we sometimes 
     found ourselves disagreeing on policy; nevertheless, I 
     quickly learned that Steve was the kind of consummate 
     professional who is capable of putting whatever personal 
     views he may have aside when appropriate in his capacity as a 
     public servant. He was an asset to our state, and Nebraskans 
     benefitted from having such a capable and thoughtful 
     professional in public service. Today, he is unquestionably 
     one of the foremost appellate lawyers in the state, making 
     him an obvious choice for this seat on our federal appeals 
     court.
       If Steve is confirmed, I fully expect him to follow the law 
     and the facts in each case because I know his loyalty is 
     first to the rule of law, rather than to any personal views 
     he holds on matters of policy. He possesses first-rate legal 
     skills and a respectful, even-keeled temperament, key 
     ingredients in the making of a good judge. As a Nebraskan, I 
     hope our state has the opportunity to benefit yet again from 
     Steve's public service in this new role.
           Sincerely,
                                                       Ben Nelson,
     United States Senator for Nebraska, 2001-2013.
                                  ____



                                                  Time Health,

                                    Omaha, NE, September 19, 2017.
     Re L. Steven Grasz.

     Chairman Chuck Grassley,
     Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, DC.
     Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein,
     Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, DC.
       I am writing to enthusiastically recommend Steve Grasz for 
     the vacancy on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. I have known 
     Steve since 1991 when he became Chief Deputy Attorney General 
     for the State of Nebraska. At that time, I was the elected 
     County Attorney and/or appointed County Attorney for several 
     Western Nebraska rural counties. I relocated to Omaha in 2002 
     and in 2009 I became the U.S. Attorney for Nebraska until 
     March 10, 2017. At present, I am the Vice-President, Chief 
     Operating Officer and General Counsel for Time Health, a 
     healthcare management corporation. I should also mention that 
     I am a Democrat and it is with great confidence that I 
     recommend Steve.
       Steve has always enjoyed a reputation for honesty, 
     impeccable integrity and dedication to the rule of law, He 
     possesses an even temperament well-suited for the bench and 
     always acts with respect to all that interact with him. I am 
     confident that he is well-versed in legal principles, has 
     keen legal analytical skills and outstanding oral and written 
     skills. Without doubt, he would be a tremendous asset to the 
     bench as he demonstrates excellence in all that he does.
       Finally, I think it is important to have a jurist that has 
     an agricultural background and understands that not all 
     things legal revolve around urban areas. He still owns land 
     in Western Nebraska and quite clearly is a product of and 
     proud of his agricultural roots.
       I look forward to your support of his nomination.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Deborah R. Gilg,
                               Vice-President and General Counsel.

  Mr. SASSE. Madam President, Steve's reputation for honesty and 
integrity and decency have earned him bipartisan support across 
Nebraska.
  I am a bit sad in that, when I got here to Washington, this 
nomination took a bit more of a partisan turn before the committee. 
Happily, we have the chance to do the right thing here in the full 
Senate tonight and return to a bipartisan tone. I hope that my 
colleagues will listen to the broad array of Nebraskans of all 
ideological and partisan views and support Steve's nomination tonight.
  Thank you.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.