[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 139 (Monday, September 9, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S5864]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           National Security

  Madam President, now, on a related matter, the challenges facing an 
American-led order and American interests around the world are no less 
serious nor less connected than they were the last time the Senate 
convened.
  Last week, Iran was expected to transfer ballistic missiles to Russia 
in a major expansion of its support for Putin's war in Ukraine. The PRC 
is ranking up its destabilizing provocations in the South China Sea, 
and Russia, for its part, continues to court the fealty of senior 
officials from a NATO ally, Hungary.
  And our adversaries' advances have been compounded by the West's own 
inaction, distraction, and astonishing lapses in moral clarity.
  In recent days, the head of UNRWA, whose employees participated in 
the slaughter of Jews on October 7, insisted that deserved criticism of 
his organization's complicity in terrorism was itself tantamount to ``a 
weapon'' in the world.
  The Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom's new government 
announced that a suspension of some 30 licenses of military aid to 
Israel, just as the world's only Jewish State buried hostages--
including a young American citizen--that were murdered in cold blood by 
Hamas.
  This step--and calls for similar restriction on our own assistance--
validate the terrorist strategy and broadcast the weakness of our 
resolve.
  And in a bizarre public message, even by its own standards, the 
Biden-Harris administration urged the Houthi terrorists holding 
international commerce hostage in the Red Sea to think--think--about 
the consequences of their blockade for the environment.
  Needless to say, with August behind us, Congress's own unfinished 
business has become even more glaring. The President's meager defense 
budget request is already an insufficient starting point for top line 
funding discussions when they began literally months ago.
  Today, constraints on Congress's ability to provide for the common 
defense are even more dangerous and demands for parity with nondefense 
discretionary spending even more reckless.
  Meanwhile, continued failure to process the must-pass National 
Defense Authorization Act puts the lie to any suggestion that the 
Senate Democratic majority is focused on urgent business.
  The authoritarians conspiring to supplant American-led peace and 
prosperity did not ease up while the Senate was in recess. Our 
adversaries are resolved to exploit American weakness and hesitate. And 
we have given them quite enough.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.