[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18658-18663]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                               TERRORISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I want to visit about a 
couple of areas in regards to terrorism. Obviously, the issues that are 
on this floor, the issues that have overwhelmed the United States since 
the ugly events of September 11 have centered on terrorism and centered 
on defense and the home security of this Nation.
  This afternoon I want to spend a few minutes of my Special Order 
talking about two different types of terrorism and what we can do about 
it, and also incorporate in some of the defense mechanisms for some of 
the homeland security that I think we need to have.
  Mr. Speaker, let me begin by talking about a level of terrorism that 
has been lost in the battle, and that is the concept called 
ecoterrorism that is occurring within the borders of the United States.
  What does ecoterrorism roughly describe? What has happened is there 
are some activists out there, citizens of this country or people acting 
within the borders of this country in regards to environmental issues 
that feel that they can only get attention if they do some type of 
destruction to some symbol, whether it is putting steel rods into a 
tree that they are afraid is going to be cut for timber so that the 
logger who comes up and uses a chain saw risks hitting that steel nail 
with his chain saw, and could physically harm him; and thus, the 
loggers, knowing that these trees may have these steel spikes inserted 
randomly into trees, they are afraid to log them; to the situation we 
had in Vail, Colorado, where they burned down a $13 million lodge all 
using the front of environmentalism.
  Mr. Speaker, many of us on this floor feel very strong about the 
environment of this country; but none of us on this floor should 
tolerate for one moment ecoterrorism, the kind of things that occurred 
in Vail, Colorado, the kind of things that occurred in the district of 
the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the kinds of things where 
people intentionally spike these trees so that somebody that goes in to 
log any of these trees stands the risk of losing their life if they put 
a chain saw to that tree. That type of behavior is unacceptable.
  Mr. Speaker, I am chairman of the Subcommittee on Forest and Forest 
Health of the Committee on Resources, and we will be focusing in the 
several months ahead on ecoterrorism and what we can do to encourage 
people in this country to work within the framework of our law if they 
have disagreement on environmental policies.
  Unfortunately, what has happen is some people are looking for a 
cause. Deep down they do not care about the environment. They care 
about destruction, and they want to hook onto any kind of cause they 
can hook onto. We have seen this in many of the protests. Many of the 
people, outside of the professionals who have been hired to run the 
protests, many people do not have a deep-down belief in the cause that 
they are protesting or the cause for which they are assisting 
ecoterrorism within the boundaries of the country. It is just a cause. 
It is something for them to do.

                              {time}  1800

  Unfortunately what has happened is some people have turned a blind 
eye, because this destruction, this terrorism, is being activated under 
the so-called cloak of protecting the environment.
  As I said earlier, all of my colleagues here feel strongly about the 
protection of our environment. Sure we have different debates on how we 
interpret that issue. But nobody on this floor, I would hope, would 
condone ecoterrorism in this country. And in the not too distant 
future, we ought to have people like the National Sierra Club, like 
Earth First, like the Conservation League, without prompting from the 
United States Congress, these organizations ought to step forward and 
actively condemn acts of ecoterrorism to try and forward some type of 
environmental agenda.
  It is a problem in this country and it is a problem that has begun to 
escalate. It is getting bigger and bigger. They went from putting 
spikes in a tree to damaging equipment that was sitting on a site. 
Pretty soon they moved up to burning $13 million buildings in Vail, 
Colorado, which is within my district. These types of acts to me are 
dangerous acts. Obviously they do not rise to the level of the horrible 
terrorism that we saw on September 11, and I intend to spend a good 
part of my time this evening, or this afternoon, addressing those 
particular issues.
  But it, nonetheless, is a small cancer of its own. It is a cancer 
that we have to get ahead of. And it is something that we have to have 
a zero tolerance for in our society.
  I urge my colleagues, if you have any constituents out there that 
share with you any type of support that they are giving to ecoterrorist 
type of activity, that you actively discourage them, and if any kind of 
information is shared with you that these individuals are breaking the 
law, I think you have an obligation to go to the authorities and report 
your conversation with these ecoterrorists. We have to adopt and every 
respectable environmental organization in this country ought to adopt a 
zero tolerance of ecoterrorism. We have seen what happens when so-
called terrorism gets taken out of context, when so-called terrorism 
goes to the extent that it has gone on September 11.
  So we need to get on top of this ecoterrorism that we now are seeing 
within our own borders, our own citizens who have chosen not to work 
within the framework of the law but to break the law and to flagrantly 
break the law in such a way as to cause ecoterrorism.
  We had a hearing today. We have issued a subpoena. There is an 
organization out there called ELF, E-L-F.

[[Page 18659]]

This organization has a spokesman. This spokesman, I think, is probably 
one of the most radical American citizens in regards to ecoterrorism. I 
have asked that that individual be subpoenaed.
  Today, the full Committee on Resources, not the subcommittee, but the 
full Committee on Resources issued a subpoena. We fully intend to serve 
that subpoena and have that individual appear in front of my 
subcommittee, and hopefully later on in front of the full committee, to 
explain on what basis that an individual or a group of individuals or 
an organization or an association should be allowed to step out and 
create this type of terrorist act under the guise of protection of the 
environment.
  I am going to go on. I want to proceed from ecoterrorism and make the 
transition here to the terrorist acts of September 11.
  Before I do that, Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield to my 
colleague the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton).


        Rural Development Amendment to Farm Security Act of 2001

  Mrs. CLAYTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate it 
very much. I do understand the importance of the subject and appreciate 
him allowing me to proceed.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand before this body once again to focus attention 
on the matter of our struggling rural communities and on the need to 
increase our investment in rural development.
  Today, we heard on this floor time after time from Member after 
Member about the struggles of rural America. We have heard in great 
detail about the difficulties that our rural communities face and have 
been called upon to respond accordingly. Many have testified to the 
fact that when the farm economy of rural America suffers, so too does 
the rest of America, and that is indeed true. Clearly, agriculture has 
long played and will continue to play an important role in the well-
being of rural America. That is why I support the Farm Security Act of 
2001 and also urge my colleagues to pass it. It provides a strong 
safety net for American agricultural producers and rural America in 
trying times for the farm economy.
  While I do not think that anybody in this body among my colleagues 
doubts the critical role that agriculture plays in the rural economy, I 
believe that we must ask ourselves whether agriculture alone can redeem 
rural America. The statistics that the census has recently provided us 
indicate that we are losing many of our most productive young people 
because rural America has very little to offer them. A farm safety net 
will provide a refuge for our farmers during times of economic hardship 
and we should do this. This is as it should be. We should do that. But 
we must ask ourselves, will the farm safety net create nonfarm jobs or 
a safety net for persons who are not in agriculture? Will the safety 
net help our rural communities deal with the multibillion-dollar 
backlog of unfunded infrastructure projects, whether it is water or 
sewage or roads or telecommunication?
  Will this safety net increase the economic livelihood of the workers 
who have to drive 60 miles round trip to work at a Wal-Mart where they 
get $6.25 an hour or to the textile person who drives a similar amount 
and maybe only gets $8, or to a poultry factory? Will it provide 
running water to the 1 million rural Americans who still, after the 
remarkable economic boom of the 1990s, do not have running water in 
their home? We do not now, not in every home. In fact, in rural America 
we still have a large proportion of Americans without running water. 
Will it prevent the great hollowing out of rural America that I 
referred to earlier that is currently taking place once again? And will 
rural America be a good place for young people to stay and raise their 
family and have an expectation that they will have a quality of life?
  I say with deep, deep regret, and disappointment, but the answer to 
these questions is no. This Congress must begin thinking of rural 
America, not just as farmers, we must include our farmers obviously, 
and they are struggling, who struggle with low commodity prices. We 
must have them involved. They are central to anything we do. But we 
must also start thinking about their families, their neighbors, their 
communities. We must think about rural America as that woman I spoke 
of, the person who works for the poultry factory or works for the 
textile factory, if the factory is still there, by the way, and cannot 
sustain their families. That is a part of the fabric of rural America.
  We must do more for rural America. I believe we can start with this 
farm bill. That is why I am offering an amendment to increase rural 
development funding in this farm bill by $1 billion over the next 10 
years. Will this amendment solve the problems that I have been 
discussing earlier? Of course, it will not. The answer is no. No one is 
suggesting that any one bill or any one thing will be the magic bullet 
that saves rural America. But what I am suggesting is that we need to 
broaden both our view and our investment in rural America. My amendment 
is just the first step in doing this.
  The boom time of the 1990s that benefitted so much of America never 
touched many rural areas. When I talk with people back in my district, 
which is an overwhelmingly rural district, they do not need to be 
warned about the fact that we may have an economy that may be slipping 
into recession. You see, they already know that they are in one, 
because their farmers have low prices, they have seen their textile 
industry close, they have seen factories indeed promised to come, 
making decisions not to relocate.
  Joining me in offering this amendment are my colleagues, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), the gentleman from Oregon 
(Mr. Blumenauer) and the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons). The 
amendment provides $450 million for rural drinking water infrastructure 
grants and $450 million for community strategic planning assistance and 
investment, and $100 million for value-added agricultural market 
development grants over the next 10 years.
  I would like to reiterate once again, this farm bill must serve 
American farmers. And it does. It does very generously. But it must 
also serve their families, their neighbors, their communities. It must 
serve the 90 percent of rural Americans who are not employed in the 
agricultural economy. The Committee on Agriculture can take a 
leadership role on this and I beg them to do that. I also beg my 
colleagues to support my amendment tomorrow.
  The term ``balance'' has come up many times in this debate on the 
floor about the Committee on Agriculture. I would like to associate 
myself with the call of my colleagues for a balanced farm bill. The 
committee bill that we are considering today is a good start. I thank 
the chairman and the ranking member for their efforts. But I would like 
to suggest that indeed they can do more, and the Clayton-Peterson-
Blumenauer-Gibbons amendment does not imbalance the bill. In fact, it 
adds more balance. It accepts the principle we set in the committee. We 
are actually providing a substantial investment. In the end, it simply 
doubles the amount that we are giving to 90 percent of the people who 
are in rural America. It provides for producers, but it provides for 
many other people who are living in rural America across the country 
whose problems do not stop or end at the field's edge.
  I urge my colleagues to reject the notion that a vote for the 
Clayton-Peterson-Blumenauer-Gibbons amendment is a vote against 
farmers. I reject the notion that farmers are selfish. I know farmers 
who care about clean drinking water, farmers who care about 
infrastructure because they know if their communities in which they are 
living do not have these grants, their tax base goes up. They also want 
a viable community that is around them because they want their children 
and their neighbors to have an opportunity, and they also know so very 
well what it means to have value-added, to add long-term productivity 
to their raw commodity.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill and support 
rural

[[Page 18660]]

America. I, again, thank my colleague for yielding.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of my comments, I talked 
about ecoterrorism in the United States. I want my colleagues to 
understand that it is the goal of my committee that I chair, the 
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, which has jurisdiction over 
some of the properties upon which the crime of ecoterrorism has 
occurred, that our committee is considering this a priority, and in 
light of the horrible terrorist act that occurred on September 11, once 
we restabilize from that situation, our subcommittee intends to 
aggressively pursue those people who condone or somehow participate in 
ecoterrorism within the boundaries of our country.
  Terrorist acts of any kind, to forward or push forward the agenda of 
any cause, is improper when utilized in that type of form.
  We have wonderful laws in this country, and there are lots of laws, 
and our Constitution itself provides for things like the freedom of 
speech. You can walk down and protest, the freedom of protest. There 
are lots of tools available to those who object to current laws or to 
those who object to the direction this country is going without you 
having to resort to breaking a law. That is the key issue here. Whether 
it is terrorism performed by another country, which we unfortunately 
saw on September 11, or whether it is ecoterrorism that is performed 
within our own boundaries.
  I just want to remind my colleagues, this is exactly what took place 
in my district. My district is the Third Congressional District of the 
State of Colorado. It is the mountains of Colorado. We have up there 
Vail, Colorado, and in Vail, Colorado, just 3 years ago, we had some 
terrorists, U.S. citizens, we suspect, and we suspect from an 
organization called the ELF organization that went up, and this 
structure is a $13 million structure and it was completely inflamed. 
They burned that structure. That structure was not built illegally. 
That structure was not in violation of any local zoning code. It was 
just in violation of the mindset of a few radical, criminal elements 
within the boundaries of our country who decided that the only way to 
address this issue was not to approach the local zoning board, not to 
approach any elected officials, not to go out and have an open protest 
at the city center.

                              {time}  1815

  Instead, the way to do it is very slyly at night sneak in and put all 
kinds of fuel in this lodge and burn it to the ground. I wish those 
people knew how many trees were cut to replace the trees that were 
burned in this lodge. I wish those people that committed that act of 
eco-terrorism understood how many jobs were lost. Not jobs of 
multimillionaires or jobs of executives; these are jobs of people that 
ran concessionaire shops, or jobs of people, even the maintenance 
people, that worked in these facilities. They lost their jobs. I hope 
those eco-terrorists feel real proud of themselves.
  But I want people to know, and I want my colleagues to understand, 
that I intend to continue to pressure our law enforcement agencies to 
pursue eco-terrorism as actively as they are pursuing other criminal 
acts against our society. I appreciate the committee's support today. 
We had only one ``no'' vote in the committee, in the whole committee, 
which objected to the issuance of a subpoena to this spokesman for the 
organization called ELF, which is probably the most radical eco-
terrorist organization in the United States.
  Now let me transition, because I want to talk for the rest of my time 
about the horrible cancer that we have discovered and we have suffered 
since September 11. We actually know that the cancer existed 
beforehand, but September 11 is obviously where it was made evident.
  All of us understand exactly what I am talking about. My comparison 
to terrorism and cancer, I think, is an analogy which fits perfectly. I 
know of no cancer, I know of no cancer, ever discovered in the history 
of mankind that is friendly to the human body. I know of no cancer that 
has ever been discovered or researched by the medical experts in our 
country that is recommended for the human body. Cancer is cancer, and 
it is deadly in many cases.
  We know that we have to take an aggressive fight against cancer. You 
cannot love cancer away. Do not misunderstand me. Love is an important 
element. It helps build up the psychological strength that you need to 
fight cancer. You cannot pray cancer away.
  Many people, many of your constituents may disagree with me and 
believe that prayer alone will get rid of that cancer. In my opinion, 
and I am a strong Christian, in my opinion the Supreme Being that I 
believe in thinks that a person has to deploy a little self-help; that, 
sure, prayer is a necessary part of the fight against cancer, but you 
cannot do it on prayer alone. You have got to go in and aggressively 
cut that cancer out of there.
  That is exactly what we need to do with terrorism. That act of 
terrorism, no matter what they say, no matter if they try and justify 
it, justify the terrorist act of September 11, do not buy it for one 
moment. It is a vicious cancer, and no cancer is good for the human 
body. And no act of terrorism is good, for not only our society, it is 
not good for the society of the entire world, regardless of which 
country you come from.
  We need to battle this, and we need to battle it as aggressively as 
any one of my colleagues would battle cancer within your own body. Not 
for one moment, if you had cancer, and some of my colleagues have 
experienced it, not for one moment have you ever found anybody that 
says, well, the cancer in your body is justified. You had it coming. 
You deserved that cancer because of an action you took. Even for those 
people who smoke, we do not say to them, well, you deserve the cancer. 
We may say, look, you may have contributed to this, but it does not 
justice the cancer. It is the same thing with this terrorism.
  I would ask people as you begin, and I am beginning to see this in 
newspaper articles, or I am beginning to see it in the commentary and 
editorial papers, well, the United States, you know, when we sit back 
and take a look at it, maybe the United States was too aggressive on 
its foreign policy, or maybe the United States kind of deserved it 
because they were bullies.
  What a bunch of crap; unacceptable crap, in my opinion. Unacceptable. 
There is no justification, there is no excuse, none, zero, that you can 
put forward for the kind of atrocities that were performed against this 
country, that were activated against the people of the world.
  Remember, remember, 80 separate countries lost citizens in these 
terrorist attacks of September 11. Every ethnic race that I know of, 
every ethnic background that I know of suffered losses as a result of 
this terrorist act. The Muslim people, people of Islam, the religion of 
Islam and the Muslim population suffered some horrible losses in this 
act of terrorism.
  This act of terrorism did not discriminate between women and children 
and mothers and fathers and military officials and policemen and 
firemen. It did not do any discrimination. It went out and destroyed 
every human part that it could get its hands on, just as cancer does.
  Cancer shows no discrimination. Cancer comes after you, and that is 
exactly what these terrorists have done. We need to go after this 
aggressively as our society feels about cancer. And cancer, as we know, 
to take it on, is a long-term battle, and it requires lots of resources 
to be able to conquer it.
  It is the same thing here. Do not let anybody try and justify or say 
that the United States somehow deserved or somehow walked into this act 
of terrorism, this act of barbarism.
  Thank goodness we have the leadership team that we have in place 
today, because, you see, again another analogy to cancer. It is like 
cancer on the brain. Our President and his team, whether it is 
Condoleezza Rice, whether it is Colin Powell, whether it is Donald 
Rumsfeld, his defense team, his team he has at the White House, 
realizes that when you have got cancer on

[[Page 18661]]

the brain, you cannot blow the brain out of the body, out of the skull. 
You have to do very medical, very careful, very focused surgery so as 
to be able to go into the brain, take the cancer out of the brain, and 
leave the brain, as much of it intact as is possible.
  The White House and our government, and I am very proud of the 
response that our government so far has undertaken, and that is do not 
jump the gun; do not go out half-cocked and start blanket bombing 
everything. Figure out what those targets are. Pick those targets 
carefully and eliminate them. And do not for one moment again be 
convinced that anything short of eradication of that cancer is going to 
cure the cancer.
  Can you imagine going into the doctor and the doctor saying, well, we 
got the cancer, but we left a little of it around because we really did 
not want to offend the cancer. We did not want to go too deep into it.
  You know as well as I know that if you have got cancer and they can 
get access to it, you want them to cut out every last cell of that 
cancer. The same thing applies here. We need to cut out every last 
terrorist cell that we can find in this world, because if we do not, as 
Tony Blair said yesterday in his remarks, if we do not defeat it, 
referring to the terrorism, if we do not defeat it, it will defeat us. 
It is that simple. It is a very clear distinction to make. It is as 
clear as night and day. We either beat it, or it beats us. We either 
defeat it, or it defeats us. It is a very simple proposition. You win, 
or you lose. There is no halfway point, none at all.
  In this particular case, the winner takes it all. Remember that song 
by ABBA, ``the winner takes it all.'' That is exactly what we are 
facing here with this terrorism. If we do not beat it, it will beat us.
  Fortunately, the good people of this country have responded in a very 
strong manner, and they have shown this President and this government 
the support that this government feels is necessary to go out and 
eradicate the terrorist cells that exist, and they have expressed 
confidence that this administration and this government, that those of 
us who represent the people of this country, that we will not go out 
half-cocked and do things that are stupid.
  Now, the American people also understand that this is a battle that 
will take a long time. The American people understand there will be 
casualties. The American people understand that every action has a 
reaction; that when we respond and when we begin with the capabilities 
to eradicate either a bank account or a terrorist cell or some other 
type of elimination of the threat, that there may be retaliation. How 
can you get into a battle without the threat of retaliation? Everybody 
beats on their drums when you threaten to come after them. What other 
choice do they have?
  Now, I feel very strongly that the American people want us to 
eradicate terrorism, the kind of terrorism that is demonstrated through 
either eco-terrorism within our own borders or the type of terrorism we 
saw committed within our borders but by people outside our borders on 
September 11.
  I want to read to you a fascinating article, and I do not usually do 
this, read text. I like speaking without text. I rarely use notes. 
These are not my words that I am about to read you. These are the words 
of a young woman, I would guess she said when she moved to New York 
City she was 19, so she is somewhere I would say between 19 and 22 or 
23 years old.
  This article was found in Newsweek, dated October 1, 2001. The 
October 1 edition. If you have an opportunity to buy a Newsweek, take a 
look at it and read this article. It is fascinating.
  This is a young girl, her name is Rachel Newman from New York City. I 
do not know her. I have never talked to her. I hope some day I have the 
privilege to meet her. She is about the same age as my three children. 
Lori's and my children are out of the home. Two of them just recently 
graduated from college, they are draft age. I have a 19-year-old girl 
in college, just about the same age as this Rachel Newman. Let me read 
the article to you. I know it is tough to listen to somebody who reads, 
especially on the floor like this. But give the meaning to the words 
and listen to her philosophy and what has happened to her since she 
personally witnessed an airplane go into one of those towers.
  The article is entitled ``The Day the World Changed, I Did Too.''
  ``Just weeks ago, I thought of myself as a musician and a poet. Now I 
am calling myself a patriot. By Rachel Newman.
  ``I never thought listening to God Bless America would make me cry, 
but I guess crisis brings out parts of us we did not know existed. I 
have thought and felt things in the past several days that I never 
would have expected to. When I was 19, I moved to New York City to be a 
musician. The first thing I did was get a tatoo on each hand. One was 
of a treble cleft, the other was of an insignia for Silver Tone 
guitars. I did it as a reminder of my commitment to making music, but 
also to ensure that I would never be able to work for an establishment 
corporation. I did not want to devote myself to someone else's 
capitalistic dream.
  ``If you asked me to describe myself then, I would have told you I 
was a musician, a poet, an artist, and, on somewhat a political level, 
a woman, a lesbian, and a Jew. Being an American would not have made my 
list. It is now 3 years later, and I am a junior at a Manhattan 
college.
  ``In my gender and economics class earlier this semester, we 
discussed the benefits of socialism, which provides for all members of 
society, versus capitalism, which values the self-interests of business 
people. My girlfriend and I were so frustrated by the inequality in 
America that we discussed moving to another country.
  ``On September 11th, all that changed. I realized I had been taking 
the freedoms I have here for granted. Now I have an American flag on my 
backpack, I cheer at the fighter jets as they pass overhead, and I call 
myself a patriot.
  ``I had just stepped out of the shower when the first plane crashed 
into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. I stood looking out the 
window of my Brooklyn apartment, dumbfounded as the second plane 
barreled into the South Tower. In that moment, the world as I had known 
it was redefined.
  ``The following Monday, my school reopened; and I headed for class. 
Foolishly thinking that life would `get back to normal.' When I got off 
the subway, the first thing I saw were photocopied posters of the 
missing hanging on the walls of the station. There were color pictures 
of men and women of every shape and size, race and religion, lying on 
the beach, playing with their children on the living room floor, or 
dancing and laughing with husbands, wives or lovers.

                              {time}  1830

  ``Once outside, I passed store fronts covered with even more photos. 
When I finally reached my building, I saw a police barricade that 
stretched down the block and was draped with posters on both sides. 
After I learned that my first class had been canceled for a campus 
forum with the university president, I sat in the courtyard and talked 
with some other dazed and distraught students. It became clear to me 
very quickly that people were strongly antihate toward innocent Arab 
Americans as I was, but they were also antiwar. I am not a violent 
person. I usually avoid conflict of any kind. I am also not a hateful 
person. I try to have an open mind and to respect other people's 
opinion. But when I heard my fellow students saying that they did not 
want to fight back, despite the terrorists' direct attack on our 
country, I felt they were confusing revenge with justice.
  ``I heard my peers say things like, `This is our own fault for 
getting involved in everybody else's business.' And, `This is because 
we support Israel and we shouldn't be doing that, because they took the 
land from the people that it belonged to.'
  ``It made me angry to hear my acquaintances try to justify atrocious 
terrorist acts. Many of these students don't see the difference in 
mentality between us, the majority of the people

[[Page 18662]]

in the world who desire peace, and them. The people who are willing to 
make themselves into human bombs to destroy thousands of lives. These 
terrorists despise our very existence. Americans have to be educated 
about the history of the Middle East. We can't afford to have 
uninformed opinions, no matter what course of action we think the 
United States should take.
  ``I am doing my part. Weeks ago, all I could think of was how to 
write a good rap. Now I am putting together an informational packet for 
students on our foreign policy towards the Middle East.
  ``In an ideal world, pacifism is the only answer. I am not eager to 
say this, but we do not live in an ideal world. I do not believe that 
our leaders should be callous or bomb already ravaged countries like 
Afghanistan. I worry that innocent citizens in that country will have a 
much different reaction to our fighter jets than I do. Americans may 
want peace, but terrorists want bloodshed. I have come to accept the 
idea of a focused war on terrorists as the best way to ensure our 
country's safety. In the words of Mother Jones, `What we need to do now 
is pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.' ''


  That was an article by Rachel Newman, and she was 19 when she moved 
to New York. Obviously from the article she is now about 23 years old. 
I think it is one of the best pieces that I have read during my entire 
political career. I hope some day I have an opportunity to meet this 
person. I think this article is incredible, and I think it describes 
very accurately what is happening out there for those people who 
somehow think that these barbarians, that these terrorists, that this 
cancer is somehow justified.
  No matter what our beliefs are, how could we ever imagine, how could 
we ever believe so strongly that somebody could blindly go without 
discrimination and hit a tower with such fierceness that people are 
leaping out of the tower to their death 110 stories down below? There 
is a picture out there showing a couple holding hands as they leap off 
the building. How can we possibly look at a country as good and as 
strong and as wonderful as the United States of America and say that 
the United States of America and its people deserve this? How could we 
say that any country in the world deserves an act of barbarism like was 
carried out in this country on September 11.
  Now, I understand, I understand that in our Constitution, and I am 
proud, frankly, that our Constitution allows freedom of speech. So I do 
not deny anybody the right to make those statements, but they have an 
obligation to understand what their statements are. It is kind of like 
the professor in Amherst, Massachusetts, who, the night before this 
took place, made a big issue about Amherst was flying, that people in 
that town were flying their flags too often and they should be 
restricted from flying their American flags. Mr. Speaker, there are 
consequences to free speech. You can make it, but do not be upset when 
people question you, or when people I think who have a fundamental 
right to come to you and say, how do you justify that? I do not deny 
these people the right to make that freedom of speech, but I despise 
the fact that they cut our country short, that they do not realize that 
the people that carried out this horrible act of barbarism against our 
country were seeking to undermine the very right that they were 
exercising, that is, the right of free speech.
  Do we think for one moment that these people have human rights in the 
beliefs that they exercise? Remember, this is not the religion of 
Islam. Islam does not allow violence, unless you have jihad, which 
jihad is a description of a battle against an injustice, and even jihad 
has rules. Jihad requires that you not kill women and children. Jihad 
says, you do not destroy a soldier who does not have his weapon drawn. 
Jihad says that you did not destroy buildings; you do not destroy a 
tree that even has a green leaf on it. All of these principles were 
violated.
  This act of violence was carried out under the cloak of the Muslim 
population or under the cloak of the Islam-type of religion or under 
the Koran book, but that is all false. These people had one thing in 
mind: not to further the belief of Islam, not to further the needs of 
the Muslim people, but to destroy a society that has been a society of 
freedom, that has been a society of constitutional rights, the right of 
movement, the right to own private property, the right of equality. The 
second that any of us hear someone try and justify this act or somehow 
support the people that are behind this, take a look at how they treat 
women. Take a look at their record on human rights. Take a look at what 
other contributions, positive contributions they have made for society.
  Not very long ago, I heard somebody say, well, you at least have to 
put yourself in their shoes. They believe so deeply in their cause that 
when they flew those airplanes and they got in those planes, they knew 
they were going to give their lives in this mission to hit those 
towers, or to hit the Pentagon. I about fell over. Do we know what the 
mission of those people were, those terrorists? It was pure and simple. 
It was to commit suicide in order to destroy other human life, and 
destroy a society. They did not discriminate. They did not care whether 
they killed children. They did not care whether they killed mothers. 
They did not care whether they killed fathers. They did not care 
whether they killed military, cops, firemen, preachers, Muslim, fellow 
Muslims, fellow people of their religious beliefs. They did not care. 
All they wanted to do was kill people, and that was their mission. That 
is what they gave their life for.
  Now, not long after they gave their life to destroy life, there was 
what, 300-and-some firemen and 200-and-some police officers who ran up 
the stairs of those towers to meet certain death. They knew they were 
going to die when they went up those towers. But that was their 
mission, and that was their duty. What did they give their lives for? 
They gave their lives to save lives. They gave their lives to go up to 
people who were injured, who were hurt, who were scared and save their 
lives. So how can anybody not draw a clear distinction between 
wholesomeness and cancer? That is exactly what those terrorists are. 
They are the worst case of cancer our society has ever known.
  Fortunately, there is a commitment of our society, there is a 
commitment from governments all over this world. The coalition that our 
administration has put together is a strong coalition, and they have 
one goal in mind: to beat it. Because if we do not beat it, it is going 
to beat us. As I said earlier in my remarks, this is a very clear 
decision. In this case, the winner takes it all. We either beat it or 
it beats us. As Tony Blair, again, as I said earlier in my remarks, 
Tony Blair said so well yesterday, so well yesterday, that if we do not 
defeat it, it will defeat us. When we talk about defeating us, look at 
what America has offered to the world.
  There is nothing, in my opinion, to apologize for for being an 
American. I do not stand in front of anybody and apologize for being a 
citizen of the United States of America. I have no apologies for the 
United States of America. This country has fed more people than any 
other country of the history of the world; and many, many of those 
people are outside our borders.
  This country has done more for other countries, specifically 
including the country of Afghanistan, and other countries out there, 
has done more for those countries than any other country in the history 
of their country. This country has done more to protect the freedom of 
religions around this world than any other country in the history of 
the world. There is no other country in the history of the world that 
allows the types of freedom of speech, freedom of protest, freedom of 
assembly, freedom of private property than the United States of 
America. There is no country in the world that has educated more people 
than the United States of America. There is no country in the world 
that has made more contributions to the field of medicine and health 
care than the United States of America. There is no other country in 
the history of the world that has gone time and time and time again 
with its

[[Page 18663]]

military might outside its borders to help its friends and allies 
throughout the world.
  Take a look the next time you are in Europe, see what kind of 
cemeteries are over there. Take a look at that. Those are American 
cemeteries over there. Those are young American men, and in today's 
society, they would be young American men and women, if that conflict 
were to occur today. We are willing to make sacrifices for the good of 
the world.
  Now, sure, some people may gripe because, well, America does not 
quite have it right there, and maybe we need some adjustment; but as a 
whole, we have nothing to apologize about. Now we face an enemy that is 
spread thin, that has been very effective in its first strike. 
Remember, they got the first hit. Now, we get to come back. But 
nonetheless, we have to say, they were fairly effective in the 
horrible, horrible harm that they did to this Nation. But this Nation 
will respond, and it will respond in a unified fashion. Unified not 
only within our borders as reflected by the poll results and so on and 
just going out on the street and talk about it or listen to people, as 
reflected by people like Rachel Newman who wrote, as I said earlier, 
one of the finest articles I have ever seen, but also reflected this 
uniformed, shoulder-to-shoulder type of attitude is reflected with 
countries throughout the world, whether it is our good, solid brothers 
and sisters in the United Kingdom, whether it is our allies in Mexico, 
in the country of Mexico, our neighbor to the south.
  By the way, an interesting thing I would like to bring up, our 
military recruiters, I had a couple of recruiters tell me that they are 
actually getting calls out of the country of Mexico, our neighbors to 
the south, of Mexican citizens who want to come up and join the U.S. 
military to fight for this country because they believe in this 
country. Now, that is a good neighbor. Canada to the north. I mean, 
face it. We are ready for the challenge. We wish we did not have the 
challenge, just the same as every one of us wishes we would never get 
cancer. But the fact is, cancer and terrorism have struck. They are 
both deadly. They both fit in exactly the same description, in the same 
bowl, and both of them need to be eradicated. This battle will be won 
by the United States and its allies. It will not be won by the 
countries that advocate, shelter, or actively participate in acts of 
terrorism as a cause. It will not work.
  Now, what are some of the things that we need to do in this country?

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of things that I ask Members to keep 
in mind as we begin to go through.
  First of all, Mr. Speaker, we need to persevere in our support for 
the Government. That is not to say that our constituents should not 
have a right, and obviously they have the right, to question what we 
are doing. That is one of the checks and balances in our system.
  But we have to continue to give our support when it is appropriate; 
and I think it is appropriate, in a maximum capacity right now, 
frankly, to our administration as we carry out the type of response 
that is necessary to eradicate the terrorist acts or the terrorists 
that have done this, propounded this horrible evil upon our country.
  But there is another issue we have to address as the Congress of the 
United States: missile defense. We are absolutely being foolhardy if we 
think that in the future there is not going to be either an intentional 
or an accidental missile launch against this country.
  I do not believe today that Russia is going to intentionally launch a 
nuclear missile against the United States. I do not think that today 
China is going to launch a missile, a nuclear missile, intentionally 
against the United States. But I do believe the potential for an 
accidental launch out of either one of those countries could happen.
  If Members think the destruction by an aircraft does something, wait 
until they see what a nuclear weapon does. I do believe that there are 
countries, and do Members think for one minute if these terrorists had 
a nuclear weapon instead of an airplane that they would not have used 
that nuclear weapon? If they had that nuclear weapon, that would have 
been a nuclear weapon deployed in New York City, not an airplane.
  We have people out there who will use nuclear weapons against the 
United States of America, and we as the Congress have an inherent 
obligation, an inherent obligation to provide the maximum protection 
possible for our people from a nuclear missile attack. We can only do 
that, or a big part of what we can do rests with missile defense.
  Mr. Speaker, we have to get on that road. We have tremendous 
technology. We are almost there. We have almost got it perfected where 
we can stop incoming missiles into this country. We need to complete 
those technical studies. We need to deploy in this country a missile 
defense system. That is critical.
  So we talked about a couple of things: one, our perseverance as 
citizens of this country; two, our support for the administration and 
our military that is out there; then, our need for a missile defense 
system.
  Now, let me talk about the final issue that I think is critical, and 
that is, we have to put some of this political correctness aside and we 
have to talk about the problem at our borders. The fact is, our borders 
are disorganized, and there are a lot of people who wish harm on this 
country that are crossing it. In fact, some are probably crossing it as 
we now speak.
  I was told by my good friend, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Tancredo), that there are 250,000 deportation orders out there for 
people who are in this country now illegally, and they have never even 
been served. No effort has been made to take these out and get these 
people out of this country.
  Our borders are loose, and the follow-through, not just on the 
perimeter of the United States but once these people get in, for 
example, on student visas, we have a huge problem with student visas. 
What is happening is that a lot of people who get a student visa, which 
requires one to go to school, they never show up to school. They use 
that as their passport, the price of admission to get within our 
borders. Then they melt into society and nobody pursues them. Nobody 
goes after them.
  We have to tighten our borders. I am not saying tighten the borders 
as to change the history of our country, which welcomes immigration. 
Our country was built and the greatness of this country was built on 
immigration. But we have gotten very, very sloppy; and we have an 
obligation to the people of this country to regulate and to tighten up 
this ship. We have to get it back in shape. Those borders are demanding 
attention today.
  The resources I believe that are necessary will be appropriated by 
this Congress, but we have to get out of this era of being politically 
correct. It is not politically correct, for example, to ask a person 
too much about their private life, kind of like it used to be. Maybe it 
is not politically correct to have them go through your underwear when 
they look at your suitcase at the airport.
  Some of these days have gone by. We have to become more realistic. We 
have to look with a realistic eye, not an idealistic eye but a 
realistic eye, as to what the threats are and what we need to do, while 
protecting and respecting the civil liberties granted to us under our 
Constitution.
  I am confident that we can do it; that as a people, as a people, the 
response we will have as a result of September 11 will in the long run 
be positive for the entire world. We will represent the Statue of 
Liberty proudly as she looks out over those waters.
  It is an obligation. It is an inherent responsibility of myself and 
every one of the Members in this Chamber to carry forward this country 
and the greatness that our forefathers have done. I have no doubt that 
we will do it.




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