[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 21560]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           AMERICAN CRITICISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I hope all of my colleagues are 
paying attention to this 5-minute Special Order because there are a 
couple of things that should be brought to Members' attention in this 
body and the other body. The first one is the Saudi Arabian government 
has been and continues to be, in my opinion, com-
plicitous in terrorist activities involving Americans abroad and here 
at home. The Saudi Royal Family, according to reports I have been made 
aware of, have been conduits or had conduits give money to terrorists 
and funded terrorist activities. And I think everybody in America knows 
that 15 of the 17 terrorists that attacked the World Trade Center were 
Saudis.
  It seems to me incumbent upon our government to put pressure on the 
Saudi government to be a friend of the United States instead of an 
enemy. We should do everything we can to stop the Saudis from funding 
terrorist activities on the West Bank and Gaza in Israel. Toward that 
end, I hope that our Secretary of State, Colin Powell, might be paying 
attention to what I am saying tonight because it is important that our 
State Department deal with that on an every day, ongoing basis, to keep 
pressure on the Saudis to bring about positive change.
  I know that we get an awful lot of our energy supplies from that part 
of the world, and Saudi Arabia supplies a lot of that, but that does 
not give them the right to support terrorism that threatens our friends 
in Israel or the people of the United States.
  The second thing I would like to say is that there was a story, an 
editorial comment printed in Al Akhram, the official Egyptian daily 
newspaper this last week, and I would like to read what was said by the 
Egyptians toward the United States about the United States, and this is 
the official organ of the Egyptian government, their newspaper. This 
piece attacks the Americans over Iraq calling Americans cannibals. This 
is the government of Egypt speaking, prehistoric animals who feel they 
have the right to dismember and eat their enemies and to make sure they 
are dead. The Egyptian newspaper says Americans are wallowing in blood 
and death and disembowelment, and for the crimes of the U.S. troops, 
the paper says, this is the Egyptian newspaper, an organ of the 
government, the proper response is to kill American troops.

                              {time}  2130

  What does the Egyptian government do? Right now it is encouraging the 
America-hating because it takes the heat off of the government itself. 
This is how American-hating works around the world. Call us cannibals, 
and what we will do is, we will support you.
  We give Egypt $2 billion a year to help their economy; $2 billion a 
year. And we have been doing it for a long, long time, ever since the 
Camp David accords were signed when Jimmy Carter was the President.
  If we are going to be giving money to the Egyptians, then we ought to 
demand that they show respect for our troops and our involvement in the 
war in Iraq. Our troops went over there to liberate that country, to 
save those people from a tyrant, to stop terrorism in that part of the 
world and around the world. And for that our Egyptian friends, whom we 
give $2 billion to a year, are calling us cannibals and saying that 
American troops should be killed and slaughtered.
  This is something that we should not tolerate. And so I would say to 
our State Department and our fine Secretary of State, take a message to 
the Egyptian government, tell them to cut this out. If they want 
support from the United States, let them treat us with respect and 
treat our troops with respect who are laying their lives on the line 
for the people of Iraq and the people of this world on a daily basis.
  Secondly, I hope our State Department will continue to talk to the 
Saudi Arabian government and tell them to get with the program and stop 
supporting terrorism around the world.

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