[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14794]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBERING WHY WE FIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Harris). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, in the early days of World War II, the 
government commissioned director Frank Capra to make a series of films 
that would explain the nature of the war to a hastily mobilized Nation.
  Over the course of the next 3 years, Capra produced a remarkable 
series of films collectively known as ``Why We Fight.'' These films 
were instrumental in elevating the war from a fight for land and 
resources to a struggle between the ``free world'' of the Allies and 
the ``slave world'' of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
  As a Nation rooted in an ideology rather than ethnic or geographical 
identity, the United States has always looked at its wars as 
ideological conflicts between freedom and tyranny. Our national 
reluctance to go to war has shaped the prerequisite that when we fight, 
we do so for a high moral purpose that honors our principles and 
values.
  When he addressed the Congress, the Nation and the world in the wake 
of the September 11 attacks, President Bush laid out the challenge 
posed by terrorism. Al Qaeda and radical Islamists, the President 
declared, attacked us because ``they hate our freedoms, our freedom of 
religion, freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and 
disagree with each other.''
  The moral clarity the President expressed nearly 3 years ago has been 
clouded by the administration's ambiguity over whether the rule of law 
applied to the prosecution of the war on terrorism or in Iraq. The 
abuse at Abu Ghraib and the unreviewable and potentially unlimited 
detention of Americans and others as enemy combatants are incompatible 
with a Nation born in a struggle against tyranny and caprice.
  Last week, three courts in three countries reminded us of what is at 
stake in the war on terrorism and in our efforts to rebuild Iraq.
  In Iraq, Saddam Hussein and the surviving leaders of his government 
were arraigned for their crimes against the Iraqi people and for crimes 
against humanity. The sight of the former dictator and his henchmen in 
a court of law was a glimmer of hope that chaos and bloodshed will one 
day give way to a better life for Iraq's people.
  Here in the United States, the Supreme Court circumscribed the 
President's power over its own citizens and others when it ordered that 
Americans and foreigners held as enemy combatants had a right to 
contest their detention before a neutral arbiter. Expressing confidence 
that courts would be able to balance individual rights and national 
security, Justice O'Connor wrote ``that a state of war is not a blank 
check for the President.''
  Perhaps the most extraordinary assertion of principle was made in 
Jerusalem by the Israeli Supreme Court, which ordered the government to 
reroute part of the security fence it is building to prevent 
Palestinian suicide bombers from infiltrating into Israel. In reaching 
their decision, the Israeli justices conceded that from a military 
point of view, the alteration might not make protection against 
terrorism easier. ``This is the destiny of a democracy,'' the court 
said. ``She does not see all means acceptable, and the ways of her 
enemies are not always open before her.''
  The ways of our enemies are not open to us. We do not behead our 
adversaries on camera for their families to witness in all its gruesome 
barbarity. Nonetheless, facing greater foes than we face now, we have 
prevailed and we will prevail again. At root, the rule of law is the 
source of our strength in war as it is in peace, and the assertion of 
the rule of law by courts in Iraq, Israel and here at home is a moving 
reminder of why we fight and also how we must fight to win the America 
we cherish.

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