[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19209]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            A BLESSED NATION

  (Mrs. BLACKBURN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, we are a blessed Nation. We have not 
suffered another attack on our soil since September 11, and we are 
grateful. We have killed or captured dozens of members of al Qaeda and 
the Taliban. Our military and intelligence forces are working both hard 
and smart.
  After two decades of having U.S. interests attacked by the 
terrorists, we have taken the war on terrorism to the terrorists' 
backyard. For decades, whether it was the Iranian hostage crisis, the 
bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the first World Trade Center bombing, or 
the USS Cole bombing, we did not view terrorist attacks as a 
declaration of war. And that is what they were, but we didn't see it. 
We used law enforcement to go after terrorists and we sought to 
negotiate. What a mistake that was. But it is a mistake all too many 
who prefer appeasement want us to repeat.
  Can any of us even imagine, after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt 
suggesting we negotiate a resolution or that we could simply prosecute 
those involved? Of course it is unimaginable. We are right to be in the 
Middle East, and we are right to treat this as the war it is.

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