[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11260-11261]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IRAQ DEBATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McHENRY. Mr. Speaker, we do have an important debate coming 
before this House tomorrow discussing what we are doing to defend 
America through what the President calls the war on terror; what I 
refer to as the war against Islamic extremists.
  I had a colleague earlier refer to the big lie. Well, there is a big 
lie propagated by the left in this country that we have no enemies 
abroad; and beyond that, we should not fight those enemies where they 
are.
  We are making progress in this war against Islamic extremists. Make 
no mistake about it, this is a generational fight. While my 
grandparents fought the Nazis and my parents fought the Communists, 
very harsh ideologies that sought to destroy our way of life, that 
sought to destroy who we are as Americans, we too have a generational 
fight in this war against Islamic extremists.
  And I will say in the last week we have seen some very positive 
prospects coming from Iraq. There are those who want to deny that we 
are making progress, and they have every right and ability to do that 
because we have freedom of speech here in the United States because of 
our constitutional freedoms. We are trying to bring that same level of 
freedom to those that are living in repressive regimes, which those 
repressive regimes are the ones that are propagating terror against us 
in the United States. So if we spread peace and freedom and democracy 
around the world, we will have fewer enemies that seek to destroy us 
and to kill Americans.
  Now, in the last week we saw the destruction of Zarqawi, a militant 
extremist in Iraq, a terrorist mastermind, who was seeking to destroy 
our troops, to hurt our men and women in Iraq and to destroy the 
progress they are making for themselves in Iraq. But we did root him 
out. That was a wonderful, positive step. We should be proud of that 
action.
  Beyond that, we saw progress with the government of Iraq taking shape 
and form with the security ministers being put into place and the final 
government being put into place. We are making progress there in Iraq 
and we should be proud of that.
  Beyond that, there are extremists in Israel. There are extremists in 
Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East and some in this country 
that seek to destroy us. This is the reality of the day. Some would say 
we should deal with them with a legal strategy. Well, Mr. Speaker, I 
would say that is really removed from the realities of the war that we 
are fighting.
  Our enemy hates our values. Our enemy hates our freedoms. Our enemy 
hates our capitalism that we embrace in this country. So we must fight 
them wherever they are and by any means possible.
  But the left in this country, Mr. Speaker, don't want to fight this 
war. They know it is hard. They know it is difficult. But I would say 
to the left in this country, Mr. Speaker, that if we do not fight them, 
the values which they cherish, the freedom of speech and the freedom of 
dissent which we have in this country, the right to vote, the actual 
equality that we strive for in this country, although imperfect, the 
equality that we strive for, whether it be females having a place in 
society which we embrace here in this country, those extremists would 
not want that to happen. They want burqas worn by women. They don't 
want their participation. They don't want them to own

[[Page 11261]]

property or have freedom of speech, wholly removed from what is our 
reality here in this country, although imperfect. But we strive for 
those values, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, our enemy will fight us in any way possible. We must 
have a debate on this House floor on what means we are going to use, 
what direction we should take in this war on terror. This is a 
generational fight, and we as Americans must step up to the challenge 
and embrace the fight or they will destroy us.

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