[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 14944-14947]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CHRISTIANS UNDER ATTACK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I come before this honorable House with an 
issue that has been rather heartbreaking for so many of us for so long 
now:
  In The Middle East, the cradle of Christianity, where it started 
2,000 years ago based on the Judeo principles from thousands of years 
before that, there has been a massive onslaught. Against Jews, it has 
been going on for some time; but especially in the last several years, 
it has become untenable for Christians.
  In an article by Debra Heine, September 20, my sister's birthday, she 
wrote about ``2,000 Years of Christian Civilization Destroyed on 
Obama's Watch.''
  It says this in the article: ``The Islamic State has managed to 
destroy two thousand years of Christian civilizations in the Middle 
East in just a couple of years, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters noted on `The 
O'Reilly Factor' last week. And he placed the blame squarely on 
President Obama's . . . policy.
  ``ISIS has been spreading across the Middle East like a plague of 
locusts, and as they have spread, they have targeted religious 
minorities, particularly Christians, for destruction. In Syria, tens of 
thousands of Assyrian Christians have been attacked and displaced.
  ``They are forgotten refugees.''
  Mr. Speaker, I have met with Christians and Christian leaders from 
Syria, and the stories they tell and the horrors they talk about, the 
inhumanity to man that is being inflicted upon Christians in that area 
is just untenable. It is unconscionable. Women--talk about a war on 
women. If they are Christian women, it is absolutely horrendous.
  I ran into the same problem in meeting with family members in Nigeria 
of girls that were kidnapped by radical Islamists, Boko Haram. That was 
in Nigeria.
  I would be interested to talk to the President of Togo tomorrow. I 
have

[[Page 14945]]

been to his country before. I have seen the poverty, and I have seen 
the affliction.
  But in the Middle East, Christians are not even allowed to be in the 
area where the Apostle Paul walked. The Apostle Paul planted churches 
where Christian missionaries were, along the times right after Jesus 
resurrected. Right in the early days of the church, churches were 
planted. And now, while the United States is said to be the sole 
superpower, Christians are being persecuted in greater numbers around 
the world than ever in history.
  If there is a God who loves Christians, loves all people but has an 
affinity for Jews and Christians, then there would have to be a price 
for any nation that allows this to go on.
  This article goes on: A Catholic priest who visited Kurdish Iraq last 
fall described the wounded souls of the Christians who had taken refuge 
there. They had been forced from their homes in northern Iraq in the 
summer of 2014.
  ```Without question, we are talking about genocide here. Genocide is 
not only when the people are killed, but also when the soul of a people 
is destroyed. And that is what is happening in Iraq now,' said Fr. 
Andrzej Halemba, head of Aid to the Church in Need's Middle East 
section, said October 28. `It is the most tragic thing that I have ever 
experienced.'''
  This is from the priest. The priest goes on: ```I have seen people 
who have been deeply wounded in their soul. In the various crises in 
this world, I have often seen people who have lost everything. But in 
Iraq, there are Christians who have had to leave everything and take 
flight three or four times. They can see no light at the end of the 
tunnel.'
  ``Last spring, hundreds of Assyrian Christians fled to Lebanon after 
ISIS jihadists stormed their villages in Syria's northeastern province 
of Hasakeh.
  ``Members of Lebanon's Assyrian community did their best to welcome 
the new refugees, but the displacement had left them traumatized.
  ```The villages of Khabur are empty now, there is no one left except 
some fighters,' lamented Chorbishop Yatron Koliana, as he oversaw the 
distribution at his diocese.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is tragic. Christian villages 2,000 years old, 
destroyed. Nothing left but some people trying to fight for just the 
ground that they are fighting on that once was their home.
  ```Our people have experienced a great tragedy in Syria' . . . `They 
are depressed. Some of them have chronic illnesses. Their lives are 
difficult.'
  ```How can we be comfortable living on aid?' asked 50-year-old 
Simaan, who fled his village Tal Hormuz.
  ``He railed against what he called international indifference to the 
plight of Assyrians under attack by ISIS in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
  ```The whole world, from the U.N. to the United States and Russia, is 
responsible' . . . `They'''--talking about ISIS--```have destroyed our 
whole civilization . . . and the world is watching.'''

                              {time}  2030

  We hear so many sad stories. Christians are being persecuted on our 
watch, and we are not talking enough about it. The President certainly 
isn't. He tells us that we need to take tens or hundreds of thousands 
of more Muslim refugees. What about the Christians and the massive 
extermination of churches in the Middle East under this administration? 
We get it. The Constitution gives the President wide authority and wide 
latitude on foreign policy. Congress has some say because we can 
appropriate or defund what the President is doing--if we have 
leadership with courage to do that.
  This article goes on: ``In July, 4,000 more Assyrian Christian 
families were among the 120,000 people who fled Hasakah to escape ISIS 
forces who had entered the city looking to carry out a mass ethno-
religious slaughter.
  ``Fleeing Muslim persecution, Christian refugees are often targeted 
and persecuted anew by fleeing Muslim refugees.''
  The International Business Times reported: ``Italian police have 
arrested 15 Muslim immigrants in Palermo, for allegedly having thrown 
Christian refugees off the rubber boat that was taking them to Italy 
after a fight for `religious reasons,' according to media reports.
  ``Those arrested--from Mali, Guinea and Ivory Coast--were part of a 
group of 100 that were rescued off the Libyan coast by the Italian 
coast guard.
  ``The Archbishop of Canterbury, recently warned British Prime 
Minister David Cameron that his government's refugee policy was 
discriminating against Christians because Christians are not among the 
refugees being helped in U.N. camps. They are not in the U.N. camps 
because they fear persecution from radicalized Muslim refugees.
  ``The Most Reverend Justin Welby reportedly met the Prime Minister 
earlier this month with concerns that Christians in Syria will be 
largely excluded from the 20,000 refugees due to come to the U.K. over 
the next 5 years.
  ``The government, in line with European Union policy, is committed to 
taking in refugees from U.N. camps in Syria and neighboring countries. 
It cannot discriminate in favor of any one religious group. But the 
Archbishop has raised concerns that Christians have avoided refugee 
camps because of fears of persecution from rogue Islamist groups 
operating inside refugee camps.
  ``In a speech in the House of Lords last Monday, Archbishop Welby 
said that, `within the camps there is significant intimidation and 
radicalization, and many particularly of the Christian population who 
have been forced to flee are unable to be in the camps.'
  ``He went on: `What is the government's policy of reaching out to 
those who are not actually in the camps?'''
  Lord Carey, who wrote in the Telegraph about his concern of the 
plight of Christians, wrote:
  ```The frustration for those of us who have been calling for 
compassion for Syrian victims for many months is that the Christian 
community is yet again left at the bottom of the heap.'
  ```Mr. Cameron's policy inadvertently discriminates against the very 
Christian communities most victimized by the inhuman butchers of the 
so-called Islamic State.'
  ```Christians are not to be found in the U.N. camps, because they 
have been attacked and targeted by Islamists and driven from them. They 
are seeking refuge in private homes, church buildings, and with 
neighbors and family.'
  ``Refugees who want to come to the United States will also be 
required to apply through the U.N.
  ```A combination of European cowardice and awful American foreign 
policy has led to a mass Muslim migration that will affect the whole 
world.'''
  ``Lt. Col. Ralph Peters disagreed somewhat with that assessment.''
  He said, ```I think you were much, much too soft on President Obama 
and a bit too hard on the E.U.' . . .`If America doesn't lead, it 
doesn't happen.'''
  He went on to say: ```Just look at a map of the Middle East . . . on 
George W. Bush's last day in office. There is broad peace across the 
Middle East and North Africa, Iraq was finally convalescing, and . . . 
Obama promptly, to please his America-hating base, abandons Iraq, backs 
the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, gets rid of Qaddafi without a plan for 
what goes after, threatens Assad . . . then does nothing, doesn't 
listen to the intelligence community when for years they are telling 
him about the Islamic State coming--then tries to blame the 
intelligence community, and launches feckless airstrikes. The 
combination of his fecklessness and cowardice, his rhetorical bravado 
and utter incompetence are responsible.'''
  He goes on: ```No. Listen to this. Two thousand years of Christian 
civilization destroyed on his watch . . . That's on Obama. When America 
doesn't lead, nothing happens.'''
  Well, it is not just on President Obama. I am sure he is mainly 
responsible for our foreign policy, but we need to stand up to the 
President. When Iran is out there saying, as they have in the last 
couple of weeks, that with the $100 billion, $150 billion that 
President Obama is going to see to Iran getting quickly, and the 
hundreds of billions of

[[Page 14946]]

dollars that will flow in subsequent years, they were already 
announcing they are going to increase their support for Hamas and 
Hezbollah as they kill Americans, continue to kill Christians, and 
continue to kill moderate Muslims who are not radicalized, at what 
point is Congress responsible for not standing up to the President?
  Mr. Speaker, I would submit that one very important point has come, 
and right now it is up to the United States Senate to have a backbone 
on behalf of the millions that stand to be persecuted and killed by the 
money that they are going to allow to go to Iran by failing to do what 
they could to stop this world atrocity.
  There is no question in reasonable, intelligent minds that the Iran 
deal is a treaty. It is a treaty as anticipated by the Founders. It is 
a treaty as referred to in the Constitution, article II, section 2, 
second paragraph, and it requires a vote of two-thirds of the Senate 
present to go along with it in order for it to be effective.
  Yes, the Corker bill tried to amend the Constitution. Legislation 
can't amend the Constitution. Once it is clear--as it is--that the Iran 
deal is a treaty, then we need desperately to have people in the Senate 
stand up--some of them have--make clear this is a treaty; it requires 
two-thirds in order to approve it or it is not ratified, it is not 
effective, and the President is not allowed to release the 100-plus 
billion, $150 billion to Iran that will be used for atrocities, 
especially toward America, toward Christians, toward moderate 
nonradicalized Muslims, toward Jews, and toward Israel. There is a real 
responsibility here. It may take courage--I am sure it will--for the 
Senate to stand up and the Senate majority leader to stand up and say: 
Sorry, Mr. President, the Iran deal is a treaty. We have listed in our 
letter to the majority leader in the Senate some of the bases, it is 
spelled out in our resolution that we filed and talked about here on 
the floor, it is clearly a treaty.
  The end of John Quincy Adams' oral argument that capped a couple of 
days of oral argument in the case can be found online. He was afraid 
that if he did not do an adequate job as a lawyer, those Africans that 
he was representing that had been captured by other Africans and sold 
into slavery, sent to the Caribbean, and then put on the Spanish ship 
the Amistad, they were able to overtake and overpower the Spanish and 
take charge of the ship. They landed in America. The lawsuit was over 
whether or not they were free Africans or whether they were property of 
the Spanish.
  I can understand the fear that John Quincy Adams must have had as he 
stood downstairs in the Old Supreme Court Chamber. One of the Justices 
had died one night during oral argument, not while he was actually 
arguing. That final day he knew if he didn't do an adequate job, his 
clients would wear chains and their children would wear chains all 
because he didn't do an adequate job as their lawyer.
  So he finished his oral argument by calling the names of Justices of 
the Supreme Court who had been on the Supreme Court but had passed 
away. Chief Justice, Justices, he knew them. He called their names: The 
Justice that started this case, where is he? Where are all these 
Justices? Where is the Solicitor General that argued before me?
  This is around 1821. This is in the late 1830s. He is now arguing in 
the Supreme Court in their Chamber downstairs.
  After going through all the Supreme Court Justices that had passed 
away, he finishes basically by saying they have gone to meet their 
Judge, and the biggest question is when they met their Maker, their 
Judge, did they hear the words: ``Well done, good and faithful 
servant?''
  It is very clear, send a message to the Supreme Court. Think about 
it, Justices. If you died tonight like the other Judge just died in the 
last couple of nights and you go to meet your Maker, do you want the 
last thing you did to be having sent wonderful African people out in 
chains that they would wear and their children would wear--possibly 
their children and their children--all because you didn't do the right 
thing as a judge? He won the case, as well he should.
  I can't help but wonder if John Quincy Adams were here today arguing 
on behalf of Christian communities all over the Middle East that have 
been destroyed, refugees that have been sent running, Jews that can no 
longer populate the area because of threats and violence upon them, and 
he saw that the United States that he had been President of and was in 
the House of Representatives after having been President, if he would 
not be mortified, if he would not challenge us today: Do we want to 
meet our Maker, our Judge, and we saw and heard about the plight of 
Christians, Jews, and moderate Muslims around the Middle East and North 
Africa just being slaughtered, women being raped and torn apart, 
brutalized in unthinkable ways, and we turned a blind eye to that and 
said that we are going to bring in massive numbers of refugees who are 
Muslim, 72 percent of which are male, and we have been told by radicals 
that they are going to make sure that there are people that want to 
kill and destroy more Christians, more Jews, more of America, and we 
are going to bring them in without proper vetting--because you can't 
vet them properly--all while Christians, Jews, and moderate Muslims are 
being slaughtered and overrun all through the Middle East as we are 
credited with being the superpower in the world?

                              {time}  2045

  Yet, also, these last few days, the U.N.--where we pay far more than 
anybody even comes close to in order to keep it going as they continue 
to become more and more anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli, and anti-American--
they entertain the largest supporter of terrorism in the world, the 
leader of Iran. And he says this in part, the leader of Iran, the 
President Rouhani:
  If we did not have U.S. military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and 
the United States' unwarranted support for the inhumane actions of the 
Zionist regime against the oppressed nation of Palestine, today the 
terrorists would not have an excuse for the justification of their 
crimes.
  I am taking this from an article by Julian Hattem, 9-28-15, which is 
interesting. We have heard that throughout the United States, if we 
just hadn't gone into Iraq, if we hadn't gone into Afghanistan, if we 
hadn't gone into Afghanistan with the 300 Americans that we embedded--
about 300--we embedded and let the Afghans destroy the Taliban by 
February of 2002, then we became an overwhelming occupying force in 
Afghanistan--but at least by February of 2002, if we hadn't gone in and 
helped them, the Taliban would still be completely controlling 
Afghanistan. That is the way it is.
  Now, we went astray when we became occupiers, and this President has 
only tripled the number of deaths in Afghanistan, even though the war 
is supposedly over. Over tripled the number of American deaths, even 
though the real war was during President Bush, because of this 
President's rules of engagement and disastrous foreign policy.
  But think about it. This is the head, the President of Iran. He is 
telling the U.N. and the world that, if it weren't for the United 
States' invasion in Afghanistan and in Iraq, there wouldn't be any 
American terrorists.
  Mr. Speaker, why in the world should the U.N. listen to a man that is 
this big a liar or is this stupid? Because you don't have to be all 
that bright to understand September 11 of 2001 happened before we sent 
300 or so into Afghanistan to help them destroy the Taliban and before 
we went in and took out a brutal dictator in Iraq.
  In fact, the planning of 9-11-2001 happened during the Clinton 
administration on President Clinton's watch. And for people that are 
fools or liars like Rouhani and they don't know or are just lying about 
it, during the Clinton administration, President Clinton's policies 
were to run and help persecuted Muslims whenever we found them around 
the world.
  And while we were busy helping Muslims, Western Asia, Eastern Europe, 
wherever we could help them, they were planning the attack on New York 
City and Washington, D.C., and hoping

[[Page 14947]]

to wipe out the entire American government here in Washington, D.C. And 
but for the heroic act of people on a plane that took it down in 
Pennsylvania, they may well have.
  We don't need to hear any of these lies about, oh, if America just 
hadn't invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, regardless of whether you agree 
with what President Bush ordered with Iraq, the fact is 9/11 was a 
terrorist attack before and so was the attack on the USS Cole and so 
were the attacks on our embassies around the world during the 1990s and 
so was the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 that apparently had 
some planning back during the former President Bush's administration.
  And that was an administration that stopped a brutal dictator, Saddam 
Hussein, who had raided another Muslim country, and we went in and 
helped Kuwait get their country back. We went to help the Muslims. And 
how do they reward us? To plan an attack to try to take down the World 
Trade Centers in '93.
  It is very clear Christianity, Judaism, Israel, all were under attack 
and so was America. And our enemies can't believe how stupid Americans 
are because we are going to reward the biggest supporter of terrorism 
in the world--Iran--with $100 to $150 billion that they are already 
saying they are going to use to help Hamas and Hezbollah kill more 
Christians, more Jews, help wipe out Israel, help the attack against 
the Great Satan, the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for people in the United States Government to 
stand up and help correct the wayward policies of this administration. 
We start by having the United States Senate in one voice say the 
Iranian deal is a treaty and we are taking a vote on it and cloture is 
set aside with 51 votes.
  And they won't get the two-thirds to ratify it. It will not become 
effective against the United States. And thank God we will then have 
stopped the continued persecution of Christians, moderate Muslims, 
Jews, Israelis, and the United States, instead of rewarding them and 
helping them take us out.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair reminds Members to avoid engaging 
in personalities toward the President.

                          ____________________