Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I missed rollcall vote 64. If I had been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Madam Chair, on rollcall 101, I mistakenly voted ``no''; however, I intended to vote ``aye.''

Amendment No. 88 Offered by Mr. Kind

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

My amendment calls on the new government of Egypt to fulfill its commitment to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty signed on March 26, 1979, and to the freedom of navigation in the Suez Canal.

For over a quarter of a century, Mr. Chairman, Israel and Egypt have chosen to transcend their differences to promote their respective national interests. Through hostile times and dramatic regional and international changes, Egypt and Israel have maintained a steadfast commitment to well-being and the existence of one another.

The United States now calls upon Egypt to maintain their alliance with the State of Israel during these perilous times. Israel has been a beacon of democracy even in the midst of experiencing both foreign state-sponsored and other omnipresent terrorist attacks, all the while being surrounded by those who embrace a radical Islamist agenda and a pledge of jihad against the tiny Jewish State. For this reason, I offer amendment 481. The continuing resolution states that, ``any assistance made available to the government of Egypt shall be provided with the understanding that Egypt will undertake significant economic and democratic reforms.'' Mr. Chairman, the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979 is central to fulfilling that commitment.

I also feel it important to express my grave concern about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and their stance against preserving a peaceful relationship with Israel. According to its charter, Mr. Chairman, the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to impose Sharia law, restore the Islamic caliphate, and conquer non-Muslim or ``infidel'' states.

Mohamed Badi, the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide, recently pledged the Brotherhood would ``continue to raise the banner of jihad'' against the Jews. He called the Jews the Brotherhood's ``first and foremost enemies.'' Another top Muslim Brotherhood leader, Mohamed Ghanem, said to Iran's Al-Alam Arabic language television network that he believed Egypt should close the Suez Canal to U.S. warships, and ``the people of Egypt should be prepared for war against Israel.'' Mr. Chairman, there are now reports that Iranian ships are passing unimpeded through the Suez Canal this very night.

The Obama administration recently said the Muslim Brotherhood is largely a secular group which has eschewed violence and has decried al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam, and that they have pursued social ends and a betterment of the political order in Egypt, and that there is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence. Mr. Chairman, what a preposterous and expressively dangerous statement to make. The terrorist group Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and al Qaeda itself was catalyzed by elements of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Mr. Chairman, I am bewildered by what President Obama has done when he has called for the Muslim Brotherhood to have a ``seat at the table'' in the new Egyptian government. Based on their recent history and the statements from their leadership and from their founding charter, a ``seat at the table'' for the Brotherhood would be a grave threat to any democratic society as well as the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty and the stability indeed of the entire Middle East.

Mr. Chairman, Israel shares a long and porous border with Egypt, and I cannot express how crucial it is for the new government of Egypt to honor their peace treaty. I call on the U.S. House of Representatives to expect any government of Egypt to do exactly that, and I hope any new government of Egypt will remember that America is watching.

Mr. Chairman, I felt it was important to get these comments on the record on this debate night. However, I'm told that due to clause 2 of rule XXI a point of order will be raised on my amendment. Therefore, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw it at this time.

Offered By: Mr. Franks of Arizona

Amendment No. 481: Page 334, line 23, insert before the

colon the following: ``and that the new Government of Egypt

fulfills its commitment to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty

signed on March 26, 1979, and to freedom of navigation of the

Suez Canal''.

I thank the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, the tragedy this week in Arizona has been a reminder to all of us of the brevity and delicate nature of this earthly life. It is my prayer this morning that God would grant all of the victims named in this resolution, as well as the grieving families and loved ones who are mourning the loss of the six precious lives that were taken that day, the comfort, the peace, and the restoration that only He can give.

Madam Speaker, it happens that the only one of those victims that I knew well personally was our own Gabby Giffords. Madam Speaker, Gabby and I are from different parties. And on past and happier days, many in Arizona would often joke about the differences in our politics.

But I can testify to you this morning, Madam Speaker, that in the 4 years that I have known Gabby Giffords there has never been one unkind or acrimonious or even terse word passed between us.

Gabby Giffords is a precious, warm, caring, decent human being whose warmth and charm touched the hearts of all who know her. And the testimony of her life and work is proof that true tolerance is not in pretending that we have no differences; it is being kind and decent to each other in spite of those differences.

And it strikes me as more than a poignant coincidence that only days before the tragedy, we all listened to Gabby Giffords as she stood at this very podium and read the words of the Constitution's First Amendment, which protects the right of the people to peaceably assemble.

And then only days later, Madam Speaker, as she was exercising that right and faithfully doing her job as a Member of the United States Congress, one bereft of heart, human compassion, and respect for innocent human life mindlessly shattered her life and the lives of so many others around her.

Madam Speaker, the last words I had with Gabby Giffords were spoken not 10 feet from this podium when we exchanged simple but genuine and heartfelt words and best wishes for the new year and the new Congress. And, Madam Speaker, I will tell you that when I heard the news of this tragedy and the false report that Gabby had died, I felt such an overwhelming sense of grief in my soul to think that those were the last words that I would ever speak to her.

And it was a reminder to me, Madam Speaker, of the brevity and preciousness of human life and freedom and just how important it really is for each of us to seize every moment and to speak kind and loving words to each other while we still can.

So, Madam Speaker, it is my prayer that God would comfort the Giffords family and all of the victims of this horrible tragedy and hold them closely in His arms as only He can, and that He would some day very soon return a smiling Gabby Giffords to this Chamber and to all of us, as clear eyed and as whole as when she left us.

Mr. Speaker, in a few moments, the United States Constitution will be read for the first time in a long time in this Chamber. And I, for one, Mr. Speaker, am glad to see this welcomed day come.

I know there are those that will dismiss it as symbolic. But I remember the words of Daniel Webster when he said, ``Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years may never happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.''

Mr. Speaker, I hope, as we go forward in this new Congress, that we will all hold Mr. Webster's words in our hearts.

``Nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.''

Mr. Speaker, I want to echo the comments that have been made here regarding Ike Skelton. It is fairly rare when someone so nobly transcends political party and even persuasions to try to do what he or she believes is right for the country and for the future of humanity. I congratulate him and wish him the best God can give him everywhere he goes from this point forward.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Speaker, they say that the crux of leadership is being able to differentiate between the critical and the peripheral, and I believe more than anything else today, the challenge before us in this process is that we have allowed the peripheral to overcome the critical, and this process has been subject to that failure on our part.

To correct the record on one point, the majority says that the minority Members of the Senate stopped this bill. What they did was to try to resist an effort to use the national defense authorization bill as a vehicle for cultural and social engineering. That is something that both parties should avoid doing now and in the future, because I believe that it is a disgrace to the country and a disgrace to the process.

Our focus here should be on doing that thing that most likely protects and defends the freedom in this country and allows it to go forth as a beacon of hope for the whole world. In the future, I would hope that we would see the national defense authorization bill protected as a bill strictly designed to defend and protect the arsenal of freedom and the cause of human freedom in general. We owe that to the American people, we owe that to the men and women in this country that are in the military, and we owe it to the cause of human freedom.

Madam Speaker, I would like to submit the following for the Record:

Remarks of Maria McFarland, Deputy Washington Director, Human Rights

Watch

In the last couple of years, Saudi King Abdullah has

received praise in some circles for having taken a few

cautious steps in support of religious tolerance through his

Interfaith Dialogue Initiative. But that initiative has been

limited to international settings.

Within Saudi Arabia, repression of religious freedom

continues unabated, particularly with respect to Shia

Muslims. Saudi textbooks, including those used abroad,

include material that promotes hostility toward the Shia

creed and other religions and may in some cases justify

violence. The right of non-Muslims to worship in private is

subject to the whims of the local religious police. Public

worship of faiths other than Islam remains prohibited as a

matter of policy.

Shia Saudis, who make up an estimated 10-15 percent of the

population, are the group most affected by repression of

religious freedom. Shia face systematic exclusion in

employment, as well as discrimination in religious education

and worship.

In some cases, this discrimination amounts to persecution.

Professing Shia beliefs in private or in public may lead to

arrest and detention. Saudi Shia visiting the holy shrines in

Mecca and Medina regularly face harassment by the Wahhabi

religious police. A government promise to update the vague

law outlining religious police jurisdiction and powers has

remained unfulfilled for three years.

In al-Ahsa' province, the governor, Prince Badr bin Jilawi,

has repeatedly had Shia citizens arrested and detained on his

authority and in violation of Saudi criminal procedure law

simply for praying together in private or publicly displaying

banners or slogans or wearing clothing associated with

certain Shia rituals. In late January or mid-February, six

young Shia of al-Ahsa', between 19 and 24 years old, were

detained on Prince Badr's orders because of their peaceful

exercise of their religious beliefs. As of mid-September,

they remained in detention without charge or trial despite a

limit of six months for pre-trial detention under the Saudi

criminal procedure code. The Saudi government has yet to take

meaningful steps to stop these abuses or bring to justice

those responsible.

Shia face officially sanctioned discrimination in the

judicial system too. There has been no progress in affording

Shia outside of the Eastern Province with courts for personal

status matters to conclude marriages and adjudicate divorces,

inheritances, child custody disputes, and such matters. This

affects the so-called Nakhawila, Twelver Shia in Medina, and

the Ismailis in Najran province as well as a small group of

Zaidi Muslims in Jizan and Najran provinces. There is no

separation of secular from religious law in Saudi courts, and

all Shia, including in the Eastern Province where they have

their own personal status courts, must follow Sunni law as

interpreted in Saudi Arabia. Shia are sometimes not allowed

to testify in court.

Saudi officials who engage in anti-Shia speech rarely face

any reprimand for doing so. For example, on December 31,

2009, Shaikh Muhammad al-`Arifi, the government-paid imam of

the Buradi mosque in Riyadh, as well as Salih bin Humaid,

Saudi chief judge, visited frontline troops in southern Saudi

Arabia fighting Yemeni Huthi rebels, who belong to a branch

of Shiism, albeit different from that of most Saudi Shia. Al-

`Arifi can be seen in photos wearing camouflage, firing

weapons, and preaching to soldiers. Press reports said al-

`Arifi stressed the necessity of jihad (holy war) and

commended the soldiers for performing their national and

religious duty. Upon returning to Riyadh, al-`Arifi, in a

sermon on Friday, January 1, 2010 condemned the Huthi rebels

and called Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani--an Iranian living in

Iraq, who is the highest religious authority for many Saudi

Shia-an ``obscene, irreligious atheist.''

Meanwhile, Saudi authorities have taken steps to silence

Shia critics. Saudi domestic intelligence agents have been

holding Munir al-Jassas, a Shia who criticized state

repression against the Shia online, in detention without

charge for over a year. On June 22, 2008, authorities

arrested Shia cleric Shaikh Tawfiq al-`Amir, after he spoke

out in a sermon against a May 30 statement signed by 22

prominent Saudi Wahhabi clerics, in which they called the

``Shia sect an evil among the sects of the Islamic nation,

and the greatest enemy and deceivers of the Sunni people.''

Of the 22 signatories, II were current government officials

and 6 were former government officials.

In its annual reports on religious freedom on Saudi Arabia,

the United States Department of State has consistently and

accurately documented severe repression of religious freedom

and systematic violations against certain groups, including

especially the Shia. Yet, while the United States has for

years designated Saudi Arabia as a Country of Particular

Concern, it has failed to take meaningful steps to promote

reform in Saudi Arabia. The United States has continually

waived sanctions provided under the law, and aside from

issuing the annual report, has remained mostly silent in

public on the subject.

The United States has also applauded King Abdullah's

Interfaith Dialogue Initiative (IDI) as evidence of greater

promotion of religious tolerance. Cynical observers would see

the IDI as a promotional tour of Western countries designed

to soften Saudi Arabia's image of an exporter of religious

hatred. Uncritical supporters of the initiative claim it as

evidence that the kingdom is opening up.

Whatever its motivation, the fact remains that this

initiative abroad has had no policy repercussions at home.

Saudis recognize domestic state-controlled media reporting on

the IDI as an official campaign, and it only serves to

highlight the stark contrasts between ideals upheld abroad

and the harsh reality of repression at home. If the United

States is serious about promoting religious tolerance in

Saudi Arabia, it cannot remain content to publish a report

once a year about religious repression or to praise Saudi

Arabia for symbolic commitments to religious tolerance.

Instead, it must take a clear, public stance on Saudi

Arabia's systematic repression of religion and press the

Saudi government to undertake effective institutional reforms

to end discrimination and repression on the basis of religion

in that country.

Remarks of Mansour Al-Hadj, Editor, Aafaq

At the outset, I would like to say that my paper is based

on my personal experience as someone who was born and grew up

in Saudi Arabia, and has always been concerned about Saudi

Arabia--since it's my homeland and also since I have been

monitoring the Saudi media closely for the last four years as

co-founder of the liberal Arabic-language website Aafaq, of

which I am currently editor-in-chief.

There is great conflict and tension between liberals and

conservatives in Saudi Arabia--but it is unfortunately a fake

war, because both sides are working for the government--that

is, the House of Saud. Both the liberals--who are actively

writing articles for government-owned newspapers or appearing

on government-owned TV channels--and the conservatives--who

are active in mosques and on websites and who are also

appearing on government-owned TV channels--are well aware of

their limits and of the red lines that they must not cross.

The one red line that neither conservatives nor liberals

dare to cross is talking or writing anything about political

reform or the rights of religious minorities. Those who

refuse to follow these limits are banned from writing in

Saudi newspapers, and many of them are imprisoned and/or

prohibited from leaving the country.

Saudi liberals are very hesitant to question the illegal

arrest and persecution of reformers. One such case, that went

completely unreported in Saudi Arabia, is that of Hadi Al-

Mutif, an Ismai'i Shi'ite who has been imprisoned since 1993,

serving what is by now the longest prison sentence ever in

Saudi Arabia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. Also, not a

single Saudi newspaper reported on the arrest of Mokhlif Al-

Shammari, a Saudi human rights activist accused of annoying

others for posting online articles criticizing radical

sheikhs who call for the eradication of the Shi'ites.

Saudi liberals have never advocated for the reformers who

openly demand political and constitutional reform--such as

Ali Aldumaini, Matrook Al-Faleh, and Abdallah Al-Hamid, who

are officially banned from writing in Saudi newspapers and

from traveling outside the country. The liberals do not dare

to question the brutal punishments of beheading, amputation

and flogging carried out by the Saudi authorities. They avoid

writing about the plight of the Shi'a minorities whose

mosques are repeatedly shut down and whose imams are arrested

for conducting prayers in their homes. They never dare to

call for a new and modern interpretation of the Koran, never

dare to advocate for gays' and lesbians' right to not be

punished or even killed for something they could not choose.

All of these issues are on the other side of the red line

that they cannot cross.

Last month, Saudi women's rights activist Wajeha al-

Huwaider was interviewed by the LBC (Lebanese Broadcasting

Corporation)

``No Censorship'' show, with airing scheduled for October

2010. However, the show has not yet aired. Observers said

that a high-level Saudi official ordered LBC not to broadcast

Wajeha's interview, in which she talked about women's right

to drive cars in Saudi Arabia, the plight of the Shi'a

minorities in the country, the male guardian system, and the

unjust punishment of Saudi reformers. Wajeha is banned from

writing in Saudi newspapers.

Last week, the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah refused to publish an

article by female university professor Fawziyah Abdallah Abu

Khaled. In her article, Abu Khaled called the government to

allow those who oppose its policies to be part of society and

for it to stop persecuting and criminalizing them. She wrote:

``Peaceful opposition is part of the social power of any

society, and it should not be handled with hostility,

eradication, or constant persecution.''

The only people who enjoy freedom of expression are the

radicals--as long as they do not call for Jihad against the

House of Saud. Sheikh Abdel Rahman Al-Barak has called many

times for the killing of Shi'ites and many Saudi liberals,

and issued a new fatwa stating that the U.S. is the real

enemy of the Muslims and that Jihad cannot be superseded by

international conventions.

You might ask, what about the launch of the Saudi national

dialogue, the establishment of King Abdullah University of

Science and Technology, the appointment of the first female

vice minister for women's education, the municipal election,

the interfaith conferences organized by the Saudi government

to which Christians and Jews were invited, and the recent

ruling restricting the right to issue fatwas to senior

religious leaders.

The national dialogue has accomplished nothing; the new

university is a closed and isolated institution for

international students and a very few Saudis that is aimed at

producing Saudi engineers and doctors, not at encouraging

unfettered research, and certainly not to produce new and

modern interpretations of the Koran that are peaceful and

that respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This

university is one of dozens of Islamic universities in Saudi

Arabia. The appointment of Noura Al-Fayz as the first female

member of the Saudi Arabia Council of Ministers means

nothing--she still cannot drive a car, travel by herself, go

jogging or engage in other sports, choose her own husband, or

receive decent child support if she divorces. Regarding the

election, we all know that women were not allowed to vote;

and the interfaith conferences will remain meaningless until

a church is built in Saudi Arabia and Christians are allowed

to worship freely. As to the restriction on fatwas, no one

pays any attention at all; new fatwas are issued on a

daily basis.

The House of Saud has used its oil wealth to control

people's lives. Whether conservative or liberal, ultimately

people need to put food on the table, and as long as almost

everything in the kingdom is controlled by the government, it

will be very difficult to both cross red lines and make a

living. That is how the House of Saud maintains its game of

balance.

I understand this on a very personal level; I have seen how

people struggle to swim upstream under totalitarian regimes.

What I cannot understand, however, is how a country like the

U.S. that has always championed human Rights and religious

freedom has been unable to free a young man who has been

imprisoned for 17 years because of his religious belief as an

Isma'ili Shi'ite. I can only hope that the House of Saud is

not aiming to play the game of balance internationally--

because I have heard that a $60 billion arms deal is in the

works.

Remarks of Nina Shea, Director, Hudson Institute's Center for Religious

Freedom

Last Sunday, a December 2009 cable that was cited by the

New York Times but has not yet been posted by Wikileaks says

that Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni

militant groups such as Al Qaeda.

America's top financial-counterterrorism official, Treasury

Undersecretary Stuart Levey, believes there's a strong link

between education and support for terror. As he wrote in the

Washington Post last June, to end support for such terror,

among other steps: ``we must focus on educational reform in

key locations to ensure that intolerance has no place in

curricula and textbooks. . . . [U]nless the next generation

of children is taught to reject violent extremism, we will

forever be faced with the challenge of disrupting the next

group of terrorist facilitators and supporters.''

Saudi Arabia is one such ``key location.'' The kingdom is

not just any country with problematic textbooks. As the

controlling authority of the two holiest shrines of Islam,

Saudi Arabia is able to disseminate its religious materials

among the millions of Muslims making the hajj to Mecca each

year. Such teachings can, in this context, make a great

impression. In addition, Saudi textbooks are also posted on

the Saudi Education Ministry's website and are shipped and

distributed free by a vast Sunni infrastructure established

with Saudi oil wealth to many Muslim schools, mosques and

libraries throughout the world. In his book The Looming

Tower, Lawrence Wright asserts that while Saudis constitute

only 1 percent of the world's Muslims, they pay ``90 percent

of the expenses of the entire faith, overriding other

traditions of Islam.'' Others estimate that, on an annual

basis, Saudi Arabia spends three times as much in exporting

its Wahhabi ideology as did the Soviets in propagating

Communism during the height of the Cold War. From the

Netherlands and Bosnia, to Algeria and Tunisia, to Pakistan

and Afghanistan, and to Somalia and Nigeria, nationals of

these countries have reported that over the past twenty to

thirty years local Islamic traditions are being transformed

and radicalized under intensifying Saudi influence. The late

President of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid wrote that Wahhabism

was making inroads even in his famously tolerant nation of

Indonesia.

To understand why Jim Woolsey and other terrorism experts

call Wahhabism as it spreads through the Islamic diaspora

``kindling for Usama Bin Laden's match,'' it is important to

know the content of Saudi textbooks. They teach, along with

many other noxious lessons, that Jews and Christians are

``enemies,'' and they dogmatically instruct that that it is

permissible, even obligatory, to kill various groups of

``unbelievers''--apostates (which includes Muslim moderates

who reject Saudi Wahhabi doctrine), polytheists (which can

include Shias and Sufis, as well as Christians, Hindus, and

Buddhists), Jews, and adulterers. The texts also teach that

the ``punishment for homosexuality is death'' and discusses

that this can be done by immolation by fire, stoning or

throwing the accused from a high place.

Under the Saudi Education Ministry's method of rote

learning, these teachings amount to indoctrination, starting

in first grade and continuing through high school, where

militant jihad on behalf of ``truth'' has for years been

taught as a sacred duty. The ``lesson goals'' of one of the

text books is to have the children list the ``reprehensible''

qualities of Jewish people and another, that Jews are pigs

and apes.

Reformist Muslims can also be labeled as ``apostates,'' and

thus they can be killed with impunity. In the opening fatwa

of a Saudi government booklet distributed to educate Muslim

immigrants in 2005 by the Saudi embassy in the United States,

the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia (a cabinet level government

post) responded to a question about a Muslim preacher in a

European mosque who said ``declaring Jews and Christians

infidels is not allowed.'' The Grand Mufti accused the

unnamed European cleric of apostasy: ``He who casts doubts

about their infidelity leaves no doubt about his own

infidelity.''

The intellectual pioneer of takfiri doctrine is the

medieval Islamic scholar Ibn Tamiyya. He is cited as a moral

guide in the Saudi textbooks--including in the newly edited,

heavily redacted texts used in the Islamic Saudi Academy, a

school operated in Fairfax County, VA, by the Saudi embassy.

Students of Saudi high school textbooks are instructed to

consult his writings when they face vexing moral questions.

West Point's Center for Combating Terror found that Ibn

Tamiyya's are ``by far the most popular texts for modern

jihadis.''

Saudi foreign-affairs officials and ambassadors do not

dispute the need for education reform. Their reactions,

though, have alternated over the years between insisting that

reforms had already been made and stalling for time by

stating that the reforms would take several years more to

complete, maybe banking on the hope that American attention

would drift.

Four years ago, the Saudis gave a solemn and specific

promise to the United States. Its terms were described in a

letter from the U.S. assistant secretary of state for

legislative affairs to Sen. Jon Kyl, then chairman of the

Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism and

Homeland Security: ``In July of 2006, the Saudi Government

confirmed to us its policy to undertake a program of textbook

reform to eliminate all passages that disparage or promote

hatred toward any religion or religious groups.''

Furthermore, the State Department letter reported that this

pledge would be fulfilled ``in time for the start of the 2008

school year.''

Saudi Arabia has failed to keep its promise to the United

States. One Wikileak cable from the U.S. embassy reports that

Saudi education reform seems ``glacial.'' In its newly

released 2010 annual report on religious freedom, the State

Department itself asserted, albeit with diplomatic

understatement, with respect to Saudi Ministry of Education

textbooks: ``Despite government revisions to elementary and

secondary education textbooks, they retained language

intolerant of other religious traditions, especially Jewish,

Christian, and Shi'a beliefs, including commands to hate

infidels and kill apostates.'' (emphasis added.)

Meanwhile, Saudi royals have stepped up their philanthropy

to higher education around the world, for which they have

garnered many encomiums and awards. Hardly a month goes by

without a news report that one of the princes is endowing a

new center of Islamic and Arabic studies, or a business or

scientific department, at a foreign university. The king

himself recently founded a new university for advanced

science and technology inside Saudi Arabia.

These efforts have bought the royal family much good will,

but they should not distract our political leaders from the

central concern of the Saudi 1-12 religious curriculum. This

is not the time for heaping unqualified praise on the aging

monarch for promoting ``knowledge-based education,''

``extending the hand of friendship to people of other

faiths,'' promoting ``principles of moderation tolerance, and

mutual respect,'' and the like (phrases with which our

diplomatic statements on Saudi Arabia are replete).

The State Department needs to begin regular and detail

reporting on the remaining objectionable and violent passages

in Saudi government textbooks and to press in a sustained

manner for the kingdom to keep its 2006 pledge to us

regarding textbook reform. As USCIRF recommends, the

administration should also lift the indefinite waiver of any

action pursuant to the designation of Saudi Arabia as a

``Country of Particular Concern'' under the International

Religious Freedom Act--the only ``CPC'' to receive an

indefinite waiver.

In one of the Wikileaks cables written earlier this year on

Saudi King Abdullah to Secretary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador

James Smith makes the following observation: ``Reflecting his

Bedouin roots, he judges his counterparts on the basis of

character, honesty, and trust. He expects commitments to be

respected and sees actions, not words, as the true test of

commitment. . . .''

Bedouin or not, we should start demanding the same from

him.

Remarks by R. James Woolsey, Former Director of the Central

Intelligence Agency

I met on several occasions with the late President of

Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid, after his Presidency but while

he was leading the world's largest libertarian Muslim

organization, Nandlatul Ulama. What a truly magnificent man

he was. Nandlatul Ulama's members, as is the case for the

vast majority of Indonesia's Muslims, espouse essentially the

Enlightenment's embrace of reason and in particular it's

separation of the spiritual and secular realms. Indonesia's

traditions in this regard harken back hundreds of years, and

this country that contains more Muslims than any other does

not call itself a Muslim nation.

There are hundreds of millions of such truly moderate

Muslims in the world, including a very substantial share of

those in the U.S. They should be regarded as our colleagues

and friends in trying to build a peaceful and prosperous

modern world. To use a very rough analogy to the Cold War

years, such truly moderate Muslims are something like the

Social Democrats and Democratic Socialists--George Orwell,

Helmut Schmidt--who were our colleagues in winning the Cold

War against a communist empire that called itself

``socialist'' but whose essence was totalitarian.

Of course terrorists, whether Muslim or not, are not our

colleagues and friends but our enemies through and through,

just as were the communists' instruments of violence such as

the Spetznaz. But some have come to believe that in the world

of Islam today these two groupings--moderate Muslims and

terrorists--are the only ones that exist. Sadly such is not

the case.

During the Cold War there were non-violent totalitarians--

such as many members of the American Communist Party--who

fervently worked for the triumph of communism and the

establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat but

utilizing non-violent means. So also today there are some

Muslim groups and individuals who work hard to replace our

Constitution with the totalitarian socio-political doctrine

that Islam calls shariah. Shariah has as its objective the

establishment of a world-wide caliphate--a theocratic

totalitarian state. Along the way to this objective adherence

to shariah entails accepting a set of doctrines that calls

for: death to apostates and homosexuals, brutal treatment of

women, rejection of democracy (and indeed all man-made law),

anti-semitism, and much else.

In order to bring about the caliphate--the complete

rejection of Article VI of the Constitution--it is not always

tactically wise to utilize violence, or violent jihad.

Sometimes what Muslim Brotherhood writers call ``civilization

jihad'' is a shrewder tactic. It is well-defined in a

document, ``An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General

Strategic Goal for the Group'' entered into evidence in the

2008 case, United States v. Holy Land Foundation. The

document was written by Mohammed Akram, a senior Hams leader

in the U.S. and a member of the Board of Directors of the

Muslim Brotherhood in North America. The document makes it

clear that what is involved is a ``settlement process'' lead

by the Muslim Brotherhood that constitutes a ``grand jihad in

eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from

within and `sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands

and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated. . .

.''

In the Holy Land Foundation case, which dealt with

terrorist financing, it was established that a number of

Muslim Brotherhood organizations such as CAIR and ISNA,

though not indicted, were part of the terror-financing

conspiracy.

In short, as during the Cold War, we need to understand

that the central distinction is between those who accept

democracy and the rule of (man-made) law and those who do

not. We were on the same side during the Cold War as

socialists George Orwell and Helmut Schmidt and both the Red

Army and Gus Hall were on the other. Today we can make common

cause with all Muslims who are neither planning to blow up

airliners nor working on ``eliminating and destroying the

Western civilization from within.''

But we must not ignore those who are making such efforts or

be deterred from dealing with them just because they engage

in name-calling, such as labeling those who call them to

account as ``Islamophobes.'' Those who bravely stood up

against the Spanish Inquisition--whether Muslims, Jews, or

Christians--were not ``Christianophobes.'' We need to find

Constitutional means--drawings on our experiences during the

Cold War--to thwart the Islamist sabotage called for by the

Muslim Brotherhood document and to do so in such a way as to

protect the rights of those Muslims who are not engaged in

either violent jihad or ``civilization jihad'' against us.

This will require us to think clearly about how to deal

with Saudi Arabia, our ally on some aspects of fighting

terrorism, but also the principal source of funding of a

major share of the terrorists who attack us and the teaching

of hatred that fuels the civilization jihad as well.

Above all, we cannot begin to deal with these issues unless

we speak clearly. It is time to end the euphemisms and the

verbal dancing. One is hot accusing all Christians of burning

women at the stake if one examines how the Salem witch trials

grew out of some Puritan thinking. So too with totalitarian

offshoots of any religion, including Islamism. Islamists'

efforts to establish a caliphate and sabotage our

Constitution have to be called what they are--they are not

random acts of ``violent extremists.'' They are, for

Islamists, jihad. And they must be defeated.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I believe all of us in this room would agree that we have the greatest people in our military forces in the world. They are the most noble human beings in our society. Of all of the things that people do for their fellow human beings, putting themselves at risk for the freedom and the happiness and the hope of others is the most profound gift that they can give to humanity. And I believe that our first purpose here in this place is to make sure that those who protect freedom for the rest of us are the most well equipped, have the most important materials and weapons and capability that we can possibly give them.

Now, I know that there are some major disagreements on this policy, but the leaders of our military have only asked us one thing, and that is to give them time to study and to deal with this in their own way, in a way that will not be forcing this policy upon them in a time of war. And, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that we owe them that courtesy. They do not fight because they hate the enemy. They fight because they love all of us. And if we cannot give them the simple courtesy of giving them the opportunity to deal with this policy in the way that they have asked, then I really feel like we have failed them.

Mr. Speaker, I would also say that the military leaders, most of the commanding generals have said that this will weaken our military, that it will reduce the chances of them being able to fight and win wars with the least casualties on both sides. I believe that they are in a position to know whether that's true or not, Mr. Speaker. And I would just urge this body to give those who give it all for us the chance to deal with this in their own way and vote ``no'' on this repeal.

Mr. Speaker, I know that it comes as no surprise to this House that I have been one very critical of this administration's policies on a number of different fronts, and I suppose that will be no different tonight. But Mr. Speaker, I guess I wanted to start out tonight by addressing the WikiLeaks issue. I know that a lot of people across America have looked upon this with interest, and I guess it's significant in my mind that what we've seen on the WikiLeaks issue is really more confirmatory than it is anything that's informative. In many ways what the WikiLeaks information has demonstrated is that this administration has practiced for a long time a foreign policy of appeasement, and I think it has been a disaster for our country, Mr. Speaker.

I suppose it goes without saying that the most pressing question is how a 22-year-old private first class in a remote location in Iraq could have gained access to so many of these documents, especially since they are far outside his scope of responsibilities. It represents, really, a glaring failure on parts of the State Department and even some parts of the Defense Department. And some of these commonsense security measures could have been implemented prior to this. The Pentagon has since announced that it will be implementing new policies, including a technology that makes it impossible to copy classified documents to portable storage devices. Now the fact is that it has taken too long for such a commonsense policy to sink in, and this administration certainly had lead time to consider this long before now, but I guess it is, in a sense, indicative of why bureaucracies are so inefficient most of the time. It took the leak of hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents before this government decided to get up to speed with the unique risks posed by one of the most basic modern conveniences, that being the computer.

Private Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier suspected of leaking the documents, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hid behind the claim that the government's so-called ``lack of transparency'' is unjustified. This is their main reason for justifying their own actions, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, in that process they have provided a wealth of aid and comfort to groups that are at war with the United States of America. Of course Mr. Assange claims to be fighting for truth and transparency. The reality is that his desire to promote himself has outweighed his concern for scores and perhaps hundreds of innocent lives that he has endangered with his reckless publicity in this kind of a stunt in the guise of some greater cause.

But Mr. Speaker, it's telling that the foreign media sometimes is almost more comforting to justice than the American media sometimes. The American media willingly complied in disseminating this information and they are complicit, in my judgment, in any harm that will come to American servicemembers or American personnel across the country as well.

Just to give you an example, Mr. Speaker, the same New York Times that was reticent to cover the story that's often referred to as ``Climategate'' willingly ran the WikiLeaks cover story on the front page of their newspaper. Now this is a hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker, that I think is absolutely astounding. In other words, just to put it in perspective, I will just read what one of the bloggers there of The New York Times said. Andrew Revkin of The New York Times, he is actually a reporter, was one of the first ones to cover Climategate. And in his first story only a matter of a few hours after Climategate's blog posted, in his story he states, ``The documents''--this is the Climategate documents, Mr. Speaker--``appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they will not be posted here.'' Well, how gallant, how noble of Mr. Revkin to want to protect some of his perhaps liberal friends from being exposed in some of the over-hyped notion of global warming, but yet when people's lives are at stake, when American national security is at stake, then all of a sudden The New York Times is all too willing to publish the WikiLeaks information in the interest of full disclosure and grand journalism, and I find that unbelievable, Mr. Speaker. If the Times reporters had felt such urges of chivalry when it comes to protecting the men and women who give up their lives so that we can all sleep peacefully at night, it's just a strange time for them to do that. And to cap it all off, Mr. Speaker, it is rumored that the leading candidate for Time magazine's ``Man of the Year'' now is none other than WikiLeaks' Julian Assange.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to one of my colleagues here, I would just like to say that, unlike authoritarian regimes across the world, democratic governments like ours hold secrets largely because citizens agree that they should in order to protect legitimate policy and national security. But this massive breach of our national security has endangered our ability to build trust and cooperation with our allies, it has certainly not served the public's interest, and most of all, it has strengthened and emboldened our enemies. Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks should be profoundly ashamed, and I think they should be pursued with whatever legal actions can be brought, and of course The New York Times, for their complicity in this effort, should be ashamed beyond measure.

With that, I would like to yield to my good friend, Congressman Lamborn from Colorado, to see if he has any thoughts.

Well, thank you, Mr. Lamborn. It is my judgment that this would probably be a good time to transition to that. And we would also like to hear from Congressman Steve King from Iowa. Steve, do you have any thoughts about this? Because some of these national security issues I know Doug and I are kind of obsessed with them--for good reason, but we know that they care about national security in Iowa as well.

I guess, Mr. Speaker, I would like to agree with the gentleman from Colorado because, you know, many of us, including the gentleman from Colorado, including the gentleman from Iowa, were very vociferous in saying that there would come a time where it would be obvious to the world that these civilian trials wouldn't work for enemy combatants that are terrorists that were taken off the battlefield in Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever it might be, because we knew that this would give al Qaeda and other terrorist groups a perfect opportunity, a staging ground, as it were, to be able to manipulate our system.

Not only does it give them the ability to have discovery where they are able to potentially undermine our security apparatus and gain information that is critical to protecting our agents in the field, but this also gives them the ability to claim all kinds of things before the world. And of course you know the security elements of it are astonishing. And of course they use our own court system and our own court rules to make it very possible for them to escape justice.

I thought, to paraphrase President Bush, he said something like this. He said, We should not allow our enemies to use, to destroy liberty by using the forums of liberty to destroy liberty itself. And the reality is is that sometimes we can become victims of our own ostensible decency.

And this administration, in its kowtowing to terrorists, has been more committed to protecting terrorist rights than it has been to protecting the lives of American citizens. And I think that is profound beyond anything I could suggest.

Because it just tells me that somehow the administration has a philosophical bent that is going in a way that I think endangers American freedom and future generations. And I am hoping that somehow they will wake up in time. But yes, the gentleman is correct that WikiLeaks, among other things, has exposed once again this administration's effort to try to put these combatants in different countries to try to avoid the trap that they have set for themselves in America by insisting that this be done in civilian trials.

And again, it is a disgrace beyond words that this man that was instrumental in the murder of about, I think it was 224 people, Mr. Lamborn, and yet he gets conspiracy to destroy government property. And that is unfortunately--you know, sometimes the administration thinks of these things always in sort of academic terms. But this is real life. And national security in the 9/11 age is something we should all be focused on. And this administration seems to be asleep at the wheel. And I just wonder if my colleague from Iowa might have any thoughts on that.

Thank you, Mr. King. You know, I suppose that there are a lot of different issues we could talk about with the WikiLeaks situation here. But I would point out that probably one of the big things that it showed is that just our appeasement toward our enemies. And I think probably one of the most dangerous areas there has been is just the passive nature that this administration has shown toward North Korea.

North Korea is one of the most dangerous police states in the world. And they have shown time and again that they are not interested in becoming a stable diplomatic partner really to any member of the international community for that matter, but certainly not the United States.

And a recent timeline of North Korea's blatant provocations would probably be worth looking at here. Just to give you an example, in March of 2010 they were involved in the sinking of a South Korean submarine. It killed 46 sailors. In November of 2010, U.N. Security Council reports revealed that North Korea has been passing, as Mr. Lamborn said, forbidden nuclear technology to state sponsors of terror. I know Mr. Lamborn mentioned the missile technology, which is more recent, but also nuclear technology to sponsors of terrorism, including Iran and Syria. Of course the Syrian plant was almost a mirror image of the one in North Korea. And fortunately our friends in Israel were able to make sure that that one didn't work so well any more. And they did the world a great favor in that regard. Because nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran or Syria would be a great danger to the human family to say the very least.

In November of 2010, North Korea shelled the Yeonpyeong Island, a group of South Korean islands, and it claimed the lives of two South Korean marines. Two civilians I believe were also killed. It wounded somewhere around 15 marines and three other civilians. And of course this administration, while they have some shows of resolve here lately, a lot of these things have occurred because they have stood by and let North Korea get away with this so long. And really in a sense North Korea sometimes does this to get attention, and they have no respect for innocent human life. So blowing up a few people to try to get one of the Democrat administrations to give them more money is something that they don't hesitate to do. And they have done this on a regular basis.

The U.S., Mr. Speaker, must move to re-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and call on all responsible nations to adopt tough new sanctions on the North Korean regime. The North Korean regime will collapse on itself if China and other countries in the world do not continue to prop them up.

China should be especially called upon to stop enabling this regime and to join responsible nations in sending an unequivocal message to North Korea, abandon your aggressive agenda now. And, of course, you know it shouldn't come as a surprise to us, but China's objections kept us from seeing a U.N. Security Council report revealing that North Korea has been passing banned technology to nations like Syria and Iran, and they delayed that for 6 months.

In other words, because of China, because of their commitment to delay this, Iran was given 6 additional months to work on advancing their nuclear capacity without public scrutiny. And there is no telling how far they were able, willing to go, really, to advance this effort. But they were eventually forced to see this information like the rest of the world.

Mr. Speaker, I just have to say that, you know, weakness and passiveness is provocative. It invites aggression, and it is time that this administration and the United States embark on one singular goal for North Korea, and that is to see that North Korean Government fall and North Korea be reunited and somehow, some semblance of freedom come to that people and that this country, like many of its people, would like for it to be reunited with the world community in a responsible way.

To pursue a lot of diplomacy with North Korea is wasted effort, and we should be pursuing now the effort to see a North Korea and South Korea reunited under a free government like South Korea.

I wonder if my friend from Colorado would have any comments on that?

Before I yield to my friend from Iowa, I would just like to kind of follow up what the gentleman from Colorado said.

You know, sometimes I think we are unaware as a people--and certainly this administration seems oblivious--to how serious a nuclear Iran, what a serious danger to the peace of the entire human family that would represent.

But just for a moment, let's consider that for a moment. You know, the Ahmadinejad government, the government of the mullahs and Ahmadinejad there, have, through their very brazen, open statements, have condemned Israel, have condemned the United States and threatened both of our countries in very specific terms, wanting to see Israel wiped off the map and the United States be ended as a world power and to see us completely brought to our knees.

I mean, it's hard to even, to repeat some of the things that this Iranian administration has said about America. And it's very clear what their intent is, and there are two elements to every threat, Mr. Speaker, when it comes to national security. One is the intent of a potential enemy and the second one is the capacity of that enemy to carry through with their threats.

And if we have not understood by now the intent of jihad, the intent of state sponsors of terrorism like Iran, then we are not listening very well, Mr. Speaker. The intent is clear. Iran would see America destroyed tomorrow if they could. Now, not the Iranian people, but the Iranian Government, as it stands now, would see America in ashes if they could.

So the idea of allowing them to gain nuclear capability seems to be just astonishing beyond words to me, Mr. Speaker. I mean, this administration seems to have embraced some sort of a surreptitious policy of allowing Iran to gain nuclear weapons and then pursuing the traditional idea of containment, like we have in other situations with the Soviet Union.

But that won't work with a jihadist government. Because when we were dealing with the Soviet Union, we put our security, in a sense, in their sanity. We knew that they wanted to survive and we had the capability to respond in such an overwhelming way that they were deterred from attacking America. But when it comes to the jihadist mindset, Mr. Speaker, that is no longer a strategy that can be embraced.

Let me just say, Mr. Speaker, if Iran gains a nuclear capability, if they gain nuclear weapons, this world will step into the shadow of nuclear terrorism. Terrorists will have these weapons and, Mr. Speaker, I can't express to you the danger that that will represent and the change that it will represent to all of us in the free world and, really, throughout the planet.

Because Iran has shown themselves willing to make some of the most deadly weapons that we face in Iraq and blowing up our soldiers with their explosively formed penetrators. They pay money to see some of the Taliban kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. They have demonstrated their intent very clearly, and this administration seems willing to allow them to have the capacity to carry out that intent.

Mr. Speaker, let me just, while I am walking by the neighborhood, remind this administration that Iran has done military exercises that appear to every reasonable military analyst to be preparation for an EMP attack against this country or some other enemy that they might have.

Mr. Speaker, I think that this administration seems woefully unprepared or even unaware of how serious an electromagnetic pulse or a high altitude nuclear blast to create an electromagnetic pulse could be to this country. Mr. Speaker, if Iran gains a nuclear capability it will give them the asymmetric capability to, in fact, launch an EMP attack against this country, and that could cripple our infrastructure. It could cause an almost inarticulable damage to this country.

The EMP Commission says a major EMP attack on this country could be the one thing that could defeat the U.S. military. It could see more than 60 percent of the population of the United States unsustainable. I don't know how you wrap your mind around a number like that.

But, yet, that is the path that we are on with this administration continuing to allow Iran to gain nuclear weapons. And I would just call upon the Senate, Mr. Speaker, tonight on this floor, to pass the grid bill that we passed out of this body some time ago to begin to protect our electric infrastructure from either geomagnetic storms or from a high altitude electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear weapon that could be launched against us like Iran.

This administration has paid no attention to that, and yet it represents a very real, very credible threat against the United States, and it is the ideal asymmetric weapon for terrorists, and they know it. We have discovered their writings. They understand that and yet we stand by, and this administration embraces the notion that we can allow a jihadist, terrorist state like Iran to gain the world's most dangerous weapons and to be able to potentially launch against this country an attack that could be absolutely devastating to our civilization.

I just continue to be astonished that this administration has forsaken its number one constitutional duty in making sure that the protection of the citizens of this country and the national security of this country are job one.

And I really don't know what to add to that except maybe to ask my friend from Ohio--from Iowa--I know you are not from Ohio--to comment.

Mr. KING from Iowa. Well, I thank the gentleman from Arizona. And I loved Ohio until Ohio State beat the Hawkeyes a week and a half ago, but I'm holding my judgment until next year when we have some reconciliation meeting that takes place.

I'm very interested in the comment that you have made, the shadow of nuclear terrorism, that comment. When we think about this as Americans, watching this world, this Western civilization world falling under the shadow of nuclear terrorism, if we think worrying about some jet airliners being flown into the Twin Towers or into the Pentagon just down the road a little ways or off into the field in Pennsylvania, what that did to this country, how it shook up this country, how it immobilized our financial markets and our daily lives, right down to football games and weddings were brought to an immediate halt, even though it was more than 1,000 miles away, nearly 2,000 miles away to get to the other side of the continent, they stopped their football games there, too. They stopped their weddings there, too. And I suppose they stopped some funerals for a while. That's how much it devastated this country. And I thought that we really should have looked at those crises on September 11, 2001 and said it's not going to break our stride. We're going to keep our pace. We're going to go forward, and we're going to live, and we're going to live while we adapt to the new threat that has come upon us.

But this new threat that's out there now that hangs over our head, the shadow of nuclear terrorism that hangs over our head out of North Korea, who is completely belligerent today, and out of Iran as well.

And I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I wasn't very happy with the job that was done by then-Commander in Chief Bill Clinton on each of these issues but primarily with Korea. I thought that he was too soft, too tepid, not bold enough, and I looked through that and I thought North Korea will march through his path and they'll become a nuclear power and nothing is going to stop them because we are not bold, we're not strong enough, and we didn't show the resolve necessary to cause them to back up and back off, North Korea. Also true with Iran.

And as I watched President Bush, Bush 43, come into office, I was hopeful there would be a bolder position with regard to our posture towards North Korea and towards Iran. And I can remember serving here in this Congress through some of those years. And I watched how the political handcuffs were put on George W. Bush in such a way that he didn't have the political support to use the bold actions that I believe might have been necessary then to avert the nuclear power that has materialized in North Korea nor the impending nuclear power that appears

to be materializing in Iran. I don't think that George Bush was able to utilize those tools. I don't know if he had the will. I believe he did. I believe he had the judgment, but I don't think he had the political tools because this Congress was so lined up against George Bush, there were so many debates that emerged from over on this side of the aisle that attacked the President, the Commander in Chief, and undermined our military when they were in the field where lives were being sacrificed for our liberty, 44 votes forced by this Speaker of the House that were designed to unfund, underfund or undermine our troops. And all of that was designed to expand their political power and diminish the power of the Commander in Chief.

While that was going on, North Korea was furiously building a nuclear capability, Iran was building a nuclear capability, and one thing that did happen very good, and many of them did happen good under George Bush, was he began the process to establish the missiles in Poland and the radar in Czechoslovakia and he had it set up to go to protect Western Europe and eventually America from missiles coming out of Iran, and what happened? We elected a new President, one who I don't think has an understanding of this geopolitical chess game that's going on with our national security and the destiny of all humanity, who did what? Pulled the missiles out of Poland, the radar out of Czechoslovakia, and the headlines in the Warsaw paper said ``betrayed.'' Betrayed. And I believe that that was the largest and most colossal foreign policy mistake made by the Obama administration that emboldened not just Iran to accelerate their nuclear endeavors but emboldened North Korea as well to go to the point of shelling the island in South Korea because they know or they believe, and I actually think they know, this President doesn't have the resolve to do the confrontation necessary to protect our liberty.

So we live now under the shadow of a nuclear terrorism that is emerging.

And I would just ask this question, does this Nation have the capability and the will to shut off that capability, that building capability in Iran and in North Korea? If we do, we have a strong position to negotiate from. If we do not, we need to achieve that ability and negotiate from a strong position.

There is more I would say, but I yield back to the gentleman the Arizona.

I thank the gentleman. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Well, I think the gentleman is absolutely correct, not that I'm an expert, but that your points are absolutely correct.

I would say that it's important to realize that the European site was not only a redundant protection to the United States from potentially ICBMs coming from Iran, but it was also something that could have calculated or factored into the calculus of Iran in moving towards developing nuclear capability in the first place, because in a sense, Mr. Speaker, missile defense is the last line of defense against an incoming missile. And I think everyone can understand that basic equation. But it's also the first line of defense against nuclear proliferation. Because a rogue state like Iran knows that they face great challenges and great dangers by pursuing nuclear weapons because they realize that their neighbors understand the aggressive nature of that rogue state of Iran and can't abide them having nuclear weapons, and they realize that could potentially invite some type of preemptive attack. But they continue to do that because they understand the strategic advantage that they would gain to threaten their neighbors would be overwhelming.

But if indeed, Mr. Speaker, we could have been in a place in Poland to be able to intercept or knock down any missiles coming toward our allies in Europe or the United States, it could have demonstrated to Iran that they would not have gained any strategic advantage by continuing forward, and it may some day in the history books be written that that is where we lost the battle because that is maybe where Iran began to see that they were going to be able to get away with creating a nuclear capability.

But, Mr. Speaker, it's astonishing that this administration betrayed the people of Poland, betrayed the people of the Czech Republic. When we had made promises to them, we did everything we could to reach out to them to have courage to stand with America in this endeavor, and then our own administration pulls the plug and betrays them. And now it makes it very difficult for other allies to express that same kind of courage.

Of course the phased adaptive approach is a name that we put on. It's a good name. There's nothing wrong with the name. Some of our military leaders understand that there are many, as Mr. Lamborn said, many important aspects to the phased adaptive approach. The irony is that the Bush administration was pursuing the phased adaptive approach long before the Obama administration ever even understood that there was such a thing. And these things were on the books, and all the Obama administration really did was to cancel the third site and unfortunately then make it clear that we would not have redundant capability to interdict any ICBMs or long-range missiles that Iran could place a nuclear weapon on because we simply would not be able to do it in time. Our Aegis capability is a wonderful capability, Mr. Speaker. But the present Aegis capability does not have the capacity or the speed to shoot down ICBMs, unless they're in a perfect spot, which is a very rare occurrence. And I would just suggest to you that this administration, once again, has placed their ideological commitment to the left above national security.

You know, there may be some day when we wished we had these days back again. With all of the challenges we face, it seems like the administration forgets its first responsibility, its first constitutional duty of defending the citizens and the national security of this country. It shouldn't surprise us that they forget the idea of property rights, and it shouldn't surprise us that they forget the idea of protecting the rights of innocent, unborn children. And it shouldn't surprise us that they are willing to put people on the courts that have no respect for the Constitution. And it shouldn't surprise us that somehow the foundations of the Nation, the right to live and be free and pursue our dreams, is subordinated to the notion that we want to build a large State. Those things shouldn't surprise us. But if this administration continues to go in the direction it is going, Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that we will all wish we had these days back again when we could have prevented some great tragedies that may befall us because of the ideological commitment of this administration to weaken America.

I wonder if my good friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) has any comments along those lines.

Mr. Speaker, it is kind hard to top that. The message I was hoping that could be relayed more than anything else is that there has been a general lackadaisical, asleep-at-the-wheel, detached perspective of this administration when it comes to national security. And unfortunately, we live in a 9/11 world where there are those out there who don't hold to the ideals of freedom and protecting innocent life, like has been the ideal of America. This administration is continuing down this path.

Mr. Speaker, I don't want to have to come to this floor in future days and have to decry what we failed to do. I think there is still time for this administration to wake up and realize that allowing Iran to gain nuclear weapons, allowing North Korea to proliferate nuclear capability, missile capability throughout the world, allowing terrorists to use the forms of liberty to destroy liberty itself in our civilian courts, allowing the potential of terrorists to gain control of an EMP capability that could threaten our whole society, standing by while the Senate sits quietly and does nothing to pass the GRID bill passed in the House of Representatives, these are very, very important things, Mr. Speaker. I just hope somehow this administration realizes that their first purpose and their first responsibility to God, country, and their fellow human beings is to protect the lives and constitutional rights of the citizens of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that happens.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a great American, a former Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, Annette Bergeron. Annette is the MATC supervisor of the P.T. Amputee section over at Walter Reed. She has worked virtually with all of the amputees coming back from the war.

She inspires all of her patients with her motivation and ability to reach so deep down inside of all of her wounded warriors. Inspiring them by demanding the best out of all her heroes, as she brings them to new heights by not pitying them but pushing them beyond their limits. And her greatest gift is knowing her patients, with her strong knowledge and sixth sense to read them.

There are families all across this nation, and magnificent heroes who will carry her in their hearts for the rest of their lives. Knowing the great debt they owe to her, and the angels over at Walter Reed who are but some of our nations greatest unsung heroes, I ask that this poem penned in honor of her at the request of SSG. Poe of North Carolina and by Albert Caswell, be placed in the Record.

Move Me

Move me. . . .

Bend me, reach me . . . then she. . . .

As she so but brings out, but the very best in me!

As she will not so rest, will she!

So relentless, but to the tenth degree!

Like a Jedi Knight, her light we see!

And from all of us, will not so settle for less . . . will

she!

Until, I can but so be. . . .

So but be, but the very best I can be!

Men and women without arms and legs. . . .

Broken into so many pieces, as are they. . . .

Magnificent heroes who to this our nation so gave. . . .

As she's rebuilding fine lives night and day!

The queen of pain, bringing all of them to a better day. . .

.

With but her heart of a lioness, bringing us to the highest

degree!

All in what a heart can be, as she so bids us to so believe.

. . .

So begs us all to so reach . . . to so reach, so deeply down

so deep. . . .

As her promise, to us all as she so keeps. . . .

Move me!. touch me! motivating all of us, as such she!

As does she!

As against all odds, but to the core, reaching us all so very

deeply. . . .

Letting us all, but to be . . . but the very best we can be.

. . .

From out of the ashes of war, so resurrecting all of our

lives indeed!

Making us whole, giving us all that we so need!

For in her world, there is no such word as self pity!

Only, how high a soul can reach!

Making us all so believe!

As an angel on earth, as but her fine worth!

To all of our precious men and women, of that red, white &

blue. . . .

For them she so bleeds, so tried and true!

A shining star over at Walter Reed, a real who's who!

For Bo knows hearts, of most heroic hues!

And how to get inside them so very deep to view!

Bo, you move me! oh yes you do!

Well, in talking about the budget tonight, I guess I believe, Congressman, that the budget challenges that we have, the deficit spending and the debt, has the ability to challenge and damage this country perhaps in a way that no military power has ever been able to do.

We are around $13 trillion in debt in this country. And if you try to measure that in simple terms, it almost boggles the mind. But if you try to put it in terms that we can understand, if we decided to pay that off at a million dollars a day. Let's say we just suspended the interest on the debt and we didn't go another penny in debt, and we said we are going to pay what we owe off before we go deeper in debt. Now that I suppose sounds outrageous for a place like this, but that's a very commonsense idea. And yet, if we paid our existing debt off at $1 million a day, with no interest and no additional spending, it would take us around 40,000 years to do that.

My grandkids may not be around that long. But the real tragedy, of course, is that we're not paying this debt off at $1 million a day as a country. That's a very nominal figure. We're going into debt thousands of times that much every day. The Obama administration is spending us into oblivion. There has never been a precedent. Since this Obama administration's taken place in two year cycles, they have put us at what looks like will be around $3 trillion additional in debt. If we don't change that, I really believe that it could be the central figure in America's economic obituary.

Well, Congressman, if we fail to put our economic house in order, we're not going to be able to project any military capability at all. You know, a government is what it spends. And one of the reasons that America has such a strong military capability is because we're so strong economically. We're the most powerful Nation economically in the world. We dwarf all other economies. But the way we're going, we could be competing with Greece for the instability that this administration seems to be heading our country toward.

Well, I think that one of the disappointing things for me in this body, and in all due respect to the majority, is that they seem to hold themselves unconstrained to the truth and the things that you mentioned. It almost seems that they feel like they can hold themselves to be able to take a vote here and repeal the laws of mathematics. And we're facing a day of reckoning that is coming pretty quickly.

There are a lot of things that are beginning to snowball. Not only is this administration spending and deficit spending in an unprecedented way, but we're fast approaching where the baby boomer generation, of which I am sort of kind of on the tail end, barely old enough to be a baby boomer--

But the point is, this has been the most productive generation in the history of this country. And the baby boomer generation is beginning now to start to retire. And that means two things: that productivity is going to be dramatically reduced, and of course then they are going to go on Social Security and begin to put a drain on the system. And we absolutely are in an unsustainable circumstance at this moment. And for all the things that we try to do, the Democrat majority simply is ignoring that reality.

I have two little babies at home, 22-month-old twins, and they are the greatest joy of my soul. And I will just say to you that the idea that we're robbing them of God knows what, I mean it's almost like they could be facing a complete economic meltdown, and it could happen way before they get old enough to deal with it. But we actually, in my judgment, have generational theft here. And it is something that is a disgrace. And I think it's fundamentally immoral. And we don't have to do that.

All we have to do is say that whatever else we're going to do, we're going to do like families. We're going to have a budget. We're going to say we're not going to spend more than we take in. We may not be able to pay this debt off tomorrow. I already said it might be 35,000, 40,000 years the way we are going just at a million dollars a day paying it off. But we're not going to go further in debt. And that's something this Congress should have the courage to do.

I just was responding. I think if we could explain why they are not putting a budget out is because they do not want the American people to see what they're really doing.

I don't think they want them to see that. Fundamentally, you're correct. I was touched by the gentleman's understanding that this is really about--and we always forget that true statesmenship is not just about the next election. It's about the next generation. And I'm always in memory of how my parents worked so hard. My dad worked in the mines and everything else he could think of doing, and he is probably listening to us tonight. But I'm just so thankful for a father that gave everything of himself to try to make it possible for me to have a better life than he did, and I wouldn't be here without that. My mother worked in nursing homes. And you know, they gave everything they had to us.

And here we're doing exactly the opposite. Not only are we spending our children into an oblivion of debt, not only are we teaching the next generation that they don't have to be responsible, not only are we seeing government take over most of our major industries now whether the auto industry, the health care industry, the insurance industry, the banking industry. I don't know what's next. We're teaching our young kids something that is very, very frightening.

And I just think that more than anything, Mr. Akin, that you pointed out the real issue here. It is a lack of commitment to the future generations. And this Democrat majority has done for spending what Stonehenge did for rocks. There is no one that can touch them. They can talk about Republican deficits. And from my part and yours and Mr. Broun's here, you know we worked here when we were in the majority. Our votes reflected a desperate commitment to balance this budget.

But this Democrat majority has completely left all reason to the wind. They've tried to spend and tax and borrow our way into prosperity, and I just don't think I've ever seen in my lifetime a more dangerous situation for us economically. And in the final analysis here, they are also doing everything they can it seems to crush business and job growth.

And so it just seems like all of these things are coming together, and I don't know where it ends, and I don't know what to do. It's almost you have to be an alarmist to tell the truth here.

Well, I just want to agree with Congressman Broun, you know, when he talked about what brought us out of the Depression. The postwar industrial machine in this country was astounding.

One of the things, it seems, that this Democrat majority simply does not understand--and it's probably because most of them haven't been in small business or in the real world many times; they don't sign the front of a check, you know, but usually sign the

back of it. The reality is that they forget that the monetary system is a reflection of the method of the productivity mechanism that we have in this country.

All economy, ultimately, and in the most fundamental, substantive analysis is about productivity. You know, that means that people have to work and create goods and services. When we don't have people working, when we don't have jobs, then it doesn't happen. When you take government money and when you say, well, we're going to spend our way into recovery, it does two things.

First of all, it either takes the money directly out of taxpayers' pockets--it has to come from somewhere, right?--or they have to borrow it. If they borrow it, then it makes less capital available for business and for those groups that actually create jobs. They don't seem to understand that, unless the 300-plus million people of the country are working and creating jobs and creating goods and services, no matter what our monetary policies are, nothing will work, and the economy will fail.

I guess I just want to add, Congressman, that the highway of history is littered with the wreckage of governments that thought that they could create and maintain productivity in markets better than free enterprise could. It has just been an element of history, and I don't want to see this country join that litany. This administration is driving us head on in that direction.

You know, you talked about, historically, our total GDP in this country--and one of you can correct me if I'm wrong--is somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 to $17 trillion a year.

Whenever our debt approaches 100 percent of the GDP per year of a country, historically and empirically that has almost always precipitated a major meltdown. I'm not talking about just a recession or even a depression, I'm talking about a cataclysmic meltdown that leaves a country having to start over from the beginning. And I don't want to see us go in that direction.

Well, in this case, the Democrats are way past that because that would mean you're spending as much as you're making. They're spending more than the government is taking in. That's deficit. I'm talking about something a little different. I'm talking about the debt--the total debt to GDP ratio. And in this case we're not there yet. I think that we're somewhere at about $1.4 trillion, $1.3 trillion deficit and about at $13 trillion debt. And $13 trillion debt would be up somewhere against around a $15 trillion to $17 trillion GDP annual economy. What's 13 into 17? We're not at 100 percent yet but we're starting to get there. Whenever it goes to 100 percent or 105 percent, historically there's usually some type of major meltdown. I think that's a reflection not so much of arbitrary numbers but of sort of human nature. We begin to think, Oh, we'll never be able to pay this off. Let's just quit. The capital begins to run away from the markets. People begin to horde what they have. Just like in the Great Depression. It wasn't that all the money disappeared. It wasn't that all of a sudden capital vaporized. People put it in their pockets because they no longer trusted their government. They no longer trusted that they could put their capital at risk and have any real assurance that they had even a possibility of getting it back. And that's where this government is failing the people. They are destabilizing this economy so badly that capital is afraid to even get in the game.

I never was.

Well, I will just say, and it just seems obvious to me--and I will probably take a little chapter out of your cartoon there--this President has been very confident in a lot of his prognostications. There's a hubris and an arrogance there that is just overwhelming. But when you look at the facts, whether it's in our military challenges, our national security challenges, whether it's dealing with the challenges in the gulf, or whether it's dealing with the economy, it seems that his arrogance-to-competency ratios are catastrophically out of balance.

If you really want to know where the deficit is in this country, it's between the arrogance of this administration and the competence of this administration; and I think therein really lies the big challenge that we face. I don't know what's going to cure that if voters don't wake up.

Actually, my younger brother and I started out with a little, small drilling rig when I was 17 and he was 15. It was a great experience, and I will never forget it. But the offshore situation, of course, is a much bigger challenge.

But I guess my conviction is that this administration, when this tragedy took place, they were so busy trying to fix blame rather than fixing the problem.

Now, the ironic part about it is they'd like to try to pretend that there's some debate on who's to blame, and there isn't. All of us in this Chamber, all of us in this Congress recognize that BP is to blame for this tragedy. BP has said they are to blame for this tragedy.

And what President Obama should have done when this occurred, he should have immediately met with the only industry in the world that could deal with the problem of this nature. You can't call in the Air Force to lob heavy bombs at it. You've got to go to the industry that knows how to deal with these things. He should have called all the experts to say: Here's the deal. First of all, we're going to hold you accountable. It's going to happen. We know you're at fault. You're going to be accountable. But right now, our job is to plug this blowout, and we're going to do whatever it takes to do that. We're going to work with everyone. We're going to work together, and we're going to make it happen, and we're going to make sure that you're doing the best you can. We're going to allow help from all over the world to help us. We're going to try to make sure that we protect our shoreline. In the meantime, we're going to draw off as much oil as we can.

But instead, instead, this President is out looking over the horizon to and fro to find somebody's rear end to kick. That is his answer to the problem.

And I just find it amazing, because the moratorium that they talk about, not only does that not plug the hole. You know, it's kind of like bringing a person into the emergency room and he's bleeding to death, and he again is out trying to find somebody's rear to kick instead of trying to fix the patient.

And this moratorium, not only does it not fix the leak, not only is it something that will destroy jobs and hurt the economy, but if all you cared about was the pollution that was the problem here, this moratorium is going to mean that about a third of the oil that we produce out of the gulf--that's about how much--we produce about 42 percent or somewhere in that neighborhood of our own oil in this country, maybe around 40 percent, and about a third of that comes from the gulf. And if we don't produce that, that means we've got to bring in more tankers. We've got to buy more oil from overseas.

And what this administration overlooks, very characteristically, is that they forgot that 7 of 10 of the last major spills in this country, 7 out of 10, were from tankers. And so what we're going to do is bring more tankers over and increase the empirical chances of us having greater spills. And, ultimately, the money that we pay for that, a lot of it comes from Middle Eastern oil. A lot of that money finds its way into terrorist coffers, and they may bring something over to this country that will really be a cataclysm. And this administration seems blind to all of that, and I just find it astonishing the lack of priority.

Congressman, he waited 2 months before he met with BP. Two months.

And he should have been there at least within two days.

Well, it really is. And regardless of whose fault it was on the ground, regardless of whether it was a mistake made by the operator or by the driller or by one of those contractors there, the bottom line is that BP's the operator, so they're ultimately responsible. Again, everybody knows that. But this administration was focused on blame and political expediency rather than fixing the problem.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

I rise in strong support as a co-sponsor of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, we live in a moment in history when the terrorist State of Iran is on the brink of developing nuclear weapons. If that occurs, all other issues will be wiped from the table and whatever challenges we have in dealing with Iran today will pale in comparison to dealing with an Iran that has nuclear weapons.

Over the last 16 months, the Obama administration has dithered and pretended to pursue effective U.N. and U.S. sanctions against Iran, yet Mr. Obama has not enforced even one of the sanctions that already exist in the law against even one company doing business with Iran. The question now is: Will the President enforce the new sanctions we are about to pass or will he waive them like he has all of the others?

Mr. Speaker, the last window we will have ever to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons is rapidly closing. I pray the Obama administration will wake up in time to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed nation and from bringing nuclear terrorism to this and future generations.

Mr. Speaker, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is not about equal rights. It's about the impact on the readiness, cohesiveness, and effectiveness of the U.S. military. And if the Murphy amendment passes, it could have a profoundly negative effect on all of those things. I believe it could translate to life-and-death implications on the battlefield, Mr. Speaker.

And yet ironically, on something that will affect 2.8 million service men in this country, this side of the aisle will receive 5 minutes to debate that--that's half as much as any other amendment. This will also be saying to our military, who--all they've asked is just a chance to study the issue and come back with their recommendations to this body. We're going to say no, we don't care what you say. You can die for us on the battlefield, but you have no input into this process. That's a disgrace to this institution, and it's an insult to the men and women who pour out their blood on foreign battlefields for the country that we all love so much.

Mr. Speaker, it is growing more and more clear that the Obama administration intends to allow Iran to gain nuclear weapons and then to adopt a policy of containment, and I am unable to fully express the danger of such a policy. Whatever challenges we have in dealing with Iran today will pale in comparison to dealing with an Iran that has nuclear weapons.

Now, I am grateful that the committee chose to accept my amendment to this bill requiring the Defense Department to develop and report to the Congress a national military strategic plan to counter Iran.

However, Mr. Speaker, the Obama administration remains asleep at the wheel while the last window we will ever have to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons is rapidly closing. I only pray that the President will wake up in time to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran from ushering a human family into the shadow of nuclear terrorism.