Trent Franks

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently issued a stern warning in her testimony before the House and Senate committees responsible for oversight of U.S. foreign policy. She referred repeatedly to the need for our country to recognize and respond to what she called a ``global jihadist threat.'' Mr. Speaker, rarely have I agreed more with Secretary Clinton. Yet if Mrs. Clinton has been worried about this threat before now, she has done an impressive job of concealing it. The same is true of the Obama administration more generally. For the past 4 years, the executive branch has gone to extraordinary lengths to obscure the danger posed by those who practice holy war, or jihad, against our country. The administration has also sought to silence, and in some cases punish, those who have spoken the truth about this menace. Mr. Speaker, I sincerely welcome the Secretary's warning, belated though it may be. However, it would have served this country and the cause of freedom far more if she had so openly recognized the threat posed by militant Islamic jihad--and to have led in countering it--at any point during her tenure other than its conclusion. One of the most important architects of that see-no-jihad policy over the past 4 years has been John Brennan, President Obama's homeland security advisor and his pick to become the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In May, 2010, Mr. Brennan publicly declared that: We do not describe our enemy as ``jihadists'' or ``Islamists'' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women, and children. Mr. Speaker, the unavoidable reality is that self-described jihadists have routinely gone about murdering innocent women and children for decades. It should alarm us all that neither John Brennan nor Hillary Clinton--nor seemingly anyone else in the Obama administration--has fully recognized the scope of this jihadist threat. They seem blind to the fact that the Islamic jihadists here and elsewhere in the West are even now engaging in a pre-violent form of holy war against infidels and the free world. And the administration has refused to face the incontrovertible fact that the driving force behind this practice is the Muslim Brotherhood. The brothers themselves call this form of holy war ``civilization jihad.'' Mr. Speaker, this reality is in direct conflict with the Obama administration's insistence--long-promoted by John Brennan--that we confront only al Qaeda and its affiliates. We are told that we can safely cultivate relations with ``moderates'' in Islamist groups like Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. This has led to helping jihadists extend their power elsewhere and allowed them to gain dangerous footholds in America. Mr. Speaker, we need as a Nation to understand the true nature and ominous implications of the global jihadist threat in both its violent and pre-violent forms. The unavoidable truth is that there are individuals who adhere to a political Islamist doctrine of shari'a, and they are willing to become involved in the jihad it commands, and they pose a potential mortal threat to this Nation and its people. And Congress has a duty, Mr. Speaker, among other things, to question the ways in which such individuals and organizations tied to the Muslim Brotherhood have been given access to and preferential treatment from the Obama administration. Mr. Speaker, I believe the success of this stealth jihad has been significantly enhanced by remarks and public statements made by John Brennan over the past 4 years. He should, therefore, not be allowed anywhere near--let alone actually be given responsibility for running-- America's premiere intelligence agency. It is my hope that, among other things, my remarks on the floor today will encourage our colleagues in the Senate to scrutinize critically the record and judgment of John Brennan and his suitability for the job of CIA Director. Mr. Speaker, may I commend to my colleagues on both sides of Capitol Hill regarding this issue and to the American people a powerful new documentary that examines, in part, some of the issues I have discussed today and their grave implications for our national security, public safety, and freedoms. This documentary, entitled, ``The Grand Deception,'' is a product of counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism, and it provides critical insights into the true nature of the ``global jihadist threat,'' including its expanding successes overseas and the danger it poses here at home. It chronicles the history of what I believe has been an officially sanctioned and willful blindness to that threat. It also lays bare the various ways in which such a practice is contributing to the emboldening of our enemies, the undermining of our allies, and the steady erosion of our economy and our security. Mr. Speaker, let me close by noting, as the previous gentleman did, that today is Ronald Reagan's birthday. It is particularly appropriate to recall on Mr. Reagan's birthday his admonition of August 1961. He said: Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States when men were free. Mr. Speaker, today, in our time, we also face the prospect of a generational threat to freedom. We must bend every effort to awakening our countrymen to that threat and equip them to contend with it, and we must ensure that our government's policies and our capabilities are conducive to and employed effectively to fight for our freedom, to protect it, and to hand it on to future generations in the hope that they will do the same. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, John Brennan has shown himself time and again to be at cross-purposes with those requirements. For that reason alone, his nomination must be rejected. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I know that another legislative day has come to an end and that sunset fast approaches in Washington, D.C. I stand before this House with what I call a Sunset Memorial. Because, you see, Mr. Speaker, before the sun sets today in America, almost 4,000 more defenseless unborn children will be killed by abortion on demand in the land of the free and the home of the brave. That is more than the number of innocent lives lost on September 11th in this country, and it happens every single day. Mr. Speaker, it has now been 40 years--an entire generation--since the tragedy called Roe v. Wade was first handed down. Since then, the very foundation of this Nation has been stained by the blood of almost 55 million of its own unborn children. Some of them, Mr. Speaker, cried and screamed as they died, but because it was amniotic fluid going over the vocal cords instead of air, we couldn't hear them. All of them had at least four things in common, Mr. Speaker. First, they were just nameless little babies who had done wrong to no one, and yet each one of them died a nameless and lonely death. And each one of their mothers, whether she realizes it or not, will never be quite the same. And all the gifts that these children might have brought to humanity in this world are now lost forever. Yet, even in the glare of such tragedy, this generation still clings to a blind, invincible ignorance while history repeats itself over and over again and our own silent genocide mercilessly annihilates the most helpless of all victims, those yet unborn. Mr. Speaker, I recently heard Barack Obama speak such poignant words that, whether he knows it or not, apply so profoundly to the tragedy of abortion on demand in America. Let me quote selected, excerpted portions of his comments. He said: This is our first task--caring for our children. It's our first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. That's how, as a society, we will be judged. And by that measure, can we truly say, as a Nation, that we are meeting our obligations? Can we honestly say that we're doing enough to keep our children--all of them--safe from harm? He went on to quote: Can we say that we're truly doing enough to give all the children of this country the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and with purpose? He said: I've been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we're honest with ourselves, the answer is no. We're not doing enough. And we will have to change. Oh, Mr. Speaker, how true the President's words were. The President also said: We can't tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. Then the President asked: Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom? What a powerful question, Mr. Speaker. It is the most relevant question we should all be asking in the midst of this genocidal murder of thousands of unborn children in America every day. The President said: Our journey is not complete until all our children are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm. He said: That is our generation's task--to make these words, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American. Mr. Speaker, never have I so deeply agreed with any words ever spoken by President Obama as those I have just quoted. And yet this President, in the most merciless distortion of logic and reason and humanity itself, refuses to apply these majestic words to the helpless unborn babies of this Nation. How I wish that somehow Mr. Obama would just open his heart and his ears to his own words, and ask himself in the core of his soul, why his words, that should apply to all children, cannot include the most helpless of all children. Only a few days ago, no more than 200 yards from this well, Barack Obama put his hand down on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln was sworn in on when he took his Presidential oath. Mr. Speaker, we should remember that we honor Abraham Lincoln most because he found the courage as President of the United States in the days of slavery, and the humanity within himself, to recognize the image of God stamped on the soul of slaves that the Supreme Court said were not human and that the tide of public opinion didn't recognize as protectable under the law. Could it still be, could it still be, Mr. Speaker, that President Barack Obama might consider that perspective, as well as his own legacy, and even eternity itself, Mr. Speaker, and recognize that in his day under his Presidency that these little unborn children look so desperately to him now for help? Could it be that the President might finally remember that on the pages of the Bible on which he laid his hand were the words written in red: Inasmuch as you have done unto the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me. Mr. Speaker, whether he does or not, it is certainly time for those of us in this Chamber to remind ourselves of why we are really all here. Thomas Jefferson said: The care of human life and happiness, and not its destruction, is the chief and only object of good government. The phrase in the 14th Amendment encapsulates our entire Constitution. It says: No State shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Mr. Speaker, protecting the lives of all Americans and their constitutional rights is why we are all here. The bedrock foundation of this Republic is that clarion declaration of that self-evident truth that all human beings are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Every conflict and battle our Nation has ever faced can be traced to our commitment to this core self-evident truth. It has made us the beacon of hope for the entire world, Mr. Speaker. It is who we are. And yet today another day has passed, and we in this body have failed again to honor that foundational commitment. We have failed our sworn oath and our God-given responsibility as we broke faith with nearly 4,000 more innocent little American babies who died today without the protection we should have given them. So, Mr. Speaker, let me conclude this sunset memorial in the hopes that perhaps someone new who heard it tonight will finally embrace the very inconvenient truth that abortion really does kill little babies and that it hurts mothers in ways that we can never imagine, and that it is time we stood up together again and looked to our Declaration of Independence and remember that we are the same America that rejected human slavery and marched into Europe to arrest the Nazi Holocaust, and we are still the courageous and compassionate Nation that can find a better way for mothers and their unborn babies than abortion on demand. It is still not too late for us to make a better world and for America to be the one that leads the rest of the planet, just as we did in the days of slavery, from this tragic genocide of murdering nearly 4,000 of our own children every day. So, now, Mr. Speaker, as we consider the plight of the unborn after 40 years under Roe v. Wade, maybe we can remind ourselves that our own days in this sunshine of life are all numbered, and that all too soon, each one of us will also walk from these Chambers for the very last time. And if it should be that this Congress is allowed to convene on yet another day, may that be the day when we finally find the humanity, the courage, and the will to embrace together our human and our constitutional duty to protect these, the least of our tiny little brothers and sisters in America, from this murderous scourge upon our Nation called abortion on demand. Mr. Speaker, it is now 40 years since Roe v. Wade first stained the foundation of this Nation with the blood of its own children. This, in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, the great Henry Hyde once said, ``Our moment in history is marked by a mortal conflict between a culture of life and a culture of death. God put us in the world to do noble things, to love and to cherish our fellow human beings, not to destroy them. Today we must choose sides.'' It is so very important that those of us here remember that we as Americans, and even more so as members of this body, have a special stewardship that perhaps no other people on Earth have. While every human being is called of God to make the best difference they can in this life for their fellow human beings, in America that calling weighs heavier upon us as citizens than it does any other people on Earth. Because this Nation was founded on the timeless premise that all men are created equal; with the image of God stamped on each soul; with the rights to LifE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--in that order. Yet today marks 40 years of legalized abortion-on-demand in America. Of over 50 million innocent unborn babies slaughtered before they see the light of day. I both hope and believe that the conscience of America has begun to stir. I mourn the genocide marked by today's tragic anniversary, Mr. Speaker. But more than that, I look prayerfully forward to the day when the same America that rushed into Europe to arrest the Nazi holocaust will muster that same courage here at home, and future generations of children will walk in the sunlight of freedom. May it be so, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. ``The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. ``The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States.''

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I was gratified today to hear our beloved citizen of Arizona, Chaplain Donna Kafer, offer our prayer. Chaplain Kafer is the author of two books, ``Women of Courage'' and ``Women of Faith,'' and she's currently working on a third book called ``Women of Grace.'' And that will complete the series, ``Gardens of Grace.'' Mr. Speaker, I think it's especially appropriate because, indeed, Donna Kafer is a woman of grace that I've had the privilege to know for a very long time and am so grateful to be able to call her ``friend.'' She has made her aim in life to serve her God, her country, her family, and the truth. She serves as the appointed chaplain for the Arizona State Legislature, where she has provided spiritual encouragement for leaders, staff, and State employees for about 14 years now, Mr. Speaker. Chaplain Kafer has a master's degree in ministry through Phoenix University of Theology, and has received chaplaincy training through the Southwest School of Chaplaincy. Chaplain Kafer is an Arizona native. She lives in Peoria, Arizona, with her husband of 23 years, Ross, a firefighter-paramedic, and their daughter, Andrea, a 20-year-old college student. They've been members of Christ's Church of the Valley in northwest Peoria for nearly 18 years, under the noble leadership of Pastor Don Wilson. And it is my honor for her to be our guest today.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, nearly 4 years ago, Barack Obama was swept into office by the strength of his rhetoric; but the profound difference between Mr. Obama's rhetoric and the reality Americans have actually lived under in his Presidency is something every American has a profound responsibility to understand. Mr. Obama's rhetoric on jobs and the economy 4 years ago was: We have to have a President who understands that the essence of the American Dream is a good job. But the reality under Mr. Obama's Presidency is the highest sustained unemployment since the Great Depression. The percentage of people participating in America's labor market under this Presidency has fallen to 63.5 percent. That is the lowest rate since Jimmy Carter was President 31 years ago. Manufacturing unemployment has fallen to its lowest levels since 1941. The number of unemployed Americans eclipsed 15 million for the first time in history. The number of people forced to work part-time for economic reasons eclipsed 8 million for the first time in history. Under Mr. Obama's Presidency, the average time it takes Americans to find a job reached the highest total in the history of the statistics being measured. And for the first time in history, Mr. Speaker, over 4 million Americans have stopped looking for work altogether. Mr. Obama's rhetoric on government spending and debt 4 years ago was: America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. That's irresponsible. That's unpatriotic. But the reality under Mr. Obama's Presidency is that he had in the first year he was in office the first $1 trillion deficit in history. He's done that 4 years in a row now. Mr. Obama always loves to blame his predecessor. However, the deficit for all of 2007 was $161 billion, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Obama increased the debt by that much in just 1 month. In 2007, America's debt to GDP ratio was 62 percent. According to IMF, it will hit 100 percent this year. Mr. Obama spent nearly $1 trillion on a failed stimulus bill shortly after being reelected and then shoved a government takeover of our health care industry down the throats of the American people, which is now projected to cost well over $2 trillion. He spent $3 billion on a Cash for Clunkers program that went bankrupt the first week. He spent $29 million to bail out Bear Stearns, $300 to bail out Citigroup, $85 to bail out AIG, $10 billion to bail out union pension plans, and $50 billion to bail out General Motors. Mr. Speaker, under the budgets Barack Obama has already submitted to the Congress, he will add more to America's debt than all of the outstanding debt of all of the other 43 Presidents in American history combined. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if we all understand where America is headed under this President. Mr. Obama's rhetoric on health care 4 years ago was: We'll work with your employer to lower your premiums by $24,500 per family, per year. But the reality under Mr. Obama's Presidency was that the cost of American family health insurance per year has gone from $12,680 per year to over $20,000 per year in 2012. And that's before the enormous increases Americans will inevitably see under ObamaCare. Mr. Speaker, the European socialist health care system is a nightmare, a bureaucracy, rationing, and substandard health care. Yet it is Mr. Obama's model for America. Mr. Obama's rhetoric on energy 4 years ago was: Creating a new energy economy isn't just a challenge to me, it's an opportunity to seize--an opportunity that will create new businesses, new industries, and millions of new jobs. That sounded good, but the reality under Mr. Obama's Presidency is that his much-touted green jobs economy never materialized. The administration forced through a $535 million loan for Solyndra, a solar company backed by a major Obama supporter and praised by Mr. Obama himself. The company filed for bankruptcy 15 months later, after the administration intervened on the company's behalf, leaving taxpayers on the hook. But far from learning his lesson, a few months later the administration was again doling out billions more in loan guarantees to more solar companies, many of which later held massive layoffs and went bankrupt. All told, of the $9 billion the President has spent so far on green jobs, 910 new, long-term jobs have been created. That's $9.8 million per job charged to the American taxpayer, Mr. Speaker. So much for his millions of green jobs. Meanwhile, the President has opposed actual progress in the energy sector, including his continued efforts to block new domestic drilling, the administration's seizure and closing of millions of acres of uranium-rich land in my own district and the Keystone Pipeline project that would have immediately created 20,000 jobs, in addition to attracting billions of dollars in new investments to a struggling Obama economy. Perhaps none of this should be surprising coming from a President whose own Energy Secretary said: Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Obama's rhetoric on poverty 4 years ago was: Poverty is not an issue I just discovered for the purposes of a campaign. It is the cause that led me to a life of public service for almost 25 years. But the reality under Mr. Obama's Presidency is that the income gap between rich and poor reached its highest level in over 40 years. In 2008, just before the President took office, there were about 39.8 million Americans living in poverty. Today, that number is nearly 50 million. Under Mr. Obama's policies, the American poverty rate hit the highest level in the 52-year history of the statistic being measured. According to a report in the Washington Examiner, the number of able- bodied adults on food stamps doubled since Mr. Obama suspended the work requirement. More than 46 million Americans are now receiving food stamps. That's an increase of 44 percent since January of 2009. And it is higher than at any other time in American history. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Obama seems to believe that a dependent population will also be an obedient population. And so dependency and deception have become the core essence of his Presidency. President Obama's rhetoric on foreign policy and national security 4 years ago was many different things, but the reality, under Mr. Obama, was that he has broken promises to trusted allies and told the Kremlin that he will have more ``flexibility'' to do what they want him to do after he's reelected, after the election. Iran publicly proclaims their anxiousness to share the nuclear technology that they are so rapidly working to develop. If Iran successfully gains nuclear weapons, they will give them to terrorists the world over, Mr. Speaker, and you and I and our children, and perhaps our children's children, will live in the shadow of nuclear terrorism. Yet President Obama is actively working against efforts to secure even America's porous southern border, which is currently an incredibly inviting target for terrorists looking to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction into the United States. Mr. Obama pledged ``unshakeable commitment'' to Israel's security. Yet he turned down a meeting with the Prime Minister of Israel to appear instead on David Letterman, and he refuses to even acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently said Israel's existence is ``an insult to all humanity,'' and Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei has called Israel a ``cancerous tumor'' that must be wiped out. Yet Mr. Obama has expressed more open rebuke toward Israel for building houses in their own capital city than he has toward Iran for building nuclear weapons with which to threaten the entire human family. Mr. Speaker, I literally don't have time to thoroughly cover all of this administration's broken promises. He promised to hold televised debate forums over ObamaCare. That never happened. He promised lobbyists ``won't find a job in my White House,'' but that happened at least a dozen times within the first month of his administration. He appointed more czars in his administration in America than all of the czars that ever existed in the history of Imperial Russia. He promised to eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000. He never even tried. He promised he wouldn't ``sign any nonemergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House Web site for 5 days.'' A little over a month into his term, that section of the White House Web site was completely removed. Mr. Obama said the Federal Government was ``not living up to its own responsibilities,'' while his own campaign has actually sued to make it more difficult for our men and women in uniform to even vote. Mr. Obama gave lip service to enforcing immigration laws, and then sued my State of Arizona for enforcing immigration laws his administration refused to enforce. While forcing through government loans to failed green energy companies led by his friends like Solyndra, he has stood in the way of domestic energy production, seizing hundreds of thousands of acres of resource-rich land and blocking domestic drilling for oil, including in areas that were already open to drilling. The day he took office, a gallon of gas was $1.89. It is almost $4 a gallon today. Mr. Speaker, if America produced its own energy and did not buy so much oil from the Middle Eastern countries, terrorists wouldn't have enough money to buy a box of sparklers to hurt this country. Mr. Speaker, I have tried to lay out the difference between the rhetoric and the reality of this administration. You know, I've often heard it said in recent days that America faces a crossroads in the approaching election, but I'm afraid that's no longer the case, Mr. Speaker. No, I'm afraid America took the wrong fork in the road back when we elected Barack Obama 4 years ago, and we are now heading rapidly and precisely the wrong direction. He has nominated judges who contemptuously ignore the Constitution. He has proudly served as the most pro-abortion President in history. He has forced government-run healthcare down the throats of unwilling Americans. He oversaw the first downgrade of America's AAA credit rating. He has increased unemployment, increased the number of Americans on food stamps. He has thrown hundreds of billions of dollars at failed programs. He has weakened our military. He has blatantly attacked religious freedoms in America. He has allowed Iran to advance their nuclear weapons program; and while abroad, he has continually apologized for America, betrayed our friends, and emboldened our enemies. I'm afraid we see the results of some of that even in these recent days. I would suggest to you that his promise to fundamentally transform America was no bluff, Mr. Speaker. If this is what Mr. Obama has done in his first 4 years, how much more radical will his agenda be if he secures a second term and no longer has to worry about reelection? Mr. Speaker, for the sake of our children and our children's children, and for all of America's most noble dreams and ideals, it is absolutely vital that we elect a President who will stand up and arrest this national freefall into which Mr. Obama and his radical leftist ideology have hurled America. May God give us all the wisdom and the courage to remember who we are as Americans and that there is still hope and time to be all that we were called by God to be as a Nation. We must not fail, Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is offered by Mr. Gosar from Arizona, and it confronts a stunning example of environmentalism run amuck. If the Navajo Generating Station is forced to close due to the EPA's nonsensical actions, it would be devastating to the economies of the surrounding region, including those of the Hopi and Navajo Tribes. As the sole remaining buyer of coal from the Hopi Tribe, shutting down the Navajo Generating Station would cut nearly 90 percent of the tribe's income, and it would effectively shut down the Hopi Tribe as a functioning government in addition to putting hundreds of Arizonans, including hundreds of members of the Navajo Tribe, out of work and affecting hundreds of thousands of Arizonans' current ability to receive water and electricity. In exchange for all of the difficulties created, the only ``benefit'' yielded would be a slight change in visibility, so slight as to not even be detectable without specialized equipment that is significantly more sensitive than the human eye. In other words, Mr. Chairman, the supposed environmental benefit is functionally nonexistent. This is far beyond the pale of environmental stewardship. Mr. Chairman, I commend Mr. Gosar for offering this amendment, and I sincerely encourage my colleagues to support it.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, had I been present for rollcall vote No. 565, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker. I submit the Politico article titled ``In defense of Michele Bachmann, Muslim Brotherhood probes'', dated July 29, 2012, and authored by former Speaker Newt Gingrich. The recent assault on the National Security Five is only the most recent example of the fear our elites have about discussing and understanding radical Islamists. When an orchestrated assault is launched on the right to ask questions in an effort to stop members of Congress from even inquiring about a topic--you know the fix is in. The intensity of the attack on Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) as well as Republican Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Tom Rooney of Florida and Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia is a reminder of how desperate our elites are to avoid this discussion. Yet consider this rush to silence questions in light of our history of unpleasant surprises during the Cold War. Given all the painful things we learn about people every day and the surprises that shock even the experts (the head of the FBI anti-spy effort was a Russian spy, for example), you have to wonder why people would aggressively assert we shouldn't ask about national security concerns. Remember the shock in 2001 when we learned that FBI agent Robert Hanssen had been spying for 22 years--first for the Soviet Union and then the Russian Federation. This disaster came just seven years after the 1994 arrest of Aldrich Ames, a CIA counterintelligence officer who was a Soviet spy for eight years. Why should we assume we're in better shape today, when political correctness is passionately opposed to tough counterintelligence screening? It's as though our leaders have forgotten every lesson of the 1930s about fascism, Nazism and communism and every lesson from 1945 to 1991 about communism. We have replaced tough mindedness about national security with a refusal to think seriously and substituted political correctness and a ``solid'' assurance that people must be OK because they are ``nice'' and ``hard working'' for the systematic, intense investigations of the past. I'm not suggesting that our primary threat is espionage. Our greatest problem is getting the wrong analysis, advice and policy proposals. It is the bias of the advisers and the disastrous policies they propose that are our gravest danger at this stage of the long struggle with radical Islamists. Our elites refuse to even consider that the advice they are getting is biased, tainted, distorted--or just plain wrong. The underlying driving force behind this desperate desire to stop unpleasant questions is the elite's fear that an honest discussion of radical Islamism will spin out of control. They fear if Americans fully understood how serious radical Islamists are, they would demand a more confrontational strategy. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned last week, ``The West is asleep on this issue.'' Islamist extremists, Blair asserted in an interview with The Telegraph, seek ``supremacy, not coexistence.'' A young John F. Kennedy wrote ``Why England Slept'' to try to understand how the leadership of a nation could ignore, repress and reject warnings about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. A future JFK may write ``Why Washington Slept'' to explain our current period. The case of the National Security Five would be a good chapter on the desperation of the elites to avoid reality and their determination to smother any wake-up call, which might make them come to grips with Blair's warning. This desperate avoidance of reality is not new. After Maj. Nidal Hasan shouted, ''Allahu Akbar'' (``God is great'') in Fort Hood, Texas, and killed 12 soldiers and one Army civilian while wounding 29 others, there was pressure to avoid confronting his acts as inspired by his support for radical Islamism. An American of Palestinian descent, Hasan had been in touch with a radical American cleric in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki. He declared Hasan a hero. Al-Awlaki was himself declared a ``specially designated global terrorist'' and, with presidential approval, was killed by a predator missile. Yet, despite the evidence, Wikipedia reports, ``One year after the Fort Hood shooting, the motivations of the perpetrator were not yet established.'' It did offer suggestions about motivation, however. For example, ``A review of Hasan's computer and his multiple email accounts has revealed visits to websites espousing radical Islamist ideas.'' Talking about Islam, he said, ``Nonbelievers would be sent to Hell, decapitated, set on fire and have burning oil poured down their throats.'' A rational person would have some hints about what motivated a terrorist killing spree. If even Wikipedia could reach some conclusion about motivation, you would think the national security system could do the same. Not so. The Defense Department official report instead focused on Hasan's actions as though they were ``workplace violence'' rather than terrorism. President Barack Obama, in his speech at Fort Hood, described the attack as ``incomprehensible.'' Despite every effort by our enemies to communicate why they hate us and why they want to replace our world with theirs, our leaders find their motives ``incomprehensible.'' Clearly, Obama hasn't understood Blair's warning. An even more bizarre example of ignoring reality was New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's initial response to news that a car bomb had been found in Times Square. Bloomberg is mayor of the city attacked on Sept. 11--so did he shrewdly identify the probable perpetrator? Of course not. Bloomberg opined it was a ``homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged, person or someone with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.'' Just as Bloomberg was desperately avoiding blaming radical Islamists, the New York Police Department noted the similarities to a 2007 jihadist car bombing in London. A Taliban video from Pakistan claimed responsibility for the car bomb. The person being looked for was a U.S.-naturalized citizen from Pakistan. Given that evidence, Bloomberg's will to hide from the truth illustrates the challenge that the National Security Five face in raising appropriate and even frightening questions. The case of the Pakistani-American car bomber has yet another lesson for those willing to learn it. At his sentencing, Faisal Shahzad asserted, ``If I'm given 1,000 lives, I will sacrifice them all for the life of Allah.'' He had apparently planned to build another car bomb in the next two weeks. The Pakistan Taliban had given him $15,000 and five days of explosive training just months after he became a U.S. citizen. As Fox News reported: ``The judge cut him off at one point to ask him if he had sworn allegiance to the United States when he became a citizen last year. `I did swear' Shahzad answered, `but I did not mean it.' '' Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum clearly understood the threat. She stated in sentencing: ``The defendant has repeatedly expressed his total lack of remorse and his desire, if given the opportunity, to repeat the crime.'' Shahzad was not some desperate representative of poverty or repression. His father had been vice chief of the Pakistani Air Force. This was the bomber Bloomberg was confused about. The reaction to the National Security Five and their request for investigations by the inspectors general must be seen in this context of willful avoidance and denial. In fact, there is a good deal in the Obama administration's national security and foreign policy to ask about. One theme of the inspectors general letters is the administration's courting of individuals viewed as leaders by the U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood. A recent terrorist finance trial produced 80 boxes of evidence related to the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood network in North America over the past 40 years. Unlike the Cold War, the primary focus of concern in government today is not espionage but influence. In the Cold War, there was value to learning secrets. The right spy at the right place could give one side or the other a big advantage. This long war with radical Islamists is a very different struggle. There are many nuances and long-term developments. Much of the struggle involves ideas and language alien to most American leaders and unknown even to most of the State or Defense Department professionals. So the right or wrong adviser can be enormously powerful. Getting the right advice can be everything. Therefore, whose advice we rely on becomes central to national security. Asking who the advisers are, what their prejudices are and what advice they give is a legitimate--indeed, essential-- part of any serious national security system. It was this question that the National Security Five focused on. They were right to do so and it weakens national security for them to be attacked for simply asking basic questions. One clear example of the Obama administration's indefensible bias is its decision to co-sponsor the Global Counterterrorism Forum, which explicitly excluded Israel. Launched on Sept. 22, 2011, by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, this forum brought together 29 countries and the European Union. Yet it excluded the country that has been the most frequently attacked and has the most experience defeating terrorism. On June 7, 2012, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Mark Kirk (R-I11.) condemned the U.S. government for giving in to demands to exclude Israel. To make matters worse, Maria Otero, the undersecretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights, gave a speech ``in which she notably failed to mention Israel and Israelis as victims of terrorism.'' Isn't it legitimate to ask: Who advised Clinton to launch a counterterrorism initiative that excluded Israel? Isn't it also legitimate to ask: Who advised Otero to give a major speech on terrorism and ignore the attacks on Israel and Israelis? The anti-Israeli bias in the Obama administration shows up in strange ways. Daniel Halper of The Weekly Standard reported in August 2011 that the ``White House has apparently gone through its website, cleansing any reference to Jerusalem being in Israel.'' It seems the Obama administration even went back to public documents from earlier administrations to pretend this White House's rejection of Jerusalem as part of Israel had been prior administrations' policies. This is the Orwellian nature of the Obama system. Its hostility to the city of David being considered Israel's capital was displayed as recently as Thursday in the following colloquy between reporters and Jay Carney, White House press secretary: Reporter: ``What city does this administration consider to be the capital of Israel? Jerusalem or Tel Aviv?'' Carney: ``Um . . . I haven't had that question in a while. Our position has not changed. Can we, uh . . .'' Reporter: ``What is the capital [of Israel]?'' Carney: ``You know our position.'' Reporter: ``I don't.'' Lester Kinsolving, World Net Daily: ``No, no. She doesn't know, that's why she asked.'' Carney: ``She does know.'' Reporter: ``I don't.'' Kinsolving: ``She does not know. She just said that she does not know. I don't know.'' Carney: ``We have long, let's not call on . . .'' Kinsolving: ``Tel Aviv or Jerusalem?'' Carney: ``You know the answer to that.'' Kinsolving: ``I don't know the answer. We don't know the answer. Could you just give us an answer? What do you recognize? What does the administration recognize?'' Carney: ``Our position has not changed.'' Kinsolving: ``What position?'' Carney then moved on to another question. Isn't it legitimate to ask: Who advised the Obama administration to erase Jerusalem from Israel? Isn't it fair to ask: Who went back and forged public documents and who told them to do it? Another example of these legitimate questions, consider the strange case of Louay Safi. Safi ran the Islamic Society of North America (an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas financing case) and who was himself an unindicted co- conspirator in the Sami Al-Arian terrorism case (involving Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist org). As Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor in terrorism cases, explained, ``So what happens? Pentagon hires him as expert to teach Islam to our troops before they deploy from Fort Hood! And now, of course, he is the leader of the [Muslim] Brotherhoods' government-in-waiting for Syria. You just can't make this stuff up!'' Isn't it appropriate to ask: Who were the Muslim chaplains approved by this extremist? How did he get chosen to be in such a key position? What system of checking for extremism broke down so badly, or is so biased, that it allowed members and allies of radical Islamist organizations to play key roles in the U.S. government? Part of the reaction to the National Security Five raising questions about the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood has come from a deliberate effort to deny the importance and the radicalism of the Muslim Brotherhood as a worldwide network. The level of self-deception necessary to misunderstand the Muslim Brotherhood verges on a psychosis. The organization's motto is ``Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Quran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.'' Our elites discount all these words--and refuse to take them seriously. Yet doesn't the lesson of Munich in 1972, New York City on Sept. 11, Hasan at Fort Hood, the Times Square car bomber, the bombings in Iraq this week--the list is endless--show that these words matter? Consider clause seven of one branch of the Muslim Brotherhood--Hamas. Perhaps no one in our elites wants to read the Hamas Charter's clause seven because it is too horrifying. Consider: ``The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind the stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ``O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'' Apologists for Hamas insist this clause has no meaning. But the Hamas leaders claim they cannot remove it from their charter. The Muslim Brotherhood, in a 1991 document called the ``Explanatory Memorandum,'' explained to its own supporters that its goal was ``a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying Western Civilization from within and `sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.'' This memo cited 29 different allied groups, including the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Students Association and the Islamic Association of Palestine. Leaders in some of these allied groups founded the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Just Friday, the Dubai chief of police warned about a Muslim Brotherhood effort to take over the emirates and seize their oil and natural gas wealth. The Muslim Brotherhood is a serious worldwide organization dedicated to a future most Americans would find appalling. Seeking to understand its reach and its impact on the U.S. government is a legitimate, indeed essential, part of our national security process. The National Security Five were doing their duty in asking difficult questions designed to make America safer. Their critics represent the kind of willful blindness that increasingly puts America at risk. If we do not want a book to describe ``Why Washington Slept,'' we will have to encourage elected officials to follow the advice of a later Kennedy book and exhibit ``Profiles in Courage.'' Bachmann, Franks, Gohmert, Rooney and Westmoreland are showing a lot more courage than the defenders of timidity, complicity and passivity.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I thank the previous gentleman here. His comments were very compelling to me. Mr. Speaker, before I begin my comments tonight, let me just sincerely say that I hold in my heart this privilege of being a Member of the American family and this United States Congress to be a priceless gift of God. And I would ask that my comments tonight would be heard in that context, and I would even dare to hope, Mr. Speaker, that you and the Members of this body might grant me a modicum of understanding befitting the conviction and the gravity that give impulse to the statements that I make tonight. Mr. Speaker, the very first responsibility of human government is to protect its people. Many times during the nearly 4 years of the Obama administration, I have stood on this floor and have called upon this administration to address the grave threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. When I first began calling for Iran to be referred to the Security Council, they possessed only 157 centrifuges, Mr. Speaker. But tonight, Iran possesses more than 9,000. And tonight I stand here with such a sense of urgency that I find it difficult to articulate, Mr. Speaker. I believe we may be facing the very last window this world will ever have before it becomes too late to prevent jihad from becoming armed with nuclear weapons and shattering the peace and security of human freedom as we have known it. Because this administration has delayed and sent ambiguous messages to Iran and the world, as of approximately 3 months ago, Iran reached the point where it now possesses all the components necessary to become a nuclear-armed nation. Mr. Speaker, Iran has the knowledge, the technical expertise, the equipment, everything necessary to build a nuclear warhead. They need no new technology, no new personnel, no new parts or resources of any kind from anyone. All they need now is time and lack of intervention. Mr. Speaker, if Iran is allowed to gain nuclear weapons, it will unequivocally transform the landscape of human freedom as we have known it throughout the world. The world's primary financier of terrorism will be armed with nuclear warheads. A desperate arms race will rage across the entire Middle East. Israel will be in range of nuclear missiles in the hands of a jihadist enemy who despises them, is dedicated to their complete annihilation and capable of obliterating their entire nation in 15 minutes. America and our allies will then face an enemy with the ultimate asymmetric capability of a nuclear-generated high-altitude electromagnetic pulse potentially capable of devastating our electric grid and the civilizational architecture it sustains. Jihadists the world over will have access to nuclear weapons, and the world's children, Mr. Speaker, will have forever etched in their memory that moment in history when this government allowed the hellish shadow of nuclear jihad to fall across their future. For almost 4 years, Mr. Speaker, we have witnessed the same weakness, naivete, vacillation, ambiguity, and delusional policy toward radical jihadists in Iran that once allowed them to hold 56 American hostages for 444 days during the Carter administration. That failed approach, that failed understanding now saturates nearly every policy corner of the Obama administration as Iran seeks to gain a nuclear grip on America's throat. As always, any credible threat should be evaluated by whether an enemy possesses both the intention and the capacity to inflict harm. The despotic regime now governing Iran has been explicitly clear in its intention toward the United States. Official military parades in Iran have, for years, routinely featured a litany of slogans calling for death to Israel, death to America. President Ahmadinejad was speaking to the whole world when he said: And you, for your part, if you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future, recognize the Iranian nation's greatness and bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept to do this, the Iranian nation will later force you to surrender and bow down. Does that sound like someone who thinks he knows something that we don't? Ahmadinejad also said: Israel is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical season. Then he added: The time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come, and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started. Iranian Basij Commander Naqdi said: As long as America exists, we will not rest. We must create the environment for the destruction of America. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has consistently denied the existence of the Holocaust, Mr. Speaker, calling it a myth or a fabrication. And in the same breath, he threatens to make it happen again by repeatedly calling for the destruction of the Jewish State, for Israel to be ``wiped off the map.'' He has said, point blank: The wave of the Islamist revolution will soon reach the entire world. Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury. And just today, Mr. Speaker, just today, Ahmadinejad called for the annihilation of Israel again. Mr. Speaker, the Pentagon estimates that hundreds of U.S. soldiers have died, as many as three and four of our casualties, as a result of Iran supplying terrorists in Iraq with weapons such as highly sophisticated explosive form penetrators designed to destroy American armor and vehicles. What possesses us to believe that they would not do the same with nuclear weapons? Former Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said: My worst nightmare is terrorists with nuclear weapons. Not only do I know that they are trying to get them, but I know they will use them. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Iran: the major terrorist-sponsoring state of our time. Tehran could give those nuclear weapons to terrorists, or give them a nuclear umbrella that would bring terrorism beyond our wildest dreams. Mr. Speaker, can we allow a man like Ahmadinejad, leading the world's most dangerous regime, to be able to disseminate nuclear weapons to terrorists and to have his finger on the button that could launch nuclear missiles targeting our families and our children? And how do we negotiate with a nuclear Iran, as Senator Obama suggested, when their jihadist ideology considers Armageddon a good thing? Mr. Speaker, even without nuclear weapons, the Iranian regime has remained relentless and undeterred in its efforts to harm America, Israel, and Western interests. In October of last year, our intelligence interdicted an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador and to detonate bombs at both the Saudi Arabian and the Israeli Embassies right here in Washington, D.C. Tapes in American possession show that the Iranians were unconcerned with ``collateral damage.'' Now, Mr. Speaker, translated, that means dead Americans. It also means that Iran has no fear whatsoever of the Obama administration. And now, in recent days, we have learned that Iran was behind another barbaric attack, a terrorist attack on innocent civilians, when its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, bombed a Bulgarian bus, killing five innocent Israeli citizens and killing a pregnant woman and including dozens more. Imagine how emboldened Iran will become if they are allowed to come into possession of nuclear weapons. Specifically, Mr. Speaker, imagine for a moment the scenario of Hezbollah, one of Iran's terrorist proxies, gaining possession of just two nuclear warheads and bringing them across the border into the United States concealed, say, in bales of marijuana--this shows you that they can get them in--when transporting them into the heart of two different crowded unnamed cities and then calling and telling the White House exactly when and where the first one will be detonated, and then following through 60 seconds later. Then imagine them, Mr. Speaker, calling the White House back and making demands, which, if they're not met, would mean that the second warhead would also be detonated in a different unnamed American city. The entire United States would be held hostage by terrorist monsters, Mr. Speaker. Or imagine if those same terrorists acquired two small cargo ships carrying mobile launchers with SCUD missiles from Iran's existing arsenal and used them to launch those two warheads in a coordinated and devastating high-altitude electromagnetic pulse attack over the homeland of the United States. Well, the fact is, Mr. Speaker, that Iran is pursuing the means whereby they could assist groups like Hezbollah to do exactly these kinds of horrifying things. The only components they lack to proceed are the nuclear warheads. Mr. Speaker, there is no longer a single rational defense for the argument that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons capability. So let me say this, and pray that the Members of this body and pray that the President and this Nation understand. If Iran gains nuclear weapons, they will give them to terrorists the world over. And still, as the centrifuges in Iran are spinning, the Obama administration is fiddling, and many of the Members of this body stand by and contemplate. Have we lost our minds? Mr. Speaker, President Obama has allowed Iran to rope-a-dope this administration in so-called peace talks that have burned the clock for nearly 4 years of his Presidency. The President has made stern warnings and then backed down every time. We've endured five rounds of peace talks, five different proposals, six different United Nations resolutions, and more than a dozen sets of economic sanctions. The House just voted yesterday on another Iran sanctions bill that was so weakened and watered down by Mr. Obama and his supporters in the Senate that it is now barely worth the paper it's written upon. The administration's focus has been on sanctions, and weak sanctions at that, Mr. Speaker. And even then, Mr. Obama has granted waivers to further weaken the sanctions already in place. Now, I wonder if this administration has considered the fact that we have had economic sanctions against North Korea for over 60 years, and in recent decades we have sanctioned them nearly into starvation. And yet during that time, they have tested nuclear warheads twice. And it's a genie that we cannot put back in the bottle, Mr. Speaker. President Ahmadinejad has said of economic sanctions: If they want to continue with that path of sanctions, we will not be harmed. They can issue resolutions for 100 years. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran's nuclear policies would not change, no matter the pressure. He said: With God's help, and without paying attention to propaganda, Iran's nuclear course should continually remain firmly and seriously. Pressures, sanctions, and assassinations will bear no fruit. No obstacles can stop Iran's nuclear work. Mr. Obama's own Director of National Intelligence was asked by the Senate Intelligence Committee whether sanctions had any effect on the course of Iran's nuclear program. The answer was simple, Mr. Speaker, ``No, none whatsoever.'' I've said many times, starting long ago, that we should have pursued truly effective sanctions, dissident support, regime change, and political pressures to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed state. But without the conviction in the minds of the Iranian leadership that military intervention will occur if they continue to develop nuclear weapons, none of these other approaches will change their minds. Our greatest hope to prevent military action against Iran was to make sure their leaders understood that the free world would respond militarily before we allowed them to threaten it with nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, Iran's radical leaders concluded that Barack Obama simply lacked the understanding or the resolve to use military action to prevent their nuclear weapons development. And why would they conclude anything else, Mr. Speaker? Even now, the stated goal of the Obama sanctions policy is simply to get Iran back to the negotiating table where they can waste even more time and gain even more valuable advances. And if we do get them back to the negotiating table, Mr. Speaker, what compromise can we seek--maybe that Iran keeps only a small number of nuclear weapons? No, Mr. Speaker. If Iran is hell-bent on getting nuclear weapons, there is no diplomatic solution. In the popular revolt in Iran in 2009, the President could have assisted the dissidents and the peace-loving, decent people of Iran, of which there are so many, to overthrow their oppressors in the Iranian regime--or at least he could have spoken up on their behalf when they were out dying in the streets to try to bring about regime change, which, if they had been successful, could have changed all of this equation. But the President left them twisting in the wind. To call Mr. Obama a bystander in all of this is to be charitable. The truth is, Mr. Speaker, he has been nowhere to be found. Many congressional Republicans have written and pleaded with this President numerous times on this vital issue to absolutely no avail. The truth is that this President has waited too long. He has waited so long that the equation now before us has no good answer. His policies have only helped Iran accelerate their nuclear program. Iran is now tripling its uranium output, moving enrichment facilities deep under a mountain near Qom and restraining the IAEA from even inspecting weaponization facilities. Maybe now it is becoming clear why Israel is so very concerned, because for them, a nuclear Iran is not just an academic question--it calls into question their very survival--and the Obama administration has now placed Israel into an almost impossible circumstance. Israel has watched this President resist an Israeli strike on nuclear facilities in Iran more than he has resisted a nuclear Iran. Israel has listened to Mr. Obama openly criticize Israel more for building homes in their capital city than he has openly criticized Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for building nuclear weapons with which to threaten the entire free world. In fact, they have watched this administration systematically scrub references that Jerusalem is even the capital of Israel. Consequently, I believe Israel has known for some time that they can no longer trust the Obama administration to act in their best interest. They know that Mr. Obama has waited so long that if Israel acts now to defend their own nation--and all of us incidentally--that they will suffer a far more damaging response from the radical regimes that surround them than they otherwise would have. Israel knows that, if they wait much longer to attack, the Iranian nuclear facilities may well be beyond their conventional military capability. Israel desperately needs America and her greater ability to attack heavily fortified targets. They need us, Mr. Speaker, but they will act without us if they must. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said simply and clearly, ``One thing I'll never compromise on, and that is Israel's security . . . When it comes to Israel's survival, we must always remain the masters of our fate.'' So what is this administration's present strategy? ``We're trying to make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel.'' The most disgraceful part of it is President Obama's threat to withhold resupply from Israel to pressure them into his brand of inaction. So let me just see if I have this straight, Mr. Speaker. The President says, according to his own State Department, that the world's greatest supporter of terrorism, a self-avowed enemy of America, with an advancing nuclear weapons program, has committed to destroy us and Israel and that the President's goal is to prevent Israel--our best and most committed friend and national ally on this Earth--from defending themselves. Did I get that right? Mr. Speaker, that's why Israel will never trust this President with their national survival. You see, Israel knows the very inconvenient truth that, when it comes to a nuclear Iran, if we are to prevent, we must preempt. They know that the choice with Iran is no longer a choice between the way the world is now and the way the world might be after a military strike to prevent them from gaining nuclear weapons. Rather, the choice now is between what the world will be like after a preventative military strike on Iran or what the world will be like after Iran gains nuclear weapons. So, Mr. Speaker, we should not deceive ourselves. When the head of Israeli intelligence tells the prime minister that Iran is entering into that ``zone of immunity'' where Israel will no longer have the conventional capacity to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, Israel will act. They will act knowing that many in the world will condemn them. They will act knowing that they will be blamed for any radiation releases from Iran's nuclear facilities that might result. They will act knowing that thousands of Iranian, Hamas, and Hezbollah rockets and missiles will fall upon the cities of their tiny nation in retaliation. They will act knowing that it is now extremely difficult for them to succeed. But, Mr. Speaker, Israel will act because they are students of history, and they will not be made to walk silently into the gas chambers again. They will act because they know that whatever the consequences for their actions will be that they will pale in significance compared to what the consequences would be for them and for the whole world if the jihadist Government of Iran were to gain nuclear weapons. And, if and when they do act, the Obama administration will owe an apology to the whole world for ignoring this grave reality for so long, but Israel will especially deserve an apology--an apology from this administration for leaving them with no choice but to act on behalf of all of us. Mr. Speaker, now, with all of the things I've said tonight, there seems to be a profound new irony upon us. This administration finally seems to recognize that they have, indeed, waited too long. This administration is finally realizing that Israel can no longer stand around and wait. It is also beginning to understand if Israel is forced to strike Iran's nuclear facilities alone or if Iran tests a nuclear weapon before the November 6 election, that the American people and the world will damn the Obama administration for their breathtaking vacillation. Under such scenarios, the administration very likely sees the chances for Mr. Obama to be reelected as virtually zero. So it has occurred to me, Mr. Speaker, that the Obama administration may have at last found sufficient rationale to move decisively against Iran's nuclear weapons program. The President knows that, in times of military action, the American people often rally around their President. Consequently, in spite of the fact that it has blatantly ignored the national security implications of Iran's nuclear program, it will now not surprise me at all if this administration launches an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities before the November elections to protect itself politically, even if it is done in concert with Israel to make it appear less politically motivated. While I believe the American people will see such an action for what it is, if a Presidential campaign will finally motivate this administration to get serious about our national security and Iran's nuclear program, then so be it, Mr. Speaker. It would still be far better for the administration to do that than to stand idly by and force the tiny state of Israel, our closest friend and ally on this Earth, to undertake such a monumental task alone, with all the odds against them and facing such crushing consequences whether they succeed or fail. But it didn't have to be this way. There was a time when Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions could have been arrested with far less cost. The President has waited too long. Mr. Speaker, President Ronald Reagan gave an address in 1983 when the world faced a similar threat in the growing strength and nuclear ambition of the Soviet Union. Mr. Reagan said: I urge you to beware the temptation to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil. Mr. Speaker, there were those in 1938 who deemed the ambitions of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich a giant misunderstanding. The free nations of the world once had opportunity to address the insidious rise of the Nazi ideology in its formative years when it could have been dispatched without great cost, but they delayed, and the result was atomic bombs falling on cities, 50 million people dead worldwide, and the swastika shadow nearly plunging the planet into Cimmerian night. Mr. Speaker, let the world's free people resolve once and for all, for the sake of our children and for future generations, that we of this generation will not stand by and watch a similar dark chapter of history be repeated on our watch. God help this administration to wake up, and God help us all as Americans to be awake in this destiny year for our beloved country. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3803) to amend title 18, United States Code, to protect pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3803, as amended.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gruesome late-term abortions of unborn children who can feel pain is the greatest human rights atrocity in the United States today. H.R. 3803, the bipartisan District of Columbia Pain- Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, has more than 220 cosponsors in the House of Representatives. It protects unborn children who have reached 20 weeks' development, their being subjected to inhumane torturous late-term abortions on the basis that the unborn child feels pain by at least this stage of development, if not much earlier. Just 2 days ago, a Federal court upheld Arizona's version of this bill. Mr. Speaker, throughout America's history, the hearts of the American people have always been moved with compassion when they discover a theretofore hidden class of victims once the humanity of the victim and the inhumanity of what was being done to them finally became clear in their minds. Mr. Speaker, America is on the cusp of another such realization. Medical science regarding the development of unborn babies and their capacities at various stages of growth has advanced dramatically, and incontrovertibly it demonstrates that unborn children clearly do experience pain. The single greatest hurdle to legislation like H.R. 3803 has always been that deponents deny unborn babies feel pain at all, as if somehow the ability to feel pain magically develops instantaneously as a child passes through the birth canal. This level of deliberate ignorance might have found excuse in earlier eras of human history, but the evidence today is extensive and irrefutable. Unborn children have the capacity to experience pain by at least 20 weeks and very likely substantially earlier. We have entered into the committee hearing record a 29-page summary of the dozens of studies worldwide confirming that unborn children feel pain by at least 20 weeks post-fertilization. This information is available at www.DoctorsonFetalPain.org. And I would sincerely recommend that all committee members, their staff, and the members of the press review this site to get the most current evidence on unborn pain rather than to have their understanding cemented in some earlier time when scientists still believed in spontaneous generation and that the Earth was flat. Mr. Speaker, late-term abortions are gruesome and painful. Babies are dismembered, or they're chemically burned alive by a hypertonic salt solution. Some late-term abortionists stab the small pain-capable baby through the chest to inject drugs that will kill the child prior to being removed. Most Americans think that late-term abortions are rare, but in fact there are approximately 120,000 late-term abortions annually, or more than 325 late-term abortions every day in America. Here in the District of Columbia, the designated seat of freedom in America, abortion is completely legal for any reason up until the moment of birth. Under the Constitution, the Congress and the President are the ones clearly responsible for this unthinkable abortion-until- birth policy. This landmark vote we are about to take would be the first time in history that the United States House of Representatives has ever voted on this question of whether to endorse legal abortion for any reason up until birth, and, ladies and gentlemen, we will be held accountable. Mr. Speaker, under the Humane Slaughter Act, farm animals in America have protection from completely unnecessary cruelty, yet unborn children in America have no such protection from the same kind of agonizing pain. In fact, there is no legal standard to provide that late-term unborn babies--clearly known to be capable of feeling pain-- are afforded even the most basic human decency of receiving anesthesia before they are torturously killed. Mr. Speaker, if we cannot find the will or the courage to protect human babies from being tortured, then what claim on human compassion remains to us? What we are doing to babies is real, Mr. Speaker. It is barbaric in the purest sense of the word. It is the greatest human rights violation occurring on U.S. soil, and it has already victimized potentially millions of pain-capable babies since the Supreme Court gave us all abortion on demand that tragic day in 1973. Mr. Speaker, I would plead with my colleagues to vote for this bill to at least begin to end this heartbreak of painful late-term abortion in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the remaining time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I now yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Ohio (Mrs. Schmidt), chair of the Agriculture Nutrition Subcommittee.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris), a member of the Science Committee and an obstetric anesthesiologist.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from Florida (Mrs. Adams), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), a member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), vice chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Alabama (Mrs. Roby), a member of the Education Committee.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), chairman of the Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights Subcommittee on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Schmidt).