Trent Franks

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I would now yield to the gentleman from Georgia for such time as he may consume.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman from Indiana. Oftentimes, Madam Speaker, I have friends that come up to me on the street and they say, Trent, why aren't you talking more about this? Why aren't you explaining these things in the media better? Why aren't you going to the floor and telling us about these critical issues? So, oftentimes we do and the media just ignores it or somehow the people don't have the advantage of hearing what we say. And I hope that doesn't happen to this bill, Madam Speaker, because I truly believe if the American people could just read the Cut, Cap, and Balance legislation that they would understand how profoundly reasonable it really is. All it really says is that we are going to cut our budget at least as much as we raise the debt ceiling, and that we're going to put some steps in place to begin to rein in the spending of this government in a real way; and that as we go forward, we will begin to index the spending of this Nation with a certain percentage of the gross domestic product, or the amount of productivity of our Nation. Madam Speaker, that's so imminently reasonable because that creates a great deal of incentive on the part of government, then, to see all people in our society successful, to see everyone have gain and to be able to accumulate wealth in every way that they can, from the janitor to the Senator. And then, finally, this legislation says that we need a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution. Madam Speaker, I have the privilege of being the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution in this place. I will just suggest to you that the balanced budget amendment seems so intuitive to me because, as I said earlier, all budgets have to balance at some point. You know, I have two little babies, Joshie and Gracie, and they have piggy banks. They know that if they take more out of it than they put in it, then it goes empty. They understand that. I don't know why something so fundamental and basic escapes the erudite minds that pervade government. But it seems that we think that somehow because we have Ph.D.s and that because we are able to perpetrate monotonic polysyllabic obfuscation, semantic gymnastics, and verbal circumlocution that people won't know what we're talking about and that somehow we can get away with anything that we want to. And I just think that's so tragic because a reality is still in place that says that if we live outside our means, that pretty soon the entire system begins to collapse. That's where we are, Madam Speaker. We are seeing people losing confidence in their government. And I'm very concerned about that because I believe that it is vital that people have confidence. Somebody said to me, they said, you know, if all of the gold in Fort Knox were stolen tonight and none of us knew about it, that the gold market wouldn't change much tomorrow morning in The Wall Street Journal. But if someone put out a press release, say, from Fort Knox that all of the gold had been stolen in Fort Knox but that that wasn't really true, that all of the gold was still there but somehow the public believed that it had been stolen, that gold markets across the planet the next day would crash because people's perception, their confidence in the system is vital to the system. Right now, people are losing confidence in our system, and I think there are very few things that threaten us more. We talk about a default. Well, the default is not going to happen on August 2 unless the President chooses to arbitrarily force that to happen. But I am concerned that the markets may begin to say, Maybe the Congress of the United States just doesn't have the courage to do the right thing. Maybe somehow they're going to let politics intervene to the extent that they're actually going to step back and not do what's necessary to stabilize the economic foundation of this Nation. And that is so tragic because it doesn't have to be that way. This Cut, Cap, and Balance bill can accomplish everything that's reasonable. It can say, okay, we recognize the challenges that we face in this country today. We recognize that we've overspent. We recognize that our country is at a low economically. We recognize that we're not working on full employment. We recognize that the markets don't know whether to jump or go blind. They don't know what this President is going to do next. And if we put this Cut, Cap, and Balance bill in place, all of a sudden, the markets of the world, the person on the street, they're going to realize, hey, maybe there is hope after all. Maybe America is going to go forward and do what she was destined to do from the born of time and continue to be that great city on a hill that Ronald Reagan spoke of. I believe that it can be that way. But I am afraid that somehow the people won't understand what's in this bill. I will just suggest to you, in all due deference and respect to the President of the United States, his plan is incumbent upon the people not understanding what it is, and the Republican plan is incumbent upon the people understanding what is really in the bill. And I so hope that the people are able to truly get the information that they need to understand what this bill is all about, rather than letting the left-wing media distort it to the extent that they don't know. I also hope for something else, Madam Speaker. I am hoping that tomorrow when we vote that we will recognize something else as people in this place: that all too soon we will step from these Chambers one by one and that our time here will be passed, and only those things that we did that truly honored our God and our country and our fellow human beings and the great gift that we've been given in America will really matter at that point. I hope we will realize that we won't have too many votes like this in our career that can make a difference for future generations. It's been said that the politician looks to the next election; whereas, the statesman looks to the next generation, and that great societies finally come when old men plant trees under whose shade they will never sit. I hope tomorrow that we will embrace this thing called statesmanship and look to the next generation and, quite frankly, Madam Speaker, to look to the next few days and weeks, because what we do is going to send a message to the markets the world over. If you are an investor and you saw a company that continued to deficit spend and continued to get in debt beyond its means and continued to carelessly spend, would you invest in that company? I think that's what our country has to ask ourselves. I truly believe that we're going to have a chance tomorrow that may be very unique in our careers, and it's possible that a lot of people are going to succumb to the need to be popular among certain special interest groups. But I will just suggest to them, Madam Speaker, that popularity is history's pocket change. It's courage that is the true currency of history, and we have a chance to be courageous tomorrow. We have a chance to do what's right, to stabilize this country today and tomorrow. We have a chance to make sure that our future generations walk in the light of freedom. I have a chance, as a father, to do what I believe is truly right for my children and their contemporaries so that they might grow up and walk in the light of freedom, as I have. If we do this, I believe the people will applaud us in the long run. There may be certain exceptions in the short term. But in the long run they will look back and say that those people who stood up and did what was right that day when they voted on cut, cap, and balance and voted for the balanced budget amendment, they'll look back and see that as a historic turning point in this country. And I want so much to see that happen. Finally, Madam Speaker, I would just say to you again that all budgets do balance, and the equation before us today is, are we going to balance the budget, or is reality going to balance it in a horrifying way for us? For the sake of my children, for the sake of future generations, and for the sake of all that we love and hold dear in this country, and for the sake of making sure that we are good stewards of the greatest Nation God has ever given to this planet, I hope we do the right thing tomorrow. I yield the remainder of the time to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, let me just close with these thoughts. There are a lot of people that have sacrificed profoundly for this Nation. There are people lying out in Arlington National Cemetery tonight, and I wonder what their perspective would be if they could come back among us for just a few moments? While none of us knows that, Madam Speaker, I would suggest to you that they didn't die so that we could spend our country into bankruptcy, so that we could weaken our Nation on all fronts simply because we weren't fiscally responsible. And they didn't die so that we could put ourselves so deeply in debt that we spent tens of thousands for each little child born today so that they would have to carry that the rest of their lives. They wanted, as the Founding Fathers talked about, to see every person, not only in America but, ultimately, in the world, to be able to be born and to lay hold on the miracle of life and to be free and to pursue their dreams. That's what they wanted. Sometimes I am so afraid that we have gotten away from that vision to the extent that we've grown sort of callous and cynical. I hope that we can revisit those ideals tomorrow, and that we can force ourselves to remember that all of history and all of the future is watching us, and that what we do here tomorrow could mean the difference for America for decades and generations to come. I believe if we do the right thing, that the loneliest moments in an old age home will be livable because we'll look back and say, you know, that's what we did. We did the right thing. And I hope we do that for the sake of my children, for the sake of America's children, and for the sake, somehow, of the children throughout the world that can be still touched by the message of this, the greatest Republic in the history of humanity. Madam Speaker, if we will protect our constitutional foundations, if we will protect our economic base, if we will protect those things that make us who we are, then I believe that this government will have all of the revenue that it needs. I believe we will continue and go forward to be more productive than we have ever been, and I believe that America still has great things in the world to do. I hope we make sure that that occurs. With that, with great respect, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman. Madam Chair, all of us are grateful to the men and women who put themselves in harm's way between the malevolent and the innocents for the sake of this country. We need to remind ourselves that they don't fight because they hate the enemy or hate what's in front of them. They fight because they love what's behind them. They love us, they love their country, they love the cause of freedom, and they love their families. They love their families more than anything, Madam Chair; and they want to make sure that their children have the very best future that they can give them. Madam Chair, this amendment that I am so thankful to Mr. Hunter for bringing forth would allow parents an extra option for their children, especially when their special needs children, in the midst of all the travel that the armed services people have to make, they need this option, Madam Chair; and I just think it's unbelievable that we wouldn't support them. Because, fundamentally, one of two people will choose the educational values, the educational substance of our children's future. It will be one of two. It will either be a person who doesn't know their name, or a person called a parent who would die for them in a moment. I would submit, Madam Chair, that that decision is best left to the parents. Notwithstanding the opposition from the teachers unions, the parents are the best ones to be able to choose the school that their children go to. Nothing will shape the future of America more than the values and the academics that are inculcated in the hearts and minds of our children, and that should belong to parents, especially those who are fighting and dying for this country and they have a special needs child. We should give this to them. I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Chair, I would just seek to put this in some kind of perspective. Ever since mankind took up arms against his fellow human beings, there has always been an offensive weapon met with some type of defensive weapon. The spear brought the shield. The artillery brought armed battle tanks. And now we face the world's most dangerous weapons in the history of mankind in the form of intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads that in a blinding flash could kill hundreds of thousands of people in a city. Or over our Nation's continent, an Exo-atmospheric blast could perhaps over time, through destroying our electric infrastructure, kill tens of millions of people. And the only system that we have to defend ourselves against that type of weapon is our Ground Based Midcourse Defense System. And this amendment seeks to cut that another $100 million on top of the cuts that the administration has constantly done throughout its tenure. Madam Chair, I would just suggest to you that that is the height of irresponsibility. The fact is when two airplanes hit two buildings, it cost this economy $2 trillion. This is not the way to have priorities for a budget. Our primary duty in this body is to make sure that we protect the lives and the constitutional rights of Americans, and we must protect our ability to stop intercontinental nuclear-armed missiles. This is the only system that we have to do it. Vote down this amendment.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, I withdraw my reservation, and I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this motion to recommit. The amendment supposes that the bill does something that it doesn't do. Nothing in this bill allows the IRS any greater access to health information than they have ever had. HIPAA is still in place. This is simply an amendment looking for a problem that isn't there. Madam Speaker, well over a dozen weakening amendments to this bill were offered at the Judiciary Committee and the committee carefully considered and, frankly, dismissed most of those amendments. Likewise, opponents had a second opportunity to challenge the bill in the Ways and Means Committee, and the product is the bill before us. I have heard so much incorrect information about the bill, Madam Speaker. I would like to say to you that when the gentlelady speaks of the most vulnerable among us, I would simply say that before the sun sets today in America, 4,000 unborn children will die of abortion on demand, and in every case a nameless little baby will die a tragic and lonely death, a mother will never be quite the same, and all the gifts that child might have brought to humanity will be lost forever. I would like to tell you that this bill does something to prevent that same thing from happening tomorrow, but it doesn't. Madam Speaker, this bill simply says that taxpayers in the future will no longer have to pay for or worry about their taxpayer dollars being used for that purpose. And whatever red herrings we may have heard from the opponents today, this bill does nothing more than require that abortion funding remain in the private sphere and outside the reach of government's coercive power. The bill is a very simple piece of legislation without the complexity that it has been reputed to have. I would encourage all Americans to take a look at the underlying legislation so that you can see for yourself that this bill has no need of this motion to recommit. Unlike the ObamaCare bill, this piece of simple legislation is only a few pages long and is easily understandable. The new majority writes its bills this way on purpose so that Members and the American people can be confident that this body is in fact carrying out the will of the people. That is exactly what this bill does, Madam Speaker, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this motion to recommit.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, what he said. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman. Madam Speaker, it is said that a government is what it spends. This bill is really about whether the role of America's government is to fund a practice that takes the lives of over 1 million unborn American babies every year, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans, even some of those who consider themselves pro-choice, strongly object to their taxpayer dollars being used to pay for abortions. In 1973, Madam Speaker, the United States Supreme Court said the unborn child was not a person under the Constitution and we have since witnessed the tragic deaths of over 50 million innocent little baby boys and girls who died without the protection we in this Chamber should have given them. Some of this was carried out with taxpayer dollars before the Hyde amendment and other such laws were in place, and taxpayer funding of abortion could recommence in the future under ObamaCare. So before we vote on this bill, it is important for Members to ask themselves the real question: Does abortion take the life of a child? If it does not, then this is simply a budgetary issue. But if abortion really does kill a little baby, then those of us sitting here in these chambers of freedom are presiding over the greatest human genocide in the history of humanity, and some of it may be financed in the future, Madam Speaker, with taxpayer dollars over which we will have had direct control. Madam Speaker, our Founding Fathers believed there were certain self- evident truths that were worth holding on to. The greatest of those truths in their minds was the transcendent meaning of this gift of God called human life. Our Constitution says no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Thomas Jefferson said that ``The care of human life and its happiness and not its destruction is the chief and only object of good government.'' Madam Speaker, protecting the lives and constitutional rights of our fellow Americans is why we are all here, and forcing taxpayers to pay for the indiscriminate killing of helpless little baby Americans is not good government and it should be ended once and for all.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chair, I missed rollcall vote No. 273. If I were here, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I missed rollcall vote No. 270 for H. Con. Res. 35. If I were here, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

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

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Chair, on rollcall 101, I mistakenly voted ``no''; however, I intended to vote ``aye.'' Amendment No. 88 Offered by Mr. Kind

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. 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.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. 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. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. 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.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. ``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. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. 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.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. 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.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. 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. FRANKS of Arizona

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. 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.

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. 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.