Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. That is what concerned me back in September. The President repeatedly said, my bill will not do this, my plan does this, my bill does that, my plan does this. And he says, if you misrepresent my bill, I am going to call you out. Well, I know what it means to be called out back in Texas, but I didn't know what the President meant by calling out. Well, I don't want to give the President rise to call me out because I have misrepresented something. So all I would ask for is what bill he was talking about. How can anybody say this bill, my bill, this plan, my plan, and they don't have a bill that they are talking about? How can you misrepresent what is in a bill that doesn't exist? It makes it rather frustrating. But I do know in this document here, and this was put together by the Republican Study Committee, it is a list of just different Republican proposals. This whole thing is one summary after another. And each one of these bills represents many pages. My bill in here is 25 pages. It has some great information, not that I dreamed up, but after visiting with real experts that deal with this stuff all the time, and some of the brightest minds in America. Newt Gingrich did me a favor, sending over some people to visit with me about some of the ideas. That is 25 pages. There are some great ideas contained in all these many different Republican proposals. And yet we are told you can't make any preconditions for this meeting, and yet here is our 12-page proposal, and that is our precondition. You would meet with Ahmadinejad--and this is something my friend Mr. King pointed out--how could somebody agree to meet with a man who is proud of being the former President of a terrorist country and wants to destroy the United States, clearly wants to wipe Israel off the map, and you will sit down with a nut like that with no preconditions. But that is a terrorist, it is okay, we will meet with no preconditions with him. But with Republicans, they are worse than terrorists. We have got our preconditions, and you can't have any. That is really not right. It is not right when we are talking about something as important as not merely the health of Americans, but we are talking about government control of virtually every private aspect of your life. If this were just about health care, it would be rough enough. But you don't have over 2,000 pages, as we did in the health care bill here in the House, and not intrude into so many areas, including the requirement, a shall, one of the many shalls it required was a study by the Secretary of Health and Human Services with the Secretary of Labor shall conduct a study of businesses. And it goes through a list of different things they are supposed to look for, the kind of benefits the employees get. And one of them is whether or not particular companies are making decisions that will allow them to remain solvent. It is government at an intrusion like never seen before in this country.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman for yielding. It's a pleasure to wait. It's not patiently. I'm just sitting and taking in everything that has been said and benefiting from that. My friends here, the gentlewoman from Minnesota, the gentleman from Iowa, and others, have worked very hard on the Declaration of Health Care Independence. But it must it be noted that these last 10 things that are pledges are things the President has already promised. You know, and it is important that people in Washington keep their word. You give your word and say, this is what we're going to do, we will not do that, then it's important that we keep our word. So we were hoping that the President--and there's still time, and we would ask, Mr. Speaker, that the President go ahead and note these 10 things, all of which he has promised, and say, you know what? Even though our leaders didn't make these preconditions, they're not really preconditions. They're just saying, will you live up to what you've promised before? Please, Mr. President, live up to what you promised before. That's all this is asking. That's all it's stating. That's what the pledge is. Number 1, protect as inviolate the vital doctor-patient relationship. That's been promised by the President. We're going to protect the doctor-patient relationship. So that shouldn't be a tough one to agree to. Number 2, reject any addition to the crushing national debt heaped upon all Americans. The President promised when he was running for the Presidency and after he's elected to the Presidency, we're not going to heap on any debt. And, in fact, I've enjoyed his speeches recently where he has chastised Congress for spending too much money, and that he's having to do by Executive order what didn't pass in Congress. And I'm sorry. I haven't heard anybody point out the irony of saying, you know what? I am going to appoint an executive committee, people that I choose, and heck, I'll let you throw some people in there, but I'm going to sign an order to create a panel to save money. Now, this panel is going to cost millions and millions of dollars. But we're going to have a panel that will cost us millions and millions of dollars, but we're hoping somehow in the end we'll finally get this Democratic majority to do what they haven't done before, and that is rein in spending. You know, Republicans lost the majority in 2006 because they had not reined in spending. Yeah, it was the Republican Congress in 1995 through 2000 that did as they said, they reined in spending. This President has said that. And I don't know what happened to the Vice President. I do know the President said, you know, he's going to put him in charge and people would be afraid to mess with the Vice President. But what happened to scrubbing the budget line by line? We just shot up $3.8 trillion, never a budget that high in the history of the country ever. And yet, just crushing national debt will be heaped upon all Americans. So, the ask here, Mr. Speaker, is that the President go back and listen to some of his own speeches recently where he has said we have got to stop this runaway spending. So if he'll listen to what he said himself there, then we'll be able to get him to agree to Number 2 because he said it himself. Number 3, improve rather than diminish the quality of care that Americans enjoy. Now, it's one thing to come before the American public and say nobody's going to be denied any type of coverage. Yet, you talk to people in England, you talk to people in Canada, they're not denied coverage. So we're not going to say you can't have that surgery. You can't have that radiation. We're going to put you on a list and one in five of you, like for with localized breast cancer tumor, one in five of you here in England are going to die waiting on a list; whereas, if you were in America, you would get that treatment anyway. So let's improve, rather than diminish the quality of care. That ought to be the goal. Number 4, negotiate it publicly, transparently, with genuine accountability and oversight, and be free from political favoritism. I know eight times the President promised on television that he--it's on video eight different times that the negotiations would be done on C- SPAN. Well, that doesn't mean when you're going to come bring a bunch of people in and talk for 6 hours when the negotiation already occurred, because we've already heard from AARP and union reps, those folks that have said, oh, yeah, we've already negotiated this deal. We've come up with a compromise between the House and the Senate bill. That's not transparent. He promised everybody would get to see who was siding with the pharmaceutical companies--I've heard the President say this stuff--and who's siding with the union, who's siding with the AARP and who's siding with people. And when I say ``AARP,'' I mean that entity. I don't mean retired people, because all of us, I think, in this Chamber right now side with the retired people whether we do with AARP or not. Number 5, treat private citizens at least as well as political officials. What that means is, particularly, the little phrase that was added to the House bill when people had an outcry from around the country that we expect Members of Congress to have to live with whatever they do to us, there was that line inserted into the House bill that just said Members of Congress may participate in this program. Well, I haven't found anybody in America, when you read that line to them, that doesn't immediately pick up on the word ``may.'' Now, this pledge that we're asking of the President, that so many people across America have already signed on to, just says, you know, treat private citizens at least as well as the public officials. We're called public servants for a reason. We're the servants. We're not supposed to be the masters. Number 6, protect taxpayers from compulsory funding of abortion. Well, the President said right in here in September, there are those who claim that our reform efforts--well, let's see. Under our plan, no Federal dollars will be used to fund abortions. He said that. Well, the truth is, we had to have the Bart Stupak amendment to prevent what the President said from being false. And if the Stupak amendment hadn't passed here in the House, then what the President said would not have been true. In fact, at the time he said it, it wasn't true. I'm sure he didn't realize that he was stating something false, but it wasn't true. That's why the Stupak amendment was necessary. And the Stupak amendment was not used in the Senate version. Number 7, reject all new mandates on patients, employers, individuals, or States. Well, originally, that's what was promised by the President, so hopefully he'd be willing to go back and live up to that. Prohibit expansion of taxpayer funded health care to those unlawfully present in the United States. The President said in September, those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants, this too is false. The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. Unless you require identification, it's not going to happen. We want the President to the live up to his promise, and we'd ask that that pledge be made. Number 9, guarantee equal protection under the law and the Constitution. That means it applies across the board to everyone, every State. Number 10, empower, rather than limit, an open and accessible marketplace of health care choice and opportunity. I've heard people say I want the same health care coverage you have. Well, you don't want what I had last year. I didn't want it. I got rid of that at the end of last year, and I went through that big publication we had that every Federal employee has, and I chose a different insurance for this year. I hope it works out. You don't want my insurance I had last year. You want my choices, and that's what Number 10 is talking about. American people ought to have a choice. And with those 10 things being covered, I sure hope the President will be willing to live up to those things he's promised over the last year and half. And I yield back to my friend, Mr. King.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. What responsible people do, and I appreciate being lectured on responsible, is they bring down spending immediately. You don't have a President or a head of a household saying we're going to get responsible next year. Yeah, that's it. Next year. No, you do it now. You don't keep going on. And I'll give you a personal, very personal example. We have three kids who have been going through college. We owe a lot on student loans. We have a home that I'm not in 4 or 5 days out of the week. I love that home. I hoped that home would be my home the rest of my life. But we're putting it up for sale because it's an asset; it will allow us to pay off debt. Let's start selling some of our assets. But instead, oh, no. Last week we voted to buy a bunch of the Virgin Islands. We voted in here, because of the majority, we're going to buy homes in foreign countries for rare dogs and cats. We're going to buy homes for cranes that don't live in this country. It's time to get responsible all right. Let's vote down this bill, and let's come back and be responsible immediately.

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, we can agree on some things. Default is not responsible is one of them. It isn't responsible. But there are things that can be done to avoid defaulting other than raising the massive debt ceiling beyond anything anybody ever dreamed of before. And we keep being told that Clinton gave you a balanced budget. The President does not vote on a balanced budget. He signed, and wasn't real happy there at first about signing a balanced budget that was pushed over there by the Republican majority that was voted in in 1994 because of the Democrats' irresponsibility. And so things went well as the Republicans did what they were elected to do for a time. But you are right: when President Bush got elected, 9/11 happened, and the spending began anew, and it was not responsible as it should have been. And when I was elected in 2004, one of the things that we dealt with was too much spending. And it continued. And some of us fought to bring it down, but it was not enough. And as a result, the Democrats have been in charge since 2007. And so pay-as-you-go--let me tell you, I was asked earlier today by our whip, Eric Cantor. You know, we checked our records. You voted for this one of the times they brought it up last year. Why'd you do that? And I said, it was my mistake. I thought they were serious. But they keep waiving and exempting, keep adding it to bills, and here it is back again. They won't fool me again because I know they're not serious about it anymore. We heard from Art Laffer, who was the architect behind turning around double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, double-digit interest rates. How'd he do it? He cut taxes 30 percent. And Art Laffer 2 weeks ago said you want to deal with this deficit? You have so much in the way of assets in the western part of the country. You own most of the country. Start selling some assets. That's what people do who are responsible.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, here on the floor of the House of the United States House of Representatives, tribute must be paid to the incredible achievement of a constituent of the First District of Texas, from Longview--he's already a legend--Ben Spies. Ben won the 2009 FIM Superbike World Championship. This brave and talented Texan started racing as an 8-year-old child with the Central Motorcycle Roadracing Association and, for good reason, has earned himself the nickname ``Texas Terror.'' Ben is the second youngest rider to win the American Motorcyclist Association Superbike Championship, and the fourth youngest rider with 20 AMA Superbike wins. He holds the third most all-time AMA Superbike wins, and boasts the longest AMA Superbike winning streak. After coming off his third straight AMA Superbike Championship, Ben successfully beat the expected winner, Noriyuki Haga, at the 2009 FIM Superbike World Championship by six points with 11 poles in the 14 round series for a total of 28 races. The discipline, dedication and success that Ben has displayed to the sport of motocross racing over the past 16 years has truly set him apart as a true champion. Ben Spies is to be congratulated upon his winning the 2009 FIM Superbike World Championship. He has no doubt blazed a trail for future successes with his steady hand, nerves of steel, and balance like nowhere found here in the House of Representatives. May God bless and protect an American legend, Ben Spies.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I had the privilege of hearing the esteemed economist, Art Laffer, who is credited with bringing the United States out of a worse recession than we are in right now by overcoming double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, and double digit interest rates, and he did it by cutting taxes. Of course, we know taxes are going to jump up like crazy a year from now. But what he said is if you want to get this government out of the tremendous trouble we are in, quit buying things, quit buying land and things, and start selling off some of the assets. That is what a regular family would do when they find themselves in debt. That is what I am doing right now to pay off student loans. We are selling our house and going to downsize. Why can't the government do that? Let's quit spending like crazy. Let's sell off some of our assets, pay down our debt, and let America find jobs again.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa pointing these things out. And I do recall in the President's address here in this very Chamber back in September, I believe he said in that speech that there would be no funding abortion. Now the trouble for us was that some people in this body actually read and had been reading the House bill. And there was one section there, and I don't have the bill with me, I have got a copy all tabbed that I have gone through because I was reading the bill. And shockingly, even though, the President said there won't be a penny going for abortions, you turn right there, and there's a section title that says ``abortions,'' for which Federal funding can be spent or approved. And you go, whoa, I guess the President didn't know about that. We heard the President say there is no money in this health care bill that is going to go for illegal aliens, and I think one of our friends hollered out about that time. When the fact is, as we know, when the House health care bill passed, one of the things that had been written up in the local papers were there were Members across the aisle that said: if you put a requirement in this bill that people show identification to show that they are legally here, they are legal residents and therefore legally getting the health care insurance benefits, then we are voting against the bill. Some of us think that should have been the motion to recommit, and that would have of course either gotten the bill pulled or it would have gone down in defeat if our friends across the aisle who said they would vote ``no'' if that was in there had been voted for and approved. But the way it stood, I think most everybody in here knew, except for the President--we know he wouldn't lie because the Parliamentarians told us that--but when he said that there would be no funding for illegal aliens, he didn't know, apparently, because if he did, it would have been a lie. So, obviously he didn't know that unless there was a requirement for identification in order to get the proceeds, then they are entitled to get the proceeds, illegally here or not. And obviously he didn't know that, or he wouldn't have said it. I have a dream that one day the President's promises are going to be kept. I have a dream it is going to happen. And I know when the President told America eight different times on television that we are going to have all these negotiations on C-SPAN, I know some day we are going to have all these negotiations on C-SPAN. It hasn't happened yet, because I have been trying to find out where the negotiations are going on so we could have true transparency. It was a great idea when the President said it, so that people all over the country can see who is negotiating for them, who is negotiating for the pharmaceuticals, who is negotiating for the insurance companies, who is negotiating for the plaintiffs' lawyers, who is negotiating for AARP, and who is really standing on the side of the retired folks. We would be able to see all that and it would be transparent. When I heard him saying that over and over on television throughout the Presidential campaign, I have to say, I thought, now, that is not a bad idea. That is a good idea. We will make this totally transparent. And even though I am a Republican, I have to say, the President had a good idea. Now, the trouble is we have got to get him to follow through. Once he won the election based on things he promised, we need to get him to follow through, because he did have some good ideas and the American people liked those ideas. If you go back and look at the exit polling data from 2008, November, when the President won, indications are two-thirds of the people in America said they voted for President Obama, and jobs and the economy was the number one issue. I believe it was about 10 percent who said that health care was a big deal to them, health care reform. So I think he misread the results. People wanted job assistance, get jobs going. We know that 70 percent of the jobs come from small business; yet his stimulus bill provided less than 1 percent in loans and assistance for small business. He told America, well, this is going to create infrastructure. Might as well do that. And it turns out less than about 7 percent of that bill went for infrastructure. So I think it is important that when the President has a good idea, this body follow through, whether the President wants to follow through or not. And these things should be transparent. It should be open. The 40 bills that we have as solutions and great ideas to helping reform health care, because we want reform, we need reform, they ought to be listened to. There are some great ideas. And one of them would be complete transparency, and that is one of the things we want people to pledge, that you need transparency. The President was right when he was a candidate. He hasn't been right on that point since he has been President, but he was sure right as a candidate. And you look at the Declaration of Health Care Independence that we hope that lots of folks will sign tomorrow, transparency is a critical issue. Now, when you have a health care system where the big insurance companies, whether it is Blue Cross or Aetna or any of them, where they get one really, really cheap price and the government pays a small amount, but if you come in and pay cash because you are a hardworking, lower-middle class person that is struggling to make every dime and to make every dime stretch, and then you come in and you pay several times what the insurance company or the government pays when you are paying cash, the system is upside down. It needs reform. And we do need to say, as candidate, now President, said, you have got to have transparency. You have got to see who is selling out whom. And so if there were a group that said, We are for retired persons, and yet they didn't care what their members said, and they were losing members right and left who were dropping their dues, but you found out they make a lot more money from selling insurance than they do from people paying dues and they are getting a special deal and have millions more buying their insurance, then you would have some idea. And they also maybe negotiate that their executives will not be under the same pay cap that most other executives under the Federal insurance exchange part of it, people would notice that if they are watching it on C-SPAN, and they might get upset at anybody who says, I am representing retired persons, publicly, but in negotiations they cut deals for their executives and not for their retired people. Those are the things that need to be brought out. Those are the kinds of things that I know folks tomorrow, when they sign the Declaration of Health Care Independence, will be thinking about. You need transparency. You need accountability and oversight. One of the things we saw with the Madoff scandal, with the credit default swaps scandal, with AIG overextending on selling those, Goldman Sachs selling themselves in with AIG, and then their former chairman getting them the massive bailouts so that they could have the biggest, most healthy profiting year in history this last year, all these kinds of things going on, you need transparency and you need somebody standing up for the people. You need reform. And the government should be about oversight. It should be about making sure there is a fair, level playing field. And then the government doesn't play. They are referees. We don't need them as players. We need them as referees. That is an obligation this body has fallen down on badly in the preceding years, and it is time we got back to it. Those are things that need to be part of reform. The government should be about making sure people play fair, not being the bully player on the field that muscles everybody else off of it. Those are the kinds of things we need to be about. And when you think of the things that have been represented and what turned out to be true, people were told, well, this group came out with a study that said if you are between 40 and 50 and you are a woman, you shouldn't get a mammogram. And then they are told, well, that wouldn't have the power of law. Then they get to finding out, well, gee, if this bill passes, what that body just said is going to be part of the law. And if you are 40 to 50, you don't get a mammogram. How many women have had their lives saved because they were able to get a mammogram between 40 and 50, and they found that little tumor early while it was still localized, at a time where they were allowed in the United States to have a 98 percent chance of success and no cancer at 5 years; whereas, in England, where they have the socialized medicine that some of our friends across the aisle are trying to drive us to, they have about 20 percent less success, and about 20 percent more die of cancer. They don't need to if you let them have the mammogram when they need it. And those are the kinds of things that need to come out. People need to know those. I yield back.

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, I thank my friend from Iowa (Mr. King). And I know from having visited Iowa, it's composed of extraordinary people as well. And I tell you, just in the last month we have seen extraordinary things across the country, from Massachusetts, for one, for, we saw when we had a Senator take--basically hold up the health care bill, many of us hoped it was going to be on good principle, but it turned out it was just for money to take back to his State. But here, again, you had to love the people in America's heartland. I think the gentleman from Iowa knows where Nebraska is. And here the Senator comes back and says, you know, gee, I negotiated hundreds of millions of dollars for you here in this State at the expense of the whole rest of the country. And what did Nebraskans say? The vast majority said, we don't want that dirty money. That's not ours. We don't want extorted money. We don't want dirty money. We just want fairness. And you've just got to love folks that have that sense of equity and fairness and justice and understand where the country came from. And so it's that spirit, that same spirit that started a revolution back in--going back to 1775 and 1776, with the production, as we know, in July, of the Declaration of Independence. And what a historic time that was. What a powerful time that was. And we know, going back to those days, that now we have the letter that John Adams wrote Abigail after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In the last part of the letter he says, talking about the celebration and the incredible event that had occurred, the coming together, the first draft of course that Jefferson did, and of course the first person he showed it to was then John Adams. They politically were at odds, but they were friends at that time, very close friends, even though they fussed and argued over political issues. And then Adams was just taken aback with how fantastic the document was. He may or may not have made some minor changes. And then second to see it was Benjamin Franklin. Now, Benjamin Franklin made more changes, the editor and publisher that he was. And then that was brought to the body, and they debated and they fussed and they came up with this, the final declaration. And after they had come together, they signed it. The last part of John Adams' letter to his wife, Abigail, was this, his words: I'm apt to believe that it, the day of the signing of the declaration, will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. We call it July 4, Independence Day. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. John Adams' words. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns--of course we use fireworks instead of guns quite so much now--bells, bonfires, illumination from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more. Then he goes on very seriously to Abigail, and he says, You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration and to support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction which I trust in God we will not rue. So that's basically the gist of the end of the letter, and that was quite an occasion. In other correspondence he had said, you know, we have within our grasp the opportunity to govern ourselves that people have only dreamed about, that theologians have written and talked about, but it's within our grasp to govern ourselves. But then we also know that one of Thomas Jefferson's great lines was, The normal course of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain. And that's what we've been seeing, particularly for the last year or so. Liberty has been yielding and government has been gaining. We know that government is where the jobs have been gained, not in the private sector, not liberty jobs, not jobs of freedom, but government taking more and more away from the private sector. And then we see this health care monstrosity, 2,000 pages, not about health care. You know, we've heard people say, it's about the government taking over one-sixth of the economy. But I like the way our friend, Tom Price, put it. It's not about taking over one-sixth of the economy. It's about taking over 100 percent of every individual. That's what it's about. And so, as my friend from Iowa knows, we've spent many, many hours with friends like Michelle Bachmann and others, so many others up here on Capitol Hill, putting our heads together and working, giving and take, to come up with a document that really declares what we believe about health care. And I imagine my friend from Iowa is as sick as I am of hearing people, even here on the floor, come in and say, well, Republicans, they don't want reform. They're the party of no, no, no. We have over 40 bills that are good solutions to health care problems. And I know that my friend from Iowa agrees: we need reform. We want reform to health care. We cannot have the costs continue to skyrocket like nothing else in this country. We can't have that. We need reform, but we don't need more government. We need health care reform. And it was in that spirit of coming together, not with something as dramatic as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and those incredible intellects came up with with the original Declaration of Independence, but really with that, just a modicum of that great spirit of independence that they had and not wanting government to gain and liberty to yield, but wanting liberty to triumph and yet everyone have the opportunity for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. So in that spirit, the Declaration of Health Care Independence was put together. No one got shot. No one lost their fortunes, as did so many of those 56 signers of the original Declaration. We owe them so much. But we also owe them not to continue to allow liberty to yield and government to gain. They told us what would happen. Read their writings. Read their quotes. We owe them better than that. And that is why it's going to be so great to have so many people coming together and say, I am making this declaration. I am pledging that we are going to adhere to those principles of liberty and yet providing a better chance for health care with affordable health care under patient control where the relationship between a doctor and patient doesn't have a government intermediary, doesn't have an insurance company getting in between the patient and doctor. It gets us back to something that has been missing for so long, and that is a regular doctor-patient relationship. And to think in that 2,000 pages, one of the biggest parts of it is we're going to bring all of the health care records to Washington and we're going to store them here for you because that way we will know all of your deepest, darkest, private secrets. There is nothing your government won't know once we get holed up every one of your most private medical records. That was a big deal. You hear them say, well, we'll cut this out, we'll cut that out, because they know when they have every person's medical records in Washington, D.C.--and under both the Senate and the House bill you make the Internal Revenue Service the enforcement arm for a health care bill, the worst of all world's--the government knowing all of your most private secrets about your own body and the Internal Revenue Service having access to them and to your finances to bring about, as Tom Price says, a hundred percent control over your body, that is something that should be intolerable. That is why we need a Declaration of Health Care Independence. And I know there are friends across the aisle who believe abortion is just fine; it's just tearing the tissue out. I know we have other friends like Bart Stupak who know what abortion is, that it's taking a life. But surely, surely we can get the vast majority in this body to agree that taxpayers should be protected from being forced to pay for abortion when they know and believe in their hearts it is taking the life of our most vulnerable people. There is just so much that needs to be done to drive a stake through the heart of this terrible monstrosity called the health care reform bill. With that, I yield back to my friend from Iowa.

Mr. GOHMERT. I understand we just have 1 minute left, but I appreciate so much Mr. King from Iowa taking this time to point out what we need in the way of health care reform. It isn't the massive 2,000-page monstrosity. It's true transparency. It's true accountability. And I appreciate this discussion with my friend from Iowa tonight.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I sure thank my friend from Virginia for yielding. And, yes, we need a balanced budget amendment, and that will do great things. It will strengthen the dollar. It will show the world that we are responsible when it comes to spending for a change. And also, of course, we know that takes ratification of the States and passing both Houses, and we just flat need to do that. In the meantime, we understand the President may come into this very Chamber and stand right up there and actually suggest that perhaps we ought to freeze the budget of three Departments. Well, I am so glad that our President is coming around and getting on board with some Republican proposals. This is H.R. 4408. But rather than three departments, this is--and I will read from the bill. It was filed last year. Got lots of Republicans on as cosigners. No Democrats yet. Hope they will come on board once the President starts talking about this. But it says, to amend the Balanced Budget and Deficit Control Act of 1985 to eliminate automatic increases for inflation from CBO baseline projections for discretionary appropriations, and other purposes. It will end the automatic increase in every discretionary budget in the Federal Government. Now we're talking about being responsible with our spending. No automatic increases every year. Nobody I know of in America gets that kind of thing. If they're working, if they produce, perhaps they'll get an increase. Well, the government shouldn't get automatic increases every year. If you're going to get an increase, it has to be justified. And that has been lacking for so long. I will just read here. It says, This act may be cited as the Within Our Means Budget--WOMB--Act of 2009; whereas, from passage of this bill will come a new birth of freedom for American taxpayers and an end to the automatic increases for each department that has been bankrupting America. There are all kinds of good solutions. So I'm proud the President's coming around. Perhaps if we can push him a little further, we can make him even a little more responsible so we start reining in the greatest budget deficit in a 1-year history that has just gone on under this President's watch. So I appreciate my friend from Virginia yielding, and I look forward to starting to get Democrats, now that the President is talking about some good Republican ideas.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. So what you're saying is the President's health care bill really is a jobs bill, but instead of creating them, it eliminates them.

Mr. GOHMERT. It is so important also to note that, with all the talk about our friends across the aisle who are concerned about the working poor in America, if you look at the bill that was passed out of this House, it makes it very clear: if you can't afford the great policy that is mandated and if you're just above the poverty line where the government is going to pay for it, you'll have an additional 2\1/2\ percent income tax on your income. That is outrageous. Those are the people who, if they could afford to buy the insurance, they would buy the insurance. Now you're going to pop them with another 2\1/2\ percent tax. That's not caring about the working poor, about the people who are helping make the engine in this country go.

Mr. GOHMERT. It is very new. Of course we've heard the argument that actually, yes, States do require you to buy insurance if you're going to drive a car. You don't have to own a car or drive a car to live in a State, not in any State. But another thing that's lost in the equation too is there is no mandate by any State in this country to buy insurance to protect your own car and your own person. You are required to buy insurance to protect the other person whom you may harm while you're driving. And all of that is based on the privilege of driving, it is not based on just living. We are supposed to have, under our Constitution, as was mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, this right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Whether you're an unborn child or whether you're an old geezer like some of us, you actually have a right to life. And here the Federal Government is saying we're going to snuff yours out a little early because we just don't find that you're all that productive. Where is that line drawn once they're allowed to say now you buy a product or you don't get to live here?

Mr. GOHMERT. And along those lines--I appreciate the gentleman yielding--we've heard the President say, well, you know, States require you to buy insurance for your car, so this is nothing new.

Mr. GOHMERT. Exactly.

Mr. GOHMERT. Yes, exactly, Tennessee. Tennessee and Minnesota. But that is what has gotten people upset across the country and is what we saw in Massachusetts. They've seen what's going on around here. There was a promise that C-SPAN would be covering all the negotiations because we're talking about people's lives, the length of their lives, and their loved ones, how long are they going to be able to be living in this world, whether they will get the medication they need, or are they going to be told you're too old? So as the President so ably said before he was elected, those negotiations need to be out there. And all we've seen is the nasty, sordid deals that were cut after being behind closed doors so that you have insurance companies signing onto the President's bill. And then you go through and say, ah, here are the pages where they got their deal cut. Ah, here is the deal that the plaintiffs lawyers got. Ah, here's the deal the pharmaceutical industry got. And they're conflicting. And it is such a mass of mess the way they've cut these deals and they've forged them together. And the ones that are going to suffer are the people in this country when there is no reason to.

Mr. GOHMERT. If it's mandated by the government, then certainly it's a tax, because that is all that the government is entitled to do. Under our Constitution, you can't force somebody to buy a product. And I appreciate your directing that question to me because obviously all the prior questions were directed at my friends from Louisiana and Minnesota because you qualified it by saying, This question is for the esteemed Members. So I stayed quiet throughout your answers, but now you have included me as the unesteemed Member.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, in hearing the discussion about what is constitutional and what isn't, the American people are not stupid. In Massachusetts, with over 68 percent of the precincts reporting, the Republican, Brown, has about a hundred thousand votes more--53, moving towards 54 percent, to 46. Massachusetts was not fooled. They looked at the candidates, they looked at what the candidates themselves were saying to the people in Massachusetts, and Brown made clear he wasn't voting for the health care bill. And he is doing the unthinkable: he's running away with this at this point. It's not even close. It's not even close enough that legal action and all those types of things that have been tried in other places were going to help. The people have made clear, and I couldn't help but think about a comment of one of our Democratic colleagues down the hall when he said, You know, the further we go, the more difficult it is to pass laws that the American people don't want passed. That is the way it's supposed to be. This body is not supposed to come in here and pass laws that the American people do not want passed. They are not supposed to. That is the way it was designed. I love what Justice Scalia said not long ago when someone asked, Is the Bill of Rights really what has made this country the greatest country of liberty in history, and he said, No; the Soviet Union had a better Bill of Rights than we do. It was because the Founders did not trust government, and they wanted to make it as difficult as they could to pass a law to put upon the people. So they created not one body, but two bodies, and created it to where either body could cancel out the other body. And that wasn't good enough. They said, We need an executive. But we don't want a prime minister that is elected by the legislature. Oh, no. We want an executive elected separately, and then he can veto what those bodies do. Even if they don't cancel out each other, he can cancel them out. And that's not good enough. We want a judicial branch that will make it even more difficult to create laws that are crammed down the throats of the American people. He said, That is what actually has done more to preserve the rights of Americans, because it was so difficult to get laws passed. And what we have seen the last year in here is just a complete usurpation of all of those checks and balances that were provided by the Founders, the complete, actually, elimination of them, as we saw the White House have an auto task force in secret. Cram down laws that were in violation of what were passed here regarding bankruptcy. We had a bankruptcy judge willing to just sign an order that was given to him that was in clear violation of the laws that were passed, and then a Supreme Court that didn't do anything about it. To her credit, Ruth Bader Ginsburg put a 24-hour hold, but then that was withdrawn. And so the Constitution was turned upside down; the laws were turned upside down. And now the American people have had enough. And we are seeing it in Massachusetts. Who would have thought that a Senator in California would have a close race, much less a Senator in Massachusetts have a close race. And now it's turned out it wasn't even close. You have a Republican in Massachusetts that appears well on his way to being sworn in as the next Senator from Massachusetts. I know that those in power in Massachusetts would not be exceedingly hypocritical and delay swearing Senator Brown in. Surely they would not be that hypocritical. He ought to be sworn in just as quickly as the interim Senator was sworn in to avoid being labeled eternally as the hypocrites of the decade. So I'm sure they won't allow that to happen. They will swear in Senator Brown just as quickly as they can do that. This should spell the end, as we are told, of health care. But, here again, we have people in the House, people in the Senate, that say, Forget what the American people want, forget what the Constitution says. It should be pointed out, as my friends have been talking about the Constitution, when you lay it out, I don't see how this could be held constitutional. And so we've tried to get a fast track in there to go straight to the Supreme Court. Here and in the Senate they don't want it in there because they know it'll be held unconstitutional. I appreciate my friend for yielding. But it appears Massachusetts is speaking very loudly.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. That is an excellent question that's been posed about the type of discovery that's afforded in a civil trial, in a civilian U.S. district court as opposed to those in a military commission. A military commission, as set up constitutionally, as the Supreme Court has said is constitutional, has more limited discovery, so we do not have to turn over all our national secrets to our enemies during a time of war when they're at war with us. Can you imagine if during World War II there were Japanese or Germans who were at war with us captured on the battlefield and President Roosevelt or President Truman had said, you know what? We're going to bring them in and put them in a show trial in a U.S. district court in America. Well, they would say, well, we, as defendants, we want all your information; Germans saying we want to know what information you have about our Enigma machines. We want to know in the Japanese area of occupation what information you have. All the demands that can be made in discovery. And you say, well, a U.S. district court can review those things privately and decide what can be disclosed and what can't. You don't have to disclose state secrets. It is ridiculous to get to that point. I hear some, again, who are ignorant of history--good people, just ignorant of history--that think we need to afford these people all of the rights that any American has. Well, an American who is at war with another country is afforded certain rights, but not the rights that they would be afforded in a U.S. district court. They're afforded all of the rights that our Constitution requires in the military commission. And there is more restrictive discovery. Unfortunately, there was ignorance in America and among our leaders and among most of us in America that there was a war going on. The United States was at war, but only one side knew, and that was the side attacking us. President Carter didn't realize that; actually, President Reagan didn't realize that. President Clinton certainly didn't realize that. For all the good things he was doing to try to help oppressed Muslims in the world and sending troops to help out, you would have thought that there wouldn't be this type of thing being planned on his watch. But we know from the trial back in the early 1990s after the bombing at the World Trade Center in 1993 that, on the one hand, information was disclosed in discovery that the U.S. had gotten intelligence by intercepting cell phone calls. That was immediately traced back to al Qaeda, and they immediately stopped using cell phones. And so had that not occurred and that trial not occurred in a U.S. district court, so they wouldn't have handed over the information that we were getting our intelligence from cell phones, there is an excellent chance we would have known that 9/11 was coming from the cell phone chatter. But that was foreclosed. We also know from that trial back in the 1990s that information was demanded by the defendants of the unnamed co-conspirators. That was required to be disclosed. Within 2 weeks, all of that information was back in the hands of Osama bin Laden and they knew who not to use and who we were on to. Again, it hurt us dramatically in our intelligence efforts to defend ourselves and to prepare for the onslaught against us. So it is dangerous to provide people at war with you with the kind of discovery that will be available in the U.S. district courts. What is infuriating to me--I was in the Army for 4 years. I know about the military justice system. To think about our soldiers in harm's way having the requirement put on them that for the future you may have an Attorney General or a President that decides the people you capture on the battlefield are entitled to a trial in a U.S. district court. Therefore, we know you're being shot at, but go ahead and go on out there and bring your forensic wagon and start getting fingerprints so we can prove that they touched the bullet casings that you saw them touch because your testimony in a U.S. district court will need to be supplemented with hard evidence. We will need DNA evidence, we will need other evidence forensic in nature. We'll have to have people go out there and check out the bodies, take the bullets out of our servicemen who were killed by this guy you saw shoot so that we can establish that, yes, their fingerprints were on the weapon. That is insane to require our soldiers and sailors, our military in harm's way to go out and be conducting forensic evidence examinations on a battlefield during a time when people are at war with us. I was glad to hear our President say in the last couple of weeks that he recognizes now that we are in a war. Well, if we're in a war, you don't bring--they were called ``enemy detainees''; now, as amended in the past year by our majority here in the House and Senate, that language has been changed. It was just really kind of impolite to call them enemy combatants. That language has now been changed in the law to ``alien unprivileged enemy belligerents.'' Hopefully that will make them feel better. But it goes back to what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said in his pleading, ``They fight not against you even together. ``Their enmity among themselves is very great, you would think that they were united, but their hearts are divided. That is because they are a people who understand not.'' They know that there are people in this country who are ignorant, that they are in a war and intend to destroy us, and they say that's what gives them the advantage over us. So you have people well- intentioned. Now, that's a good intention of the President of the United States to say, You know what? We're going to be above board, give them all this information, and have all of these open trials. Of course, we also heard we were going to have open proceedings on the health care bill, and that hasn't happened. Although we're not going to open up the health care debate and although we're not going to do what we promised and put it on C- SPAN, we are going to do that for the enemies of the United States. That is extraordinary.

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is an interesting time we live in. We have heard in the past year that Gitmo is the main recruiting tool, the best recruiting tool for al Qaeda, for Islamic jihadists who want to destroy America. And so I thought it was important that we look at that a little more in depth, rather than just having a cursory action, because for those of us who have been to Gitmo, I have been twice, I know that no one has ever been waterboarded at the Guantanamo Bay facility. The Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waterboarding occurred in the Middle East. And there are those that are worried about waterboarding continuing. The fact is, when that was leaked and such a big deal made out of it and the fact that when the U.S. has done it, been involved, there have been a doctor there, there was no way they were going to allow harm to come to the individual being waterboarded, the word was out. And so Islamic extremists, jihadists that want to kill America, that want to wipe us off the face of the map, want to destroy Israel, they knew and could tell their extremists you don't have to worry if you are ever waterboarded, because they will have a doctor there, they are not going to let anything happen to you. So obviously, it will never work as a procedure again. But as we have found out, there are a lot of Americans that are alive today because that procedure was used. So if Gitmo had never been used as a location where waterboarding or torture of any kind occurred, then why is it so bad? Well, it is because a lot of people don't know what they are talking about. Having visited many prisons as a judge, chief justice, and even as a Congressman having visited prisons, I know from visiting Guantanamo Bay facility, the detention facility there, that the people are not mistreated. They get good food. And in fact, most of the detainees there have gained weight, not lost weight. They get excellent medical facilities. They get treatment when they need it. The interrogation often, if there is any at all, occurs in a big lounge chair there. In fact, the biggest problem there at Guantanamo Bay for those who work there is having feces and urine thrown on them. The detainees figure out really brilliant ways to go about throwing feces and urine on the guards. Now, at most prisons if you do that you are put in isolation, where there is no way you could do something like that again. Not at Guantanamo Bay. As I was told by a commander there, because there are so many frequent visits by those who want to make sure no one is being done wrong there, they don't want anyone ever to be found in isolation no matter how much feces or urine they are throwing. So the thing that is normally done is taking away some of their movie watching time. Yes, they watch movies there. Nothing that violates their religion. They are given Korans that American hands have never touched. They are given food that is not inconsistent with their religious beliefs. It is really rather amazing. And then all of the money that was spent to build a courtroom facility there, and areas where the detainees could consult with their attorneys in private so that it was clear to anyone in that facility, in that detention area that there is no way to have bugs in this place, and so you could truly have private consultation, but it is so isolated an area you didn't have to worry about anybody coming in there. And the security measures were such there that it was an amazing facility for the trial of alleged terrorists. Now, we have Americans who are saying but it is just wrong to hold somebody without trying them. Those people are completely ignorant. They are not mean. They are just ignorant of the laws of war that have gone throughout time. Because never in the history of mankind has there been a time when a group declared war on another group or country and then were captured while they were in the process of bringing war against those individuals that they were given full civilian treatment in court. Certainly there has never been any American prisoners that were treated like that. In fact, if you read of the torture to Americans during World War II, some in the Pacific, some in Europe, but just phenomenal the treatment that has been accorded Americans. If you look at what has happened before Guantanamo Bay was ever opened to Americans at the hands of jihadists, extremists, then you find out that Gitmo didn't cause those problems. They didn't cause a rallying cry for people to join some extremist jihadist group. It was a matter of their religious beliefs. And if you look at the pleading that was filed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has now been ordered by our President, our Attorney General to be brought to New York for trial instead of being tried under the constitutional military commission down in Guantanamo, you see what he has to say. In fact, if you go back to his last--and this was declassified so that everyone in the country and the world could know what he had to say. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a very smart man. He is intent on doing everything he can to help destroy America, destroy our freedoms, destroy our way of life. But if you look at page six of his pleading, toward the end, he says, ``We have news for you. The news is you will be greatly defeated in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that America will fall politically, militarily, and economically. Your end is very near, and your fall will be just as the fall of the towers on the blessed 9/11 day. We will raise from the ruins, God willing,'' Khalid Sheikh Mohammed says. ``We will leave this imprisonment with our noses raised high in dignity, as the lion emerges from his den.'' And he says, ``We ask God to accept our contributions to the great attack on America, and to place our 19 martyred brethren among the highest peaks in paradise.'' Other comments he had to say in his pleading, and as I understand it he did his own interpretation, and he would make statements and then support them with what he believed was support from the Koran itself, he says, ``God stated in his book, verse 190, Al-Baqara, and fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, but Allah likes not the transgressors.'' But then he goes on in the very next page and talks about then fight--and he quotes, he says, ``From God's book, verse nine, Al-Tawbah, then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush.'' He says himself, ``In God's book, he ordered us to fight you wherever we find you, even if you were inside the holiest of all holy cities, the Mosque in Mecca, and the holy city of Mecca, and even during sacred months.'' So we've been told we could never fight a battle with extremist jihadists during Ramadan because that might violate their religious beliefs. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed states his belief that it's fine for them to blow us up in their sacred months, that's just fine. He goes on in another place, he says, ``We do not possess your military might, nor your nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, we fight you with the Almighty God. So, if our acts of jihad and our fighting with you caused fear and terror, then many thanks to God, because it is him that has thrown fear into your hearts, which resulted in your infidelity, paganism, and your statement that God had a son and your trinity beliefs.'' So obviously anyone who is a Christian, who believes that there is a Father, Son and Holy Ghost as part of the Holy Trinity, as was cited in the Treaty of Paris 1783--an original copy of that is over in our State Department on display. And you can see that the bold big letters that start the Treaty of Paris in which England had to recognize the United States--there was a treaty after the surrender at Yorktown, but this was the official treaty that England officially signed onto. They knew this was so important that they had to have it done in the name that was so important that no one in England would dare try to violate that oath. So in big, bold letters it says, ``In the name of the undivided and most Holy Trinity.'' So Khalid Sheikh Mohammed makes clear that anybody that would sign onto something like that clearly is an infidel and needs to be killed. Then he quotes, God stated in his book, verse 151, Al-Umran, ``Soon shall we cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, for that they joined companies with Allah, for which he has sent no authority''--in other words, saying that Allah or God had a son--``their place will be the fire; and evil is the home of the wrongdoers.'' Again, this is the pleading that was declassified by the court so we could know what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wrote. And he wrote it apparently, but on behalf of himself and the other prisoners who are now going to be transferred to New York City in an unprecedented move to get him right in the middle where he can cause more trouble. By the way, they were planning on pleading guilty. They were pleading guilty. There was not going to be much of a trial because they were going to plead guilty, take credit for what they've done, as he has done in this pleading. But now that our President and the Attorney General have said, hey, let's bring them to New York, let's give them a platform to spew their anger and hatred and disgust for the United States and let's give them a platform--they didn't say this verbally, but it's clearly what is happening and will happen--this will give them a platform to recruit for the terrorists. I know the President didn't intend to do that, I know that our Attorney General didn't intend to do it, but they're just ignorant of history and therefore they don't realize--and we'll forgive them, they know not what they do. But we need to look at these things that have been said. If you look at the bottom of page 5, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed says, ``America is the number one, and the largest country in the world, spreading military might and terrorism.'' He says, America is the principal and greatest supplier to the occupying terrorist State of Israel, and so God has ordered us to spend for jihad and this cause. And he says this is evident in many Koranic verses. There is one thing he says, though. He says, ``God has stated in his book, verse 14, Al-Hashir: They fight not against you even together, except in fortified townships, or from behind walls, their enmity among themselves is very great, you would think that they were united, but their hearts are divided. That is because they are a people who understand not.'' And so as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is saying, this is a great recruiting tool because of their ignorance. They don't know who they're fighting. They're not united. Obviously they're people that don't realize we're at war with them, and so they want to be buddies. And others realize we're at war with them and they want to stop us. But because of that division, the ignorance of those who don't really understand the war--not of the vast majority of Islam, but for this small, perhaps 1 percent of Islam, these extremist groups, they're saying they're going to be able to defeat us because we're divided because so many are ignorant and don't understand that they are in such a war with us. I see I have a colleague, Mr. Thompson; I would like to yield him such time as he may need.

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. I realize my time is expiring and appreciate the indulgence, Mr. Speaker. It should be clear, though, the way to deal with Iran is not through weakness. If they won't shut down the nuclear proliferation, we have got to shut them down. With that, we yield back our time.

Mr. GOHMERT. If you go back after the surge that was ordered by President Bush, and before that, things weren't going well. General Petraeus told us we need a surge. We got a surge and all of a sudden things are going much better in Iraq. They're going great. And some of the declassified information that was obtained by our intelligence sources, we saw their own writings. We saw what they said. They said that things are going so good for the United States, we thought after the Republicans lost the majority, they would pull out. But now that they've come with more troops and they're defeating us, we can't recruit. Their own information said we can't recruit, because this showed strength. And now they're having a big time because, gee, they've been successful in making us think that showing weakness is going to help us, when it's actually helping them recruit. It is exactly what's happened. Every time they acted and did something violent, and we responded by backing up. I want to address very quickly one of the things that's been brought up by some of our friends. Some people in the country say, Well, these prisoners need all of the constitutional rights they're supposed to have. And they're getting them at Gitmo. Because just as if--when I was in the military, I was subject to the UCMJ. I was subject to a military court. I wasn't entitled to a trial if I had done something on a military installation. I was entitled to a military trial. And that was constitutional. And it was constitutional and is constitutional for this Congress to set up military commissions to try people who have engaged in war against us. That is constitutional. And they've gotten all of their constitutional rights as someone at war with us. And now, because they're going to be tried in the United States, they're deciding to plead not guilty so they can put on a show. What causes more weakness, what causes more recruiting? Is it U.S. weakness or is it Gitmo? Clearly, our country leaders have been suckered into thinking that closing Gitmo will be a good thing for us, and in fact what is telegraphed is, these people are weak, just as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said. You would think they are united, but their hearts are divided. That's because they're people who understand not. They're saying, We don't understand.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate so much those wonderful points that were made. It is weakness that gives a recruiting tool, the joy among jihadists to realize we told them, close Gitmo. It's a nice place if you're going to be held somewhere as a prisoner. We told them it was a recruiting tool. And now, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said, that is because they are people who understand not the reason they'll defeat us. They didn't get it. They thought they really did need to close Gitmo, and they did, and they're going to bring it onto the continental U.S. That shows weakness. The fact that we are showing that kind of weakness in closing Gitmo is a fantastic recruiting tool.

Mr. GOHMERT. I would take you back to 1978 when a very nice man at that time was the President, named Jimmy Carter. I believe it was in 1978 that President Jimmy Carter hailed the Shah of Iran as leading a country that was the most stable entity in the whole Middle East. Then a year later, it had been home to a revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini came back, and for the first time in our lifetime--some say the first time ever--but certainly, for the first time in my lifetime, there were Islamic extremists, jihadist individuals, who were in charge of a nation and that nation's military. So going back to what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said in his pleading: Their hearts are divided. That is because they are people who understand not. Well, we had a President--again, a nice man, Jimmy Carter--but he understood not. He was wrong about the shah's having such a stable country. It was not stable. That was misread. Then he misread that these were guys who, if you just were nice to them, they'd be nice back. Apparently, they even sent a Cabinet member to talk to the representative of Ayatollah Khomeini to tell him, Look, we're ready to be friends, to help, to have a wonderful relationship with you. Just let us know when and how fast you want to proceed. He understood not that these people considered themselves as extremist jihadists--enemies of the United States. They considered it the Great Satan, and they needed to destroy it at all costs. Ayatollah Khomeini called for, basically, war against the United States. On November 4, 1979, Iranian Muslim extremists stormed the American Embassy in Iran. They actually took more than 52 hostages. They released some for PR purposes later but kept 52 diplomats hostage. Now, President Carter and his administration thought we can just out-friend them, and they'll release them. We'll just be nice to them. We know how to do this. We'll be really, really nice, and we'll work with them. In fact, at one point, President Carter said, We don't want to do anything that will put these hostages at risk. That was a green light to Islamic extremists, jihadists, around the world that the United States is a paper tiger, that it's weak and that, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said, They're divided. They understand not. They don't realize we are at war with them and are going to destroy them, and so we can take them. Those 444 days that the United States allowed itself to be held hostage in Iran were the greatest recruiting tools of jihadists the world over, and we did nothing. During the campaign of 1980, President Carter painted Presidential candidate Reagan as being so crazy that he might just attack these guys and take them out and that you couldn't trust him. Remember that ``Saturday Night Live'' had a sketch of Reagan walking around, asking where the red nuclear button was. He was going to push it. So the reputation around the world was such that people perceived that this Reagan guy may actually come after us, that we'd better release the hostages. Well, the hostages were released; but again, unfortunately, it wasn't limited to President Carter and advisers of his administration that they didn't recognize that the jihadists were at war with us. We had Marines in Beirut, Lebanon. In 1983, the Marine barracks were bombed in Lebanon. One terrorist driver drove through the concertina wire, drove through the guards, and the truck exploded and killed 241 American servicemen in Beirut, Lebanon. That was a phenomenal recruiting tool. People in America started saying, Let's just get out. Just get out. Unfortunately, on that occasion, President Reagan bowed to his advisers and to popular opinion at the time that we needed to just pull out. That was an extraordinary recruiting tool. At the time, jihadists used it in an incredible way to recruit for their crazed jihadist cause because they were able to say, Look, one guy gave his life, detonated a bomb, and the most powerful military country in the world, the United States, turned tail and ran. One man completely committed as a suicide bomber could make the United States cower and run, because that is the way it was perceived. That was a phenomenal recruiting tool for jihadists around the world. They were also not ignorant. The jihadists were not. In Vietnam, instead of just finishing giving our soldiers, sailors and airmen what they needed to just win the war and to come home, it was strung out in Washington under President Johnson. He was even picking the bombing sites in Washington instead of letting the servicemen do their jobs. One of the things I admire about former President George H.W. Bush is when he committed that we were going to liberate Kuwait from the atrocity of Saddam Hussein's moving in and taking over that country, he did a great thing. He called in the military guys, and said, You guys are in the military. You tell me what we need. Here is what we're going to do. We're going to liberate Kuwait. So they put together a plan, and that's what they did. It was not the civilians running the activity. Sam Johnson, a Member of our body here, a colleague who was in the Hanoi Hilton for nearly 7 years, was told, after we carpet-bombed North Vietnam in Hanoi for 2 weeks, that they rushed back to the negotiating table, worked out a deal that was favorable to them and not to the United States. Sam said, when he was leaving the POW camp, the Hanoi Hilton, the commander was laughing, and said, You stupid Americans. If you had just bombed us for one more week, we would have had to surrender unconditionally. But we didn't do that. We didn't give the servicemembers what they needed to just win the war and come home. That should have been the lesson of Vietnam: never commit troops unless you are willing to give them what it takes to win the war and come home. In Beirut, Lebanon, our Marines were told--and the ones who were out on the perimeter who should have been able to stop the truck coming through the concertina wire--and there should have been more to stop them than that-- they were not allowed under their rules of engagement to even have rounds in their weapons. We've repeated some of those same mistakes, but that was a tremendous recruiting tool. If you go through the history, there are so many acts of war. That was certainly an act of war. Under everyone's interpretation of international law, when you invade an embassy, you have committed an act of war against that country. There is an act of war against America. We were within our rights to say, You either get our hostages out within 48 hours, 72 hours, whatever it is, or we're coming in. I was in the Army at Fort Benning at the time, so we were paying close attention. Nobody was dying to go to Iran, but people were prepared to go and die, if necessary, to defend our country after an act of war like that. Yet what happened after that was no response. So, again, they were able to recruit. After we pulled out of Beirut, Lebanon, after the attack on our Marine barracks in 1984, Malcolm Kerr, a Lebanese-born American, was president of the American University of Beirut. He was killed by two gunmen outside his office. Hezbollah said the assassination was part of the organization's plan to drive all Americans out of Lebanon. On March 16, Hezbollah kidnapped William Buckley, a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Buckley was supposed to be exchanged for prisoners, but that didn't happen. There was a trial in the U.S. District Court of a civil nature, not of prisoners of war, not of enemy combatants. There was a trial in the U.S. District Court where the evidence came forward to prove and it was established, and the court found that Hezbollah was responsible for the attack on the Beirut Marine barracks and that it was sponsored by Iran, that Iran was the one behind it all. They've been at war with us since 1979, and we didn't know it. You would have thought as other things occurred, like the Kuwait Airways Flight 221 being hijacked and diverted to Tehran where two Americans were killed, that that might have been a clue. It might have been a clue when two Hezbollah members hijacked a TWA flight and forced the pilot to fly to Beirut. Eight crew members and 145 passengers were held for 17 days, and one of the hostages, a U.S. Navy diver, was murdered. You would have thought that perhaps, when 4 terrorists from Abu Nidal's organization attacked the El Al offices at Leonardo DaVinci Airport in Rome and 13 people, including 5 Americans, were killed and 74 were wounded, among them 2 Americans, that that would have been a clue that someone was at war with us. It might have been a clue that in an explosion at the LaBelle nightclub in Berlin frequented by American soldiers that two U.S. soldiers were killed and 191 individuals were wounded, including 41 U.S. soldiers, and they saw the evidence indicating Libya was involved, that that would have been a clue. In 1988, Colonel William Higgins, the American chief of the UN Truce Supervisory Organization, was abducted again by Hezbollah, backed by Iran, and Hezbollah later claimed they killed Colonel Higgins. Some who were alive back in the 1980s may recall that, after Libya had sponsored terrorism, President Reagan realized you have got to deal with these people in a manner they understand. We sent planes to Libya, they bombed his home, and we didn't have any more trouble out of Libya for a number of years. But if you come up to 1991, there were two car bombings that killed a U.S. Air Force sergeant and severely wounded an Egyptian diplomat in Istanbul, and the Turkish Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. You get to 1993, February 26, a massive van bomb exploded in an underground parking garage below the World Trade Center in New York City that killed six and wounded 1,042. Four Islamist activists were responsible for the attack. But those in authority in the country did not realize that we were even in a war. We were in a war. So when you start thinking about what is the greatest terrorist recruiting tool? What is it that has enabled the jihadists to continue to recruit since 1979? Well, first they use the fact that even though we have so much military might, we turned tail and ran from Vietnam. And then they were able to use that in 1979. They attacked the United States by attacking our Embassy, took American hostages, and we did nothing about it. That was a great recruiting tool, and they were able to recruit well because of it, because they were able to show they scared the great Satan even though they had more power, more military might. Then, in 1983, to bomb our barracks and have one man give his life and kill 241 Marines and we withdrew, that was a great recruiting tool for jihadists. It wasn't Gitmo. These people have been at war with us for over 30 years, and it took too long for people in authority here to realize it. So if you go forward, of course--and there are many other killings, bombings. In 1995, Islamic extremists set fire to a warehouse belonging to the U.S. Embassy, threatened the Algerian security guard because he was working for the United States, and the armed Islamic group was apparently suspected and felt clearly that they were involved with the attack. November 13 of 1995, a car bomb exploded in the parking lot outside the Riyadh headquarters of the Office of the Program Manager, Saudi Arabian National Guard, killing seven persons, five of them U.S. citizens. Three groups--the Islamic Movement for Change, the Tigers of the Gulf, and the Combatant Partisans of God--claimed responsibility for that attack, that act of war against Americans. February 25 of 1996, a suicide bomber blew up a commuter bus in Jerusalem killing 26, including three U.S. citizens, injuring 80 others. Among those injured were U.S. citizens. Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing. June 25 of 1996, a fuel truck carrying a bomb exploded outside the U.S. military's Khobar Towers housing facility there in Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. military personnel and wounding 515 persons, including 240 U.S. personnel. Saudi Hezbollah was identified as the group responsible. They were at war, but the United States still did not recognize it. Still, we are turning over secrets and intelligence gathering information through trials, through the courts in the United States District Court. What a mistake. 1997, September 4, the bombing on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, one U.S. citizen killed, 10 injured. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. There are so many others. November 12, two gunmen shot to death four U.S. auditors from Union Texas Petroleum and their Pakistani driver as they drove from the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi. Two groups claimed responsibility: the Islamic Council and Islamic Revolutionary Council, also known as the Aimal Khufia Action Committee. 1998, August 7, a car bomb exploded at the rear entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. The attack killed a total of 292, including 12 U.S. citizens, injured over 5,000, including Americans. The perpetrators belonged to some group named al Qaeda that is part of Osama bin Laden's network. 2000, October 12. While the campaign for President in 2000 was going on, a suicide squad rammed the warship the USS Cole with an explosives- ladened boat, killing 13 American sailors and injuring 33. It was believed to have been caused by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization. We still didn't recognize there was a war going on, not until September 11, 2001, when people know what happened. Finally, we got the picture. Finally, we realized this war has been going on since 1979, and it is time we fought in this war and not let it be a one-sided war. There is no answering these people who want to destroy our way of life with reaching out in peace. I saw a sign not long ago, some protestor had a sign that said, ``War never brought about peace.'' I was amazed. Obviously, this person knows nothing about history. The greatest periods of peace come when bad guys are defeated. Those who are mean and evil and they want to take the liberty others may have, you defeat them, and then you have a period of peace. And there are periods of peace when the bad guys defeat countries who don't know they are at war even though they are stronger. That is what al Qaeda, that is what Hezbollah, that is what the jihadists are counting on is the ignorance in this country by people who do not realize there is a war going on and that we are determined to show how loving and peaceful we can be. Neville Chamberlain tried that. He tried that. And what happened was, as Winston Churchill said: An appeaser is someone who keeps feeding the alligator, hoping they'll be eaten last. And that is what Chamberlain did, and it didn't work. It didn't work in the Pacific. When people declare war against you, you have got to fight them in the war until they finally acknowledge, Okay, we give up. We are no longer at war. We will quit fighting. At that point, all of the detainees, the prisoners of war that you have held, you release them because their buddies are no longer at war with you. That is the history of civilized society at war. And when they are released, you hold those you have probable cause to believe committed war crimes and then try them in a Nuremberg or military commission-style trial. I would like to recognize my dear friend, my colleague from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann.

Mr. GOHMERT. Certainly.