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“AMERICA'S RELIGIOUS HERITAGE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H7129-H7132 on Oct. 26, 2011.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
AMERICA'S RELIGIOUS HERITAGE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend, the gentleman from Illinois. He knows something about struggling for civil rights, and he's done a great deal for civil rights, and I respect that very much.
As a Christian, it's okay to talk about our religious beliefs as long as we don't ram it down somebody else's throat trying to force them to believe as we do, but the First Amendment allows our right to discuss that.
I'm very grateful for Abraham Lincoln, and as I was just talking with some constituents down in Statuary Hall about John Quincy Adams believing he was called to try to end slavery in the United States after he was defeated in 1828 for a second term, so he did the unthinkable after being President: he ran for the House of Representatives.
And some thought it was extremely strange, and as I told my constituents, my friends, it was reputed that when someone asked him about that, he said he was prouder of being elected to the House of Representatives after being President than he was after being elected President, which seems strange to some of us until you realize that it means after he was President his neighbors still liked him. That's a big deal because most Presidents don't end up going back to their earliest hometown; they go somewhere else. John Quincy Adams got elected nine times, preached sermons over and over down the hall about the evils of slavery.
We really couldn't expect God to keep blessing America while we were treating our brothers and sisters by putting them in chains and bondage. Seventeen years he fought that fight, believing he was called to bring an end to slavery.
His last year there, there was a young, tall man from Illinois who had been elected to Congress one time, most people don't know that he was ever elected anything but President, but Abraham Lincoln was elected.
{time} 1950
John Quincy Adams liked him and took him under his wing. It was reported that after Lincoln was defeated after just 2 short years, went back to practicing law, made some money working doing some legal work for the railroads and other things, after the compromise of 1850, he knew he couldn't allow slavery, as even more States were coming in with slavery, and he got back involved and fought the battle. He didn't get elected to the Senate. In 1860, he got elected President.
It was reported that someone asked him if there was anything memorable that happened in his 2 brief years in the House of Representatives, and he replied not other than those powerful sermons John Quincy Adams used to preach on the evils of slavery. He knew it was wrong, but it just etched it on his soul. He had to do something. John Quincy Adams died in 1848 not achieving what he was originally called to do--end slavery.
But a man who believed in God, who read the Bible constantly, whose Second Inaugural Address is etched in marble on the north inside wall of the Lincoln Memorial, one of the greatest theological dissertations on how, if there's a just God, there could be something as horrible as a Civil War, brothers killing brothers. As he said, they all read from the same Bible, pray to the same God. The prayers of both can now be answered; the prayers of neither were fully answered.
But as Lincoln came to realize, if it is that God chooses to have every drop of blood that was drawn by the master's lash be equal with blood from the sword, then as he said, we still must conclude what was concluded 3,000 years ago from the Old Testament: ``The judgments of the Lord are just and righteous altogether.''
Powerful theology of a very difficult subject, but those beliefs drove him to give his life for others.
Downstairs, I just saw the statue of Father Damien, a Catholic priest in the Hawaiian Islands who knew that going to the island where the lepers were, where they had no basic life, that eventually he would get leprosy and he would die from it, but he knew that he had a calling, that God called him to minister to those lepers so they could have a life, they could have a society, a place to worship, a priest to come to for ministering and consolation and direction.
So it is entirely appropriate that despite the existence of the ACLU wanting to tear down so much of what the Founders did and the great things that are emblazoned in the soul of this country, the statue, the plaque starts with John 15:13: ``Greater love hath no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.''
Basically, Abraham Lincoln did that. But there was not full equality in this country. That was clear.
Bobby Rush can talk about that authoritatively; I really can't. He can talk about it authoritatively.
And along came an ordained Christian minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. He believed it was his calling, God's calling on his life to bring about real equality in America. As he said, he had a dream that one day people would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. He had a dream.
I'm so grateful for that heritage that God moved in the hearts and minds of great men like that. Some would say Martin Luther King, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his life to help African Americans, black men and women in America to have equality, but it goes much deeper than that. For those of us who are Christians, he created an environment where white Christians could finally really be Christian and treat brothers and sisters as brothers and sisters. That's a big deal, because before that there were too many white Christians who didn't. He freed them up. Now you can treat your brothers and sisters as true brothers and sisters where the color of skin doesn't matter. Powerful.
But the country we have come to know and love is under attack. We, many of us, I was in the Army at Fort Benning in 1979. We look back and we think the war started, radical Islam started at war against us in 1979. More recently, some who know more about the history of radical Islam say it actually started quite a bit before that. But in 1979, it became clear, President Carter, well intending, meaning well, hailed the Ayatollah Khomeini as a man of peace, just like this country did with President Mubarak. We would not assist and, in fact, encouraged rebels and the leader of a country with whom we had agreements. We reneged on our end, not that the Shah was a fine, great, upstanding man. From reports--I never met him--apparently he wasn't. Not that Mubarak was a fine, loving, cuddly fellow--apparently, from reports, he wasn't. And there wasn't equality as there should have been, but he kept radicals at bay from destroying the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. We had agreements with him, and apparently this administration looked the other way and wouldn't honor those agreements.
I sure never thought much of Qadhafi, but I could not celebrate a man being captured, tortured, and then shot; and then all the adoration and excitement by the same people who get so upset if a terrorist who is trying to kill Americans has water poured on his face, knowing that the water won't hurt him, that there's a doctor right there, and that when he reveals information, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did, it will save lives and lead to the saving of many more lives. But he won't be harmed because the doctor would be there if there was any problem. Yet those same people that went ballistic over pouring water on a guy's face, not pleasant, how excited they could be about a man being captured, tortured, and shot in the head routinely. How excited people could be about having a drone take out an American citizen. Well, he had declared war on the United States. You declare war on the United States, the United States has every right to declare war on you back. You are an enemy combatant and the rules of war apply, such as they are.
But we have come so far in the last 10 years from being careful and concerned that it seems that we've gotten careless, gotten ridiculous. Our obligation, even those of us who are Christians, is not to turn the other cheek as part of the government, not to reward evil with good as individual Christians are supposed to. Our obligation is to provide for the common defense. The same thing is set out in Romans 13: ``You do evil, be afraid, because the government is not given the sword in vain.'' You are supposed to encourage good conduct and punish evil, provide for the defense so that individuals, whether they're Muslims, Christians, Hindu, Scientologists, whatever, they can worship as they wish. But when we fail to protect this Nation and provide for the common defense, we're not doing our job.
{time} 2000
We've had a very interesting time today with Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. There's some things that have come out that have been very deeply troubling to me, and I would hope that they would be very troubling to many.
I have got numerous articles, things that I have taken out to talk about here today. One is a news segment here about Secretary Napolitano appointing a deradicalization expert, Mohamed Elibiary, to the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Originally, he was made by Homeland Security a member of the Countering Violent Extremism. It's a little strange, violent extremism. Then you realize that's because this administration does not want to use the terms ``radical Islam'' about the people who are radical Islamists.
And when you get to digging a little deeper, you find out that the OIC Islamic group years ago figured out, We need to go on the attack and start calling anybody who mentions radical Islam an Islamophobe. Even if it's a lie, it doesn't matter. Call them Islamophobes. They found if you give universities--even great universities; proud heritage in this country--massive amounts of money, you can also get them to teach seminars on Islamophobia. You can get them to teach courses on Islamophobia. And you can paint the picture that anybody, no matter how open-minded, no matter how well read, how well studied they are, you call them Islamophobes enough, then maybe it will catch on, and people will be afraid to call radical Islamists what they are.
Now, I don't know of anybody who was in Judiciary today that believes that Muslims are terrorists. They're not. The only disagreement among those I know concerned about radical Islam is whether the radical Islamists are 1 percent, 5 percent, maybe a little more. Some might say as much as 10 percent. But at least 90 percent, maybe 99 percent of Muslims are peace-loving people. If you have got a Muslim friend, they are your true friend. And people have experienced that. They have seen that. But those who study radical Islam also come to know that it's very difficult for a moderate, peace-loving Muslim to speak up against radicals because under some of the contorted thinking by people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who helped plan 9/11, that basically makes him an apostate. They're not really Muslim. They're Muslim in name only. They think that means they're okay to be killed because they don't really believe in true Islam.
So when you get down to it, it appears from a studied look at the issue, when you don't worry about what the OIC or Muslim Brotherhood may try to paint you as, or the mainstream media, for whatever reason--
though many in the mainstream media would be one of the first ones killed if radical Islam takes over this country. They nonetheless do some of their bidding for them without realizing just how ignorant they're being. But if they were to take over, any area where they take over, as they did in Afghanistan, the moderate, peace-loving Muslims are often the first ones brutalized and killed because they don't see them as true Muslims because they're not radical like that small percentage.
But documents have been discovered going back to the 1993 meeting in Philadelphia of those who would be part of the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups trying to plot a strategy for the years ahead, they believed a number of things that we're now seeing carried out. You intimidate people, you make them think they're much more intellectually elite. They say, Well, gee, we're not going to even say the name of radical Islam. In fact, as Speaker Pelosi led in the last Congress, the 2006 military tribunal bill was changed, the law was changed so we didn't call them ``enemy combatants'' anymore. We changed the name--big deal--changed the name from ``enemy combatants'' to ``unprivileged alien enemy belligerents.'' I guess we just hope that the word
``enemy'' wouldn't offend them, even though they have shown, as they did with Pearl, they will take a jagged knife and cut your head off.
They don't do it in the name of Scientology. They don't do it in the name of the Southern Baptist Convention. And if they did, I would be calling them out for doing so. They do it in the name of a perverted form that they believe is Islam. But it's radicalized jihadist Islam.
So here's an article, October 21, 2010. Secretary Napolitano appoints Islamist to Homeland Security panel. It turns out Mohamed Elibiary had been appointed to her Countering Violent Extremism Working Group and apparently impressed somebody to the point that a year ago, October 21, 2010, Secretary Napolitano swore him in as being part of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. As we found out today from Secretary Napolitano, he was also given a secret security clearance.
We've also seen from other articles we've talked about here before that the White House--and as we found out today, Homeland Security--has implicit trust in the president of the Islamic Society of North America, ISNA, even though ISNA was found to be a named coconspirator in funding terrorism in the Holy Land Foundation trial. CAIR, same way, named coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. The original prosecutor's thoughts were that the Bush administration, those I have talked to, intended to do everything they could to get convictions because they saw--they had the documentation--that these groups were doing some charity work, and actually doing some, but then sending money--really, the basis of their group--sending money to Hamas to fund terrorism. And that's what they were convicted of. It was 105 counts, as I recall.
There was a move by CAIR, ISNA, some named coconspirators, to have their names struck from the pleadings so the people would not see that they were named coconspirators. But both the judge at the trial court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found there was sufficient evidence to show that they were coconspirators in funding terrorism and therefore they did not, as the Fifth Circuit ruled, they weren't going to have their names removed.
The evidence was there. In fact, I have got some of it here. There were boxes and boxes and boxes of documents that have these kind of checks and ledgers and deposit slips and things like that that make a clear case that these groups ended up providing funding that funded terrorism. But this Department of Justice, headed by Attorney General Holder, decided not to pursue all of these other named coconspirators. They let the cases drop.
{time} 2010
And not only did they not pursue them, they ended up--actually, we have the president of ISNA, who we find in the comments that have been on the White House Web site, actually led the Iftar prayers a year ago at the White House and actually has a very nice relationship, from what the Deputy National Security Adviser said, with the National Security Administration, the National Security Advisor, and the President.
We found out from one article that, with two individuals who were going to participate in training law enforcement at one of our intelligence services, all it took was CAIR calling the White House, reporting to the White House that people were going to say bad things about radical Islam, and that people that wanted to kill us were radical Islamists, and explain how you could look for people who were radicalized, look for telltale signs.
The White House, according to one article, intervened, and we know for sure the conference was canceled immediately before the conference was to start.
And we have an article indicating that actually now they are rewriting the rules so that if you are a government employee, you will not be able to do briefings on the threat of radical Islam. And, also, they will not pay for outside contractors who've spent their adult life studying the issue, so that it will be left to volunteers, like those from the Muslim Brotherhood, who will come brief our intelligence, our State Department, our Justice Department and the White House on issues to do with violent extremism.
And then we find out more about this person. I'm told he's a very nice gentleman, Mohamed Elibiary, that he's done a lot of nice things. But you don't have to look very far and you find out he was one of the featured speakers for the tribute--in fact, there's a flier--a tribute to the great Islamic visionary, the Ayatollah Khomeini, who has done more to bring hate and war and death and torture into the modern age than most anybody in the last 40 years. And he is a named presenter in the tribute to the great Islamic visionary.
Then we find out not only did he speak at that, but also he's written articles. He got after the administration for the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, thought the trial was unfair and unjust and uncalled for. He also speaks glowingly of Qutb, who is the Muslim who was executed in Egypt in the 1960s after being convicted or found to have conspired to kill the leader of Egypt. But he has many writings. And, well, he's held in high esteem not only as a basis for Osama bin Laden, feeling that he should be a barbaric killer and destroyer, but also for Mr. Elibiary. And so we have an article he wrote about the verdict misrepresenting the situation with the Holy Land Foundation.
Then we have an article from the Dallas Morning News where they go through and cite so many of these things that seem to indicate we should be very careful about giving Elibiary access to secrets; but he has been given, by this Homeland Security group, secret clearance.
Then there's an interesting article from May of 2007. The OIC, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, reported in 2007--their words--
that Islamaphobia is the worst form of terrorism. In fact, that means it's worse than flying commercial airliners into high-rise office buildings, worse than beheading three teen Christian girls on their way to school, worse than launching attacks from civilian areas in order to use retaliatory actions to score propaganda points. Yeah, worse than that is to be an Islamaphobe.
Then we find out that the ACLU and the Islamists are joining hands. I found out yesterday that actually Mr. Elibiary is working with the ACLU, but he's got a secret security clearance so he can work from the inside and from the outside working with the ACLU to try to get documentation that will ultimately, if he gets it--and this administration may just do this--it will reveal sources and methods of how we are dealing with radical Islam or violent extremism, and he's working with these guys. But the ACLU and Islamists are going after the FBI and trying to destroy their ability to actually fight those who want to destroy our country.
There's an interesting article by Bill Gertz October 5 of this year, and he points out that the anti-terror trainers were blocked. And according to people close to the conference I mentioned awhile ago, the event was ordered postponed after Muslim advocacy groups contacted the Department of Homeland Security and the White House, including scheduled speakers Stephen Caughlin and Steve Emerson, both specialists on the Islamic terror threat. Mr. Caughlin, a former Pentagon joint staff analyst, is one of the most knowledgeable counterterrorism experts specializing in the relationship between Islamic law and terrorism. Mr. Emerson, head of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, is a leading expert on Islamic violent extremism, financing and operations.
But, anyway, it looks like they're rewriting those rules so people like that--since they're not Muslim Brotherhood--will not be able to instruct law enforcement on the threat that radical Islam creates for the country.
And then we find an article here, ``Holder Firmly Committed to Eliminating Any Muslim Training.'' But just so people understand--and I'll close with this--I understand that the vast majority of Muslims are dear, wonderful people, peace-loving people. But the radical Islamists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other four at Guantanamo Bay who said they wanted to plead guilty in December of 2008--the judge was going to accept it until this Justice Department rushed in and said no, no, no, we'll give you a show trial in New York City, and threw a bunch of gum in the works.
So now there has still been no trial; there has still been no justice. And in his own writing he says, in quotes from the Koran, ``We fight you with almighty God. So if our act of jihad and our fighting with you cause 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.'' Then he quotes from the Koran: ``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; their place will be the fire; and evil is the home of the wrongdoers.''
People like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are radical Islamists, and we need to recognize it so that we can perpetuate the freedom that we've had for 200 more years.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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