Wednesday, September 13, 2006

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on the War on Terror
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Mr. President, I am really delighted, after some of the things I have read and heard this morning. I decided last night to make the speech I am about to make. This morning, I want to go back to the speech the President made on Monday evening and go back to the President's clarion call for us to unite as a nation behind our effort to win the war on terror.

During the past 3 days--first Monday, September 11, where we all honored and mourned the tragic loss of 3,000 citizens, through today--I have read constant editorials and listened to numerous speeches that imply to me that that sense of unity doesn't really exist. I think the President was right to call for unity.

This morning I rise in an effort to have us focus on what we are really all about, not to point fingers or castigate anybody but to talk about what I believe is the ultimate war between good and evil. What happened on September 11 in 2001 was one of the most tragic events in the history of mankind. What the United States did, and what this President declared, by changing our policy from one of reaction to one of preemption was precisely the right thing to do. There is no doubt that in the last 5 years mistakes have been made. But there is no doubt that the greatest mistake would have been not to respond. It is now time for us to resolve to support this country, our men and women in harm's way, our intelligence agencies, with a resolve to see it through to its conclusion, understanding that it is going to be a long and difficult battle.

We should not forget that the Cold War lasted half a century. As a youngster at R.L. Hope Elementary School in Atlanta, GA, I remember every week we practiced climbing under our desks as we did drills because we feared a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. It was only when the Berlin Wall came down in the 1990s and communism was finally defeated that the Cold War ended.

This war could be as long and as difficult. But it is different. We fight an enemy with no uniforms, no diplomats, and no capital. It doesn't want what we have. They don't want us to have what we have. They don't want us to have the freedom of speech--for me to do what I am doing here--or for the press to criticize it. They don't want you to be able to bear arms if you are a law-abiding citizen or to go to church on Saturday or Sunday and worship or to not worship at all or the way you want. They don't want you to have the freedom to assemble and gather.

They are using those very inalienable rights of ours against us today and, in some cases, some of us are unwitting accomplices in that criticism. By way of example, we argue and parse about issues of interrogation and some issues of intelligence and surveillance, when every day that we fail to act the other side uses that against us to try to find a way to break us and kill American citizens. How else in the 21st century, in a world of computers and digital technology and cellular technology, can we track terrorists if we cannot listen to them? How in the world can we learn about those who would kill innocent Americans if we cannot interrogate them?

There was an editorial in the Monday paper, September 11, 2006, 5 years after 9/11, in my hometown paper, the Atlanta Constitution. It said, ``Power is found in our ideals not in our weapons.'' That is a great headline. They are right. One of the great ideals that the American people have is that we don't quit. We didn't quit in our revolution or in our Civil War or in World War I and World War II, and we cannot quit now. In this editorial, criticizing us in terms of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, who is the moral authority quoted? None other than Osama bin Laden. The man that is quoted as questioning America's values is the man that relishes cutting off the heads of innocent American citizens, the man who takes pride in calling out and charging terrorists with attacking American citizens on 9/11, and the man who to this very day plots to kill innocent Americans.

We must listen to what they are saying, track what they are doing. When we capture them, we must get the intelligence necessary to save innocent lives. We must unite as a country, a media, political parties, and as a people to stand steadfastly behind this effort and see it through to conclusion.

I personally submit that we are getting pretty close. I think the fact that they are concentrating in Baghdad, the fact that we have seen what we have seen in terms of them trying to portray a civil war is because we have had them on the run and it is their last stand. You see, terrorism doesn't have to beat us on the battlefield. They only have to make us quit and come home. Then they can declare victory. We cannot let that happen.

I conclude my remarks by admonishing all of us, myself included, to join together to find solutions to move forward and support this effort to its conclusion and to its success. We should not tie the hands of our Armed Forces or our intelligence networks behind their backs. We should instead put our arms around them and embrace them, let them charge ahead and continue to track our enemies wherever they are and find out the information that is necessary. Then, and only then, will we be equalized in the war on terror and ultimately prevail.