February 16, 2007—Today the U.S. House of Representatives voted to disapprove of the President’s plan to send reinforcements to the troops already on the battlefield in Iraq. The non-binding resolution passed; however, Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02) voted against the resolution. Franks delivered the following speech on the Floor of the House of Representatives before the vote.

Mr. Speaker, today, as we embrace the grave responsibility of debating an issue that will have profound impact on future American generations, it seems very appropriate to remind ourselves of the ideal that gave birth to this Nation in the first place. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Whether we realize it or not, most of the important discussions in this Chamber, including the one in this moment, center around whether we still believe those words.

 In these hours, America finds herself at war with an expressively dangerous ideology that is the antithesis of those words and everything that is the American ideal. What concerns me most is that this war between an ideology committed to the absolute death to destroy freedom and subjugate the entire world, and the world's free people who still remain primarily asleep.

Mr. Speaker, this ideological war did not begin on 9/11. It began many years ago when certain Muslim extremists embraced a divergent Islamist dogma that dictates that all infidels must die. It was called then as it should be called now, jihad.

Thomas Jefferson was the first American President to send U.S. military force to war against Islamist jihad. The Marine hymn begins, ``From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli,'' the latter being a reference to Jefferson's war against the Islamist Barbary pirates based in Tripoli, in present day Libya.

This is the same jihadist ideology that murdered Israeli athletes in 1972, that took American hostages in Iran, that murdered Marines in their barracks in 1983, that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Riyadh in 1995, the Khobar Towers in 1996, the embassy in 1998, the USS Cole in 2000, and that brutally murdered scores of little schoolchildren on opening day in Beslan, Russia.

 And then, Mr. Speaker, this same dark ideology massacred nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11.

 The ideology and practice of Islamist jihad is decapitating humanitarians with hacksaws on television while the victims scream for mercy, cowardly hiding behind women and children while launching rockets deliberately targeting innocent civilians, continually breaking treaties of peace, and forcing children to blow themselves to pieces to affect the murder of other innocents, and this, as their own mothers leap for joy as they do.

 As we anticipate future actions of jihadists, we should all consider very carefully. Al Qaeda's al-Zawahiri said: ``The jihad movement is growing and rising. It reached its peak with the two blessed raids on New York and Washington. And now it is waging a great heroic battle in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and even the crusaders' own homes.''

Al-Manar said on BBC: ``Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan, America, is absolute. Regardless of how the world has changed after September 11, death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America.''

Al-Zarqawi said of America's leaders: ``They are aware that if the Islamic giant wakes up, it will not be satisfied with less than the gates of Rome, Washington, Paris, and London.''

Al-Muhajir, Osama bin Laden's latest lieutenant in Iraq, said: ``The fire has not and will not be put out and our swords, which have been colored with your blood, are thirsty for more of your rotting heads.''

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, said, ``We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are most vulnerable. The Jews love life; so that is what we shall take away from them. We are going to win because they love life and we love death.''

And then, Mr. Speaker, we hear a Democrat Member of this body say, ``The savagery of terrorists is not relevant.'' Even the most senior Democrat in this House is quoted as saying ``I don't take sides for or against Hezbollah or for or against Israel.''

Mr. Speaker, a blind relativism that deliberately ignores all truth and equates merciless terrorism with free nations defending themselves and their innocent citizens is more dangerous to humanity than terrorism itself, and it is proof that liberals completely misunderstand the enemy that we face.

Osama bin Laden's deputy, al-Zawahiri, made clear shortly after 9/11 in his book ``Knights Under the Prophet's Banner,'' al Qaeda's most important short-term strategic goal is to seize control of a state, or part of a state, somewhere in the Muslim world. He wrote, quote, ``Confronting the enemies of Islam and launching jihad against them require a Muslim authority established on Muslim land. Without achieving this, our actions will mean nothing.''

Mr. Speaker, such a jihadist state would be the ideal launching pad for future attacks on the West.

Bin Laden himself once again has stated: ``The whole world is watching this war and the two adversaries. It is either victory and glory or misery and humiliation.''

Mr. Speaker, the terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And if we are to understand our enemy and this war, we must understand that Iraq is the central front in our war against jihad. Our courageous and noble soldiers understand that very well and our enemy definitely understands that.

Osama bin Laden himself has said, ``The most important and serious issue today for the world is this Third World War ..... It is raging in the land of the two rivers, Iraq. The world's millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate.''

Mr. Speaker, if Democrats are correct that the struggle in Iraq is not crucial to the winning of the war against Islamist jihad, then for God's sake I wish they would explain that to the terrorists.

Brink Lindsey has put it all so succinctly. He said, ``Here is the grim truth: We are only one act of madness away from a social cataclysm unlike anything our country has ever known. After a handful of such acts, who knows what kind of civilization breakdown might be in store?''

Mr. Speaker, we simply can no longer deny that we are fighting a war against an insidiously dangerous and evil ideology that is bent on the destruction of the Western world, and they would like nothing better than to decapitate this country by detonating a nuclear blast 100 yards from here. And to allow jihadists to declare victory in Iraq will only serve to hasten such a day.

Mr. Speaker, the free nations of the world once had opportunity to address the insidious rise of the Nazi ideology in its formative years when it could have been dispatched without great cost. But they delayed, and the result was atomic bombs falling on cities, 50 million people dead worldwide, and the swastika's shadow nearly plunging this planet into Cimmerian night.

Winston Churchill's words of warning far preceded such tragic events. He said, ``If you will not fight when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse moment. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory because it is still better to perish than to live as slaves.''

If so-called enlightened Germans fell prey to the Nazi ideology, why do we not believe Third World Muslims can also fall prey in large numbers to this jihadist ideology? History does indeed repeat itself, Mr. Speaker, and each time the price goes up.

Jihadists believe they have a critical advantage over free people in the world. They believe their will is far stronger than ours and that they need only to persevere to break our resolve. Mr. Speaker, the message of this resolution has only encouraged them in that belief.

So today in this Chamber, we each have some grave questions to ask ourselves, and the answers will profoundly affect future American generations. We need to ask ourselves first, not whether the Nation should have gone to war but whether the Nation should lose this war.

Will jihadists break the will of the world's free people or not? Will they be able to hide long enough to gain access to nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction? If we do allow nations like Iran to gain nuclear weapons, what will we tell our children when they face nuclear jihad, perhaps even in this generation? If liberals in this body are willing to see freedom defeated in Iraq, are they willing to take responsibility for what will almost certainly follow? If this entire Nation was riveted and heartbroken when two airplanes hit two buildings in New York, how will we feel when an entire American city is in nuclear flames?

If Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats are willing to vote against monitoring terrorist conversations on the telephone, or tracking their financial transactions, or protecting our border from terrorist insurgency, or effectively interrogating terrorists in custody, or sending reinforcements to our troops on the battlefield, then the question that cries for an answer is what are they willing to do to defeat Islamic terrorism? What is their plan?

Mr. Speaker, there is no substitute for victory. If we surrender Iraq to Islamist jihadists, we will supercharge their recruitment efforts in the Middle East and all over the planet, and our children will pay an unspeakable price, and history will condemn this generation for unspeakable irresponsibility in the face of such an obvious threat to human peace.

So, Mr. Speaker, before we vote on this resolution, may we consider carefully the words of Abraham Lincoln as he sought to steel the resolve of Americans in another great and historic struggle. He said, ``Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the last generation.

Congressman Franks is serving his third term in the U.S. House of Representatives, is a member of the Committee on Armed Services, Committee on the Judiciary, and is Ranking Member on the Constitution Subcommittee