Congressman Bill Shuster, late last night on the floor of the House of Representatives, debated the merits of the War on Terror. The text of his speech follows:
"Mr. Speaker, I want to first rise tonight to thank the men and women of our military for their efforts in Iraq, in Afghanistan and other places around the world in the War on Terror. Their sacrifice, their families’ sacrifice, has value and will never, never be forgotten.
"Mr. Speaker, there are many members of the minority that have forgotten an important lesson of history, and that is you cannot appease tyrants and evil. We need to remember the 1930s, the voice of Winston Churchill that said we must confront Hitler and the Nazis as they began to build up the German military machine. Well, we waited and we waited until they invaded their neighbors. And it was the blood and lives of hundreds of thousands of Europeans and Americans that defeated that evil.
"In the 1960s and the 1970s, we failed to confront the growing Soviet threat. We waited and we waited until Ronald Reagan inspired this nation to have the will to stand up to the Soviets and engage them in an arms buildup that cost Americans billions of dollars, but bankrupted the Soviets, and we defeated that evil. In the 1990s the terrorists attacked us over and over again. We failed to respond, as President Clinton dismantled our intelligence capabilities. Appeasement does not work. History shows us that over and over again.
"President Bush learned this lesson, and he and this Congress did not wait until Saddam had nuclear weapons. We acted on intelligence, not just our intelligence, but intelligence from agencies around the world. We thought it was accurate. Unfortunately, it was wrong. But it took us going into Iraq to find out that he did not have the biological, chemical and nuclear capabilities we thought he might be building. But we removed a tyrant. We freed a people and we focused the War on Terror in Iraq. And today we are helping to build a democracy in an Arab world which can be a model to other nations to create liberty, justice and, most importantly, hope, hope for a better tomorrow for millions of Arabs.
"We must stay the course, as this resolution states, until Iraq can secure its nation and we defeat terror. This struggle will be as long as it is hard. But in the end, the lesson of history will be reaffirmed that appeasement is a failed strategy, and that sacrifice for freedom is always worthwhile."
Today’s vote on H.Res 861 is expected to take place this morning or early afternoon.
