Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

   Mr. Speaker, let\'s be clear of the purpose of today. We face a real
test of what this House of Representatives stands for and who we, as
Representatives, really are.

   Do any of us really believe that the resolution in front of us today
is a serious piece of legislation? Does it properly recognize all of
America\'s military and other national security professionals who defend
us day and night? What of the hundreds of folks in the Intelligence
Community that are ignored in this resolution, who each and every day
are working hand in hand with our Armed Forces trying to achieve success
in Iraq?

   Does this resolution discuss or force a debate on the really tough
issues of who it is that hates America and others so much that they are
willing to kill innocent men, women and children? Again, this resolution
comes up short.

   What is the threat, and how should America respond? That is the
debate that we should be having on this floor. This resolution is all
about staying the course. It says, Support our troops and don\'t engage
in new tactics; just keep going down the same path. That is not good
enough.

   There are people who hate us enough to want to kill. I speak of
militant Islam\'s hate for America, a hate that extends to others,
including Muslims. And these militant Islamists kill, they kill
violently and indiscriminately, but this resolution is silent on the
threat that we face as a Nation, and it is silent on how we should
respond.

   Who are these radical Islamists, and what should America\'s response
to this threat be? We face this on a global basis. What is America\'s
response to jihadism? How will America win this war against this
calculating enemy? And how will America lead the world once again in the
face of such a ruthless threat?

   The resolution that we are debating today simply asks, Do you support
America\'s fighting men and women, and do you support or oppose a tactic
in a battle that is only one front in the war with these military
jihadists who are bent on the destruction of the infidel America and
others around the world.

   Let me say to my colleagues that I don\'t believe I am wrong in
saying that this debate is really about whether or not America is a
great Nation that leads in the face of difficulty. Nor do I believe that
I am wrong to question what actually happens when this debate and vote
are over. Have we really helped the American people understand the
threat? What message do we send to our troops in harm\'s way? And what
is it that the American public needs to understand so that it can better
understand the challenges that we face? My own answer, Mr. Speaker, was
that we need to understand the consequences of failure. We need to fully
understand the nature of the threat that is posed now, and moreover in
the future, if we fail in the larger war against militant Islam.

   Mr. Speaker, let me outline some things about this very real threat
to our very existence that needs to be known by the American public and,
indeed, this body. This is not a global war on terror. I have never
liked that term, I don\'t know why we keep using it. This is a global
war with jihadists. We are not at war with a tactic, we are at war with
a group of militant Islamists who hate us and who hate much of the rest
of the world. What is a jihadist, other than someone or some group so
full of hate that they are willing to kill?

   I have a passion for understanding this threat. And thanks to a great
deal of superb research done by many experts on the subject, in
particular the author Mary Habeck, we have been enlightened as to who
these individuals are, and perhaps also get an insight into the question
of why do they hate, and why do they hate so much that they are willing
to kill.

   I can tell you that these militant Islamist jihadists are a fringe
element of Islam who have very specific ideas about how to revive Islam,
return Muslims to world power, and how to deal with their enemies. They
are committed to a violent overthrow of the existing international
system, and to its replacement by an all-encompassing Islamist state,
the Caliphate.

   Mr. Speaker, in studying this threat, this militant Islamic jihadist
threat, we must also understand why Iraq is such an important element of
their war against the West. This is where the letter from al Qaeda\'s
number two leader, Zawahari, to the late al Zarqawi outlining the
Islamic Caliphate that would stretch from Indonesia across the Middle
East and Africa is instructive. In that letter, Zawahari outlines a
four-stage plan to create this religious empire.

   Stage one. \`\`Expel the Americans from Iraq.\'\' Expel them in
defeat. I fear that this debate may be the first step in that process.

   Stage two is to create an Islamic religious government in the old
Mesopotamia, that is, Iraq, developing it and supporting it \`\`until it
achieves the

   level of a Caliphate,\'\' until it fills the void stemming from the
departure of the Americans.

   Step three is to extend the jihad way to secular countries
neighboring Iraq. The jihadists will attack heretic Muslims, as they
define them.

   And stage four is the clash with Israel, because Israel was
established only to challenge any new Islamic entity.

   Let\'s be clear about this. This jihad is about them. It is about
their god, their religion, before it becomes anything about anyone or
anything else. That\'s right, it is about them before it is about us.

   The militant jihadists believe that Islam worked well for over a
thousand years, spreading a true gospel, a unified society that followed
the Shari\'a, a law handed down by God. They believe that the modern
world has forsaken that pure religious life, and they believe that only
in a Caliphate governed by the Shari\'a is the way to return to that
pure life.

   This is the world that they now want to recreate and force on the
rest of the world. That is why they are fighting and that is why they
are killing. They see today\'s world as one where unbelievers, the
United States, Japan and others, dominate politically, culturally,
militarily and economically. This directly assaults their religious
beliefs, as in effect, much if not all of the world is controlled by
unbelievers, unbelievers who must be destroyed, including secular Muslim
states in the region.

   To illustrate, let me quote from Osama bin Laden\'s Fatwa. Listen to
what these people tell themselves and each other: \`\`There is no more
important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the Holy Land, no
other priority, except Belief, could be considered before it. There is
no precondition for this duty, and the enemy should be fought with
one\'s best abilities. If it is not possible to push back the enemy
except by the collective movement of the Muslim people, then there is a
duty on the Muslims to ignore the minor differences among themselves.
Even the military personnel who are not practicing Islam are not
exempted from the duty of jihad against the enemy.\'\'

   It should be clearly understood that a central tenet of jihadists\'
beliefs is the belief that God is one; he has no equals, he has no
partners. This is important. If one believes that God is one and all
that matters of rule giving or law making belongs to him, no human
being, no government could make laws or alter the Shari\'a laws of God.
This would be, for all intents, setting oneself up to be the equal of
God. Herein lies the problem that these militant Islamists have with the
West and secular Muslim countries. This belief is applied equally to
infidels and Muslim heretics.

   The bottom line is that any government or order of law other than
Shari\'a is illegitimate. This belief, in their minds, justifies the
killing of heretical

Muslims and non-Muslims alike. This is not recent thinking. A prominent
early 20th century Egyptian Muslim ideologue named Hasan al Banna
professed this point about Muslims and nonMuslim heretics. He stated,
quote, we will not stop at this point, but we will pursue this evil
force to its own land, invade its western heartland, and struggle to
overcome it until all the world shouts the name of the Prophet and the
teachings of Islam are spread throughout the world. All religion will be
exclusively for Allah.

   He went on to say that this violence would not be to avenge wrong
suffered, nor to kill the unbelievers, but to save mankind from its many
problems. Are we starting to get a picture of who the enemy may be? It
is also important that jihadists\' interpretation of Islam is they will
reject any system of laws not based on Shari\'a.

   Democracy. Why do they hate us? Democracy, he claimed, is the
ultimate expression of idolatry, giving reason for the hatred of Western
values. This is about them, it is not about us.

   Al Banna is not the only studied ideologue. Another name, Sayyid
Qutb, wrote, \`\`Islam has a mandate to order the whole of human life,
and that the Western idea of separation between religion and the rest of
life is, quote, a hideous schizophrenia that would lead to the downfall
of white civilization and therefore its replacement by Islam.\'\'

   Qutb maintained that political and religious ideology of the jihadist
is derived directly from the Koranic argument that God, unique and
without partner, is the only being of sovereignty. Therefore, the only
role for national leaders is to implement God\'s laws. This gives the
jihadists their belief that attacking secular or Muslim heretic
societies is justified. Qutb basically justified all-out warfare on all
of these societies.

   Where does that leave us today? It leaves us with a discussion that
should be much deeper than the resolution that is in front of us. The
resolution in front of us is a shallow political document.

   Let me return to Osama bin Laden\'s Fatwa against the West. Let me
use his own words. In calling on all Muslims, he says, \`\`The
explosions at Riyadh and Al-Khobar is a warning of this volcanic
eruption emerging.\'\'

   To further his murderous goals, bin Laden then went on to outline the
terrorist approach to his holy war to by saying, \`\`It must be obvious
to you that due to the imbalance of power between our Armed Forces and
the enemy forces, a suitable means of fighting must be adopted, i.e.,
using fast-moving light forces that work under complete secrecy; in
other words, to initiate a guerrilla warfare where the sons of the
nation, and not the military forces, take part in it. And as you know,
it is wise, in the present circumstances, for the armed military forces
not to be engaged in conventional fighting with the forces of the
crusader enemy, unless a big advantage is likely to be achieved and
great losses induced on the enemy side. That will help to expel the
defeated enemy from the country.\'\'

   He goes on, \`\`Therefore, efforts should be concentrated on
destroying, fighting and killing the enemy until, by the grace of Allah,
it is completely defeated. The time will come, by the permission of
Allah, when you will perform your decisive role so that the word of
Allah will be supreme and the word of the infidels will be the inferior.
You will hit with iron fists against the aggressors.\'\'

   The modern words of bin Laden alone do not adequately explain the
current militant Islamic threat to the United States and its friends
around the world. Again in their own words, this quote from a senior al
Qaeda leader, quote, Islam became to be the only hope in jihad under the
banner of Islam to become a solution for all of the enemies of America
and of those weakened nations, even to the leftist and peace groups in
the Christian world. Whoever follows the writings of some of the Western
authors will find that some of them started to declare, through their
writings, about the American tyranny, that there is no hope to face
America other than through the armed Muslims. To the extent that in one
of the demonstrations that included hundreds of thousands against
globalization and war in Italy, the demonstrations carried a picture of
bin Laden placing Che Guevara\'s hat on it, drawing him to be a Che
Guevara look-alike. They wrote under his picture, \`\`anti-American.\'\'
Through this action they expressed that the symbol of today\'s Islamic
jihad is the only solution to face America.

Mr. Speaker, here is the true threat to America and the West: this
militant Islamic jihad, a jihad that spans the globe, including attacks
in Bali; in Spain; the United Kingdom; in the Philippines; in Kashmir;
in Kenya; in Jordan; Israel; Nigeria; and, yes, in the United States and
Iraq. What is not being discussed is this global problem, this threat to
peace and stability everywhere in the world. Why, I ask, is the focus so
keenly on Iraq as the problem, the only problem for us to debate? Iraq
is not the problem. It is but one front in this larger war. The American
people are not being well served by our leaders and the media that are
solely focused on the conflict in Iraq. This is but a single front in a
much larger war.

   Mr. Speaker, let me close with these final thoughts about the
militant Islamic threat we face not only in the front in Iraq but,
indeed, around the world, including here in America.

   There is a fundamental clash of civilizations at work here. There is
a fundamental belief by the jihadis that Islam must expand to fill the
entire world or else falsehood in its many guises will do so. This
belief includes their facts that democracy, liberalism, human rights,
personal freedoms, international law, international institutions are
illegal, illegitimate, and sinful. Democracy, and in particular the
United States democracy, is the focus of their wrath because it is
considered the center of liberalism. This is not an enemy with whom we
can negotiate. We must contain them and defeat them.

   Mr. Speaker, the resolution before us does not address this threat, a
real threat to our very existence. We are at war, and I fear we don\'t
even know that we are under attack. This myopic resolution does not
recognize or address that threat.

   I urge my colleagues and the House to vote \`\`no\'\' on this
resolution.