OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Republicans Provide Security To America

Date: Sept. 25, 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security


REPUBLICANS PROVIDE SECURITY TO AMERICA -- (House of Representatives - September 25, 2006)

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Mr. BURGESS. I was actually coming to do a memorial for one of our firefighters who we lost over the weekend, but I certainly want to echo the sentiments and the comments that you have made. I, like many of my colleagues, was outraged by Hugo Chavez in this country, and I think he was appropriately reprimanded and upbraided by a Member on the other side of the aisle, CHARLES RANGEL, in whose district the gentleman from Venezuela chose to make his rant public.

It is indeed unfortunate that people feel that they have the license to come to this country and criticize our government as our guests. It is I suppose just a fact of life when there are people who are as kindhearted and as generous as we are that from time to time we are going to be abused by those in the world who choose to behave that way.

The gentlewoman also mentioned the 9/11 Commission, and we hear from time to time about the 9/11 Commission and how many of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission have not been met. But two of those recommendations I think are extremely important. The 9/11 Commission said that, number one, you have got to secure your borders. You have got to know who is in your country, when they come, when they leave, what they are doing here while they are there.

The 9/11 commission was very explicit in this instance, and I think it is critical that this Congress in the time that we have left this year make certain that we indeed get that legislation passed.

The other thing the 9/11 Commission brought up was that we ought to be encouraging democracies particularly in unstable parts of the world, such as the Middle East, and certainly the President has done just that. It is not always easy, it is not always straightforward, it is not always a job for which we are thanked, but it is the right thing to do. And if you take the long view and if you look out over the next 20 or 30 years' time, I think that history will judge this time and this Presidency as having been absolutely critical for reestablishing that degree of stability that we may achieve in the Middle East by establishing those democracies.

I thank the gentlewoman very much for yielding time.

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