Ukraine is the Scrimmage Line for Liberty

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for having this critical conversation today.

Just outside this Chamber, on January 20, 1961, a new young President by the name of John F. Kennedy said, ``We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.''

We would pay any price, bear any burden, and meet any hardship to ensure the survival and success of liberty.

What has happened to America that we shrink from our traditional role of standing up against tyrants, dictators, and genocidal maniacs in favor of liberty? What has happened to us?

Why did Kennedy say those words? He didn't say those words because he wanted to replicate the pain and tragedy of the world war in which he had distinguished himself as a war hero. He didn't say those words because he wanted young Americans to die in East Asia or around the globe in the service of liberty.

He said those words because he understood what he had learned in the 1930s and the 1940s, which is that brutal dictators don't stop; they are stopped. They are stopped by those with the moral fortitude and courage to stop them.

If we accede to where half of the Republican majority is today, which is that we are not going to support Ukraine in this fight, Putin will not stop. Soon, the United States will have no choice but to step in to stop Vladimir Putin.

We hear these excuses: There is not enough accounting. There is not enough oversight.

We didn't hear that when we were supporting the Afghani regime, which is profoundly corrupt. We didn't hear that about Iraq. We are only hearing that about Ukraine.

We hear that we would like to know what the plan is for victory in Ukraine. Did anybody ask Winston Churchill, the hero of World War II, what his plan for victory was? No, they did not because he wasn't sure. We stood by him because he stood for liberty and the moral clarity that this institution has now lost.

If we think for one moment that Putin is the only one who is enjoying this moment, think about what President Xi of China is learning; think about what the Iranian mullahs are seeing; and think about what the North Korean dictator is coming to understand: That this Congress, when faced with the demand that we fight for liberty and freedom, we cut and run. That is what is being learned. Anybody who reads an iota of history will understand the tragedy that is behind that.

It is time for this Chamber to find an iota of the moral courage and clarity that John F. Kennedy elaborated on just outside these doors. We do it because it is right. We do it because if we fail the Ukrainians, it may be the next generation of Americans and Frenchmen and British who have to stop Putin.

Be assured that we will have to do that later in far, far more tragic circumstances than we have right now to stop--as John F. Kennedy called us to do--the march of tyranny and stand up for liberty.

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