The Global Jihadist Threat

Floor Speech

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently issued a stern warning in her testimony before the House and Senate committees responsible for oversight of U.S. foreign policy. She referred repeatedly to the need for our country to recognize and respond to what she called a ``global jihadist threat.''

Mr. Speaker, rarely have I agreed more with Secretary Clinton. Yet if Mrs. Clinton has been worried about this threat before now, she has done an impressive job of concealing it. The same is true of the Obama administration more generally. For the past 4 years, the executive branch has gone to extraordinary lengths to obscure the danger posed by those who practice holy war, or jihad, against our country. The administration has also sought to silence, and in some cases punish, those who have spoken the truth about this menace.

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely welcome the Secretary's warning, belated though it may be. However, it would have served this country and the cause of freedom far more if she had so openly recognized the threat posed by militant Islamic jihad--and to have led in countering it--at any point during her tenure other than its conclusion.

One of the most important architects of that see-no-jihad policy over the past 4 years has been John Brennan, President Obama's homeland security advisor and his pick to become the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In May, 2010, Mr. Brennan publicly declared that:

We do not describe our enemy as ``jihadists'' or ``Islamists'' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women, and children.

Mr. Speaker, the unavoidable reality is that self-described jihadists have routinely gone about murdering innocent women and children for decades. It should alarm us all that neither John Brennan nor Hillary Clinton--nor seemingly anyone else in the Obama administration--has fully recognized the scope of this jihadist threat. They seem blind to the fact that the Islamic jihadists here and elsewhere in the West are even now engaging in a pre-violent form of holy war against infidels and the free world. And the administration has refused to face the incontrovertible fact that the driving force behind this practice is the Muslim Brotherhood. The brothers themselves call this form of holy war ``civilization jihad.''

Mr. Speaker, this reality is in direct conflict with the Obama administration's insistence--long-promoted by John Brennan--that we confront only al Qaeda and its affiliates. We are told that we can safely cultivate relations with ``moderates'' in Islamist groups like Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. This has led to helping jihadists extend their power elsewhere and allowed them to gain dangerous footholds in America.

Mr. Speaker, we need as a Nation to understand the true nature and ominous implications of the global jihadist threat in both its violent and pre-violent forms.

The unavoidable truth is that there are individuals who adhere to a political Islamist doctrine of shari'a, and they are willing to become involved in the jihad it commands, and they pose a potential mortal threat to this Nation and its people. And Congress has a duty, Mr. Speaker, among other things, to question the ways in which such individuals and organizations tied to the Muslim Brotherhood have been given access to and preferential treatment from the Obama administration.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the success of this stealth jihad has been significantly enhanced by remarks and public statements made by John Brennan over the past 4 years. He should, therefore, not be allowed anywhere near--let alone actually be given responsibility for running--America's premiere intelligence agency.

It is my hope that, among other things, my remarks on the floor today will encourage our colleagues in the Senate to scrutinize critically the record and judgment of John Brennan and his suitability for the job of CIA Director.

Mr. Speaker, may I commend to my colleagues on both sides of Capitol Hill regarding this issue and to the American people a powerful new documentary that examines, in part, some of the issues I have discussed today and their grave implications for our national security, public safety, and freedoms. This documentary, entitled, ``The Grand Deception,'' is a product of counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism, and it provides critical insights into the true nature of the ``global jihadist threat,'' including its expanding successes overseas and the danger it poses here at home. It chronicles the history of what I believe has been an officially sanctioned and willful blindness to that threat. It also lays bare the various ways in which such a practice is contributing to the emboldening of our enemies, the undermining of our allies, and the steady erosion of our economy and our security.

Mr. Speaker, let me close by noting, as the previous gentleman did, that today is Ronald Reagan's birthday. It is particularly appropriate to recall on Mr. Reagan's birthday his admonition of August 1961. He said:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States when men were free.

Mr. Speaker, today, in our time, we also face the prospect of a generational threat to freedom. We must bend every effort to awakening our countrymen to that threat and equip them to contend with it, and we must ensure that our government's policies and our capabilities are conducive to and employed effectively to fight for our freedom, to protect it, and to hand it on to future generations in the hope that they will do the same.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, John Brennan has shown himself time and again to be at cross-purposes with those requirements. For that reason alone, his nomination must be rejected.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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