National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution convened a hearing on a piece of legislation I introduced with several of my colleagues called the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act, or the HEAR Act. This bill is long overdue, and like most pieces of good legislation, it is pretty straightforward.

During the Holocaust, Nazis regularly confiscated private property, including artwork, adding one more offense to their devastating reign. Today, the day after the anniversary of D-day and decades after World War II ended, there are still families who haven't been able to get their stolen artwork or family heirlooms back.

The HEAR Act will support these victims by giving them a chance to have their claims decided on the merits in a court of law and hopefully facilitate the return of artwork stolen by Nazis to their rightful owners. That is why we called the hearing ``Reuniting Victims with Their Lost Heritage.'' It is true that Hitler's final solution in World War II was not just the extermination of the Jewish people but erasing their culture. This was part of the overall plan in Hitler's final solution. This legislation will help those who had vital pieces of their family and cultural heritage stolen to find justice.

This legislation is also consistent with our country's diplomatic efforts and longstanding congressional policy. I am grateful to my colleague from Texas, Senator Cruz, as well as the senior Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, and Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal, for joining me in introducing this bipartisan piece of legislation. I hope the Senate Judiciary Committee will mark this up soon and the full Chamber will consider it soon.

Mr. President, separately, as we continue our work on the Defense authorization bill, I want to talk for a moment about how important that is. Yesterday I spent some time talking about the threats not only to our troops overseas who are in harm's way but threats that those of us here at home are experiencing as a result of a more diversified array of threats than we have ever seen in the last 50 years. I say ``50 years'' because the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has served in the intelligence community for 50 years, and that is what he said--we have a more diverse array of threats today than he has seen in his whole 50-year career. That includes here at home because it is not just people traveling from the Middle East to the United States or people coming from the United States over to the Middle East training and then coming back. It is also about homegrown terrorists--people who are inspired by the use of social media and instructed to take up arms where they are and kill innocent people in the United States and, unfortunately, as we have seen in Europe as well.

As we think about the legacy of this President and his administration when it comes to foreign policy, I am reminded of the comments by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, commenting on another Democratic President's foreign policy. When he was asked, he candidly admitted and said: I can't think of a single place in the world where the United States is better off or held in higher esteem than it was before this administration. He called the impact of President Obama's foreign policy minimal. I would suggest that is awfully generous, if you look around the world, the threats of a nuclear-armed North Korea, which has intercontinental ballistic missiles it has tested in creating an unstable environment there with our ally and friend to the south, South Korea, if you look at what is happening in Europe as the newly emboldened Putin has invaded Crimea and Ukraine with very little consequences associated with it. I have said it before and I will say it again, weakness is a provocation. Weakness is a provocation to the world's bullies, thugs, and tyrants, and that is what we see in spades.

In the Middle East, President Obama talked about a red line in Syria when chemical weapons were used, but then when Bashar al-Assad saw that there was no real followthrough on that, it was a hollow threat and indeed he just kept coming, barrel-bombing innocent civilians in a civil war which has now taken perhaps 400,000 lives. Then, we have seen it in the South China Sea, where China, newly emboldened, is literally building islands in the middle of the South China Sea--one of the most important sealanes to international commerce and trade in Asia.

I will quote on North Korea again. Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said: ``We're within an inch of war almost every day in that part of the world,'' talking about Asia, with the threat of China in the South China Sea, North Korea. As far as North Korean aggression is concerned, this administration has basically done nothing to counter that aggression.

Under the President's watch, this regime has grown even more hostile and more dangerous because it is so unstable. In fact, when she was Secretary of State, Secretary Clinton testified in her confirmation hearing that her goal was ``to end the North Korean nuclear program.'' That is what Secretary Clinton said. Her goal was to end the North Korean nuclear program. She even promised to embark upon a very aggressive effort to that effect.

We know what happened. Instead, she adopted what was later euphemistically called strategic patience. That is just another way of saying doing nothing. In other words, this more laid-back approach is simply lost on tyrants like we see in North Korea, and it certainly didn't punish the North Korean leadership for its hostilities.

We can't continue down the reckless path of ignoring challenges around the world or retreating where people are looking for American leadership. That is why it is so critical that we demonstrate our commitment to our men and women in uniform by passing this important Defense authorization bill this week.

We have an all-volunteer military, and that is a good thing. We have many patriots who join the military, train, and then are deployed all around the world, as directed by the Commander in Chief, but the idea that we would not follow through on our commitment to make sure they have the resources they need is simply unthinkable.

I hope we will continue to make progress on the Defense authorization bill and make sure we provide the resources, equipment, and authorization they need in order to defend our country. Let's get the NDAA, the Defense authorization bill, done this week.

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