Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2009

Floor Speech

SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2009 -- (House of Representatives - May 14, 2009)

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Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.

We are in agreement on three things that we want to accomplish: We want to win the war against violent extremism, we want to punish those people who are responsible for harming or intending to harm Americans, and we want to make all Americans as safe and secure as possible.

Now, we are engaged in a long war. It is a war against violent extremism, but it will continue forever unless we understand the elements that the enemy is using against us because it's not a war that will lend itself to any military victory.

In fact, our most effective weapon is to simply be true to the values and principles that define who we are as a Nation. And the most lethal weapon that the enemy has in its possession is to point out those instances where we have not been true to our values and principles, where we have been hypocritical, where we have yielded to fear of the unknown, where we have appealed to the most basic instincts. We are a better nation than that.

That's why Guantanamo is important, because there are a limitless number of young impressionable men who, in fact, will be recruited by the enemy for generations to come if we don't stand up and show that we are true to our principles.

Initially in the first few years of the Afghan war, 772 people were rounded up, very few by American forces. They were turned over by tribal chieftains for bounties, $5,000, sometimes less. We took them and put them in Guantanamo because we didn't know what to do with them. We interrogated virtually all of them to see what they might know, whether or not we knew that they had been involved in any hostile action against the United States. And, in fact, 85 percent of them we know were not involved in any hostile action against the United States.

Now we are faced with a decision. Do we move forward with a policy that is obviously causing us to lose ground in this war against violent extremism? Or do we change course? And what we are urging--not in this bill because this bill simply requires us to put together a plan.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. OBEY. I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. MORAN of Virginia. The fact is that Guantanamo is not the punitive place that it used to be, but it does not serve our purposes to keep it open.

We have courts of justice. If people have committed harm against the United States, they need to be prosecuted. They need to be punished. It's not going to work if we try to do that at Guantanamo. And those who we don't have evidence against are going to have to eventually be released.

Now, you know this really is about seizing and holding the moral high ground. And it is about who we are as Americans. That is the only way we win this war against violent extremism.

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