Kurds were there. The kurds werent even at the table. This was a betrayal of the people who are on the frontlines fighting the big fight of today against radical islamic terrorism. We betrayed them. This is horrible. What kind of message does that send to other people around the world who have to stand up against this onslaught of radical fanatic, islamic terrorists and dictatorship that would be superimposed on them . We better make sure that these people understand whether its Abdula Abdullah or how about the crown prince of abu dhabi . Heres a man who is so strong in his conviction and leadership in that part of the world to try to stop this terrible threat but yet we dont yes, hes treated well. We should be honoring him. There should be there should be our administration shoulding leading the efforts to take abdullahs and crown prince there in abu dhabi and the president , these people deserve demonstrable support, not just ok. Not just sort of halfheartedly getting behind them. What about, for example, even qatar today. They are trying to make their decision what to do in the face of this. They permit us, for example, they permit us to have air strikes against isil, the radical Islamic Group up in iraq, they are permitting us to use their base for those an air base in qatar to launch those attacks. We should make sure people understand that we are grateful to them for it and be demonstrable about it. Part of it is being, yes, stand up with your friends. Somebody does something good like qatar has just done and wants to go back and has taken steps in the right direction after taking some steps in the wrong direction in a couple years, they lost faith in us, i believe. Now they are coming back in our direction. We should encourage that. The other half of the equation is, we need to be tough on the guys who are enemies, going the wrong way, who are supporting radical islamic fanatic terrorism. Like, for example, pakistan. We are still giving billions of dollars over a 10year period to pakistan. We are giving hundreds of millions of dollars on military equipment and foreign aid to a country that is, yes, supporting the taliban. Almost all of the people we have lost in afghanistan can be traced back to terrorists who are using pakistan as a home base, but not only as a home base, the i. S. I. Have been actively involved in helping these fanatic terrorists. Our people were up against in afghanistan. How do we know that . Well, we do know that maybe just the fact that they were giving safe haven to Osama Bin Laden the murderer of 3,000 americans on 9 11, they gave safe haven to this man. We didnt know. No one believes that. They knew. And now adding insult to injury they have taken the doctor who fingered who gave us the location of Osama Bin Laden and help us bring Osama Bin Laden to justice, that doctor, is now languishing in a dungeon. In a 10 by 10foot cell in pakistan. That act by pakistan is a hostile act to the United States. And for us to walk away and ignore it is to encourage others to treat us in the same way. We must be tough on our enemies and friends to our friends. Is that a difficult formula . Is that too difficult for people to understand . We are losing today because i believe this president has been treating our enemies better than hes been treating our friends in many cases in terms of willing to reach out to them. We should be reaching out and trying to do everything we can to help the friendly countries rather than reaching out to seek accommodations with these evil countries. Nowhere is that better demonstrated than the announcement that we had secretly negotiated a deal with Fidel Castros regime in cuba. Secretly negotiated. Congress didnt know what was going on. And now he is announced by edict this executive orders, heres a president , maybe he likes castro a little bit because castro, after all, he could rule with edicts. Just like our president now wants to rule with edicts rather than go through what we call your regular order seeking the legislative branch and seeking compromises, and establishing policy in that way. Instead, this president reversed 50 years of american policy towards cuba. On his own rather than coming here to congress and working out something with us and trying to find what is the best way and opening up cuba to having beginning of an economic relationship and having americans to go freely there and them to come to the United States. Well, he did that and there were no concessions. None that the cubans made for this president to give up that 50 years, 50 years of this is what our policy is, you are going to have to do this, free elections, opposition parties, etc. , then we will recognize you. This president gave it up and no concessions on the other side. By the way, what message does that send to all these other countries . Again its not just cuba. What message does that send to all these other countries that we complain about human rights, we try to set a standard, some standard, that will indeed take that country in the right direction. No. We are we end up giving up a 50year policy with no concessions thus every little petty dictator in the world, or even worse, every group thats out there who is trying to decide whether or not to go with radical islamic terrorism or not, they know they can make whatever decision they want and eventually the United States will cave in because we are projecting weakness. As i say, the one thing Ronald Reagan did that was terrific was to rebuild our military, and it did it created a sense of awe. But it was a sense of strength. He used that sense of strength, but it was his strategy in helping those people throughout the world who are our friends and the friends of things we believe in and the enemy of our enemies, thats what worked. We are sending the wrong message to the people who will be the enemy of our enemies. We are sending we are undermining by not providing positive and forceful support for those people who are standing up with the crown prince of abu dhabi and these others and abdullah and jordan and president al assisi in egypt. By not demonstrably standing with them, we send the wrong message. Thats why things are falling apart. Thats why things are not going in the right direction. Thats this isnt we just happen to live in a time when things are chaotic. That is not the case. Just like Ronald Reagan doesnt live in the times when there was a soviet communist threat that was undermining the peace in the world. That didnt just happen. It was the basis of things that we did yes, what they did, but also our response to that threat. Today this administration i believe believe, has led us down a path that has created the chaos we now see. Created a situation where you have a radical fanatic islamic Dictatorship Movement that not only tries to take over and dominate the islamic part of the world, but is threatening terrorist acts and is engaged in terrorist acts. We will have more and more bombings like we saw at the boston marathon. Well have more and more terrorist actions taken in western europe as we saw in paris. Or in africa. Unless we step forward and let the world know we are a strong, we are strong in our commitment and we stand by those who will help us in this battle. I visited recently new york city, and i had not been there since well for a long time. I had never gone to the 9 11 memorial. I visited the 9 11 memorial and i would advise anyone who has not been there to go there. Its a memorial to the 3,000 americans who died on 9 11, and most of them there at the world trade center, and those two great towers that were brought down on that day. You should go. Anyone hearing my voice, my colleagues others, should go and see this. They have managed to get the picture, a picture of almost every one of the victims who died that day. And there were firemen and policemen who when the airplane struck that building instead of running away and rushing away, they ran towards the building. They ran there to see what they could do to help and they gave their lives. These heroic people. We have to have a government as heroic as our own people if we are going to try over the evil that slaughter those people today. They slaughtered them in 9 11 and they will slaughter them today. And i looked at those pictures of those 3000 people and i was in the government when that happened. I was in and i worked with reagan and before that, but 9 11, we had been here a long time. We are all part of this. We owe it to the people of the United States, all of us on both sides of the aisle, and in the executive branch and whoever who is the government of this country, we owe it to our people to make sure we are doing the right thing. And i looked into their faces, i brought my children with me. To see this. I said, look, all those people, you know what theyre telling us . They are telling us, to me, and to all of us here in this body, you let us down. You let us down. Dont do it again. Dont let there be another wall in another city with 20,000 pictures on it because theyve got some sort of dirty bomb or something. These people that we are facing today are capable of that. I am not arguing for major employments of military units overseas, occupation in the world like we did for too long. I do not think it was right for us to go into iraq in the first place. But i do argue that when we find people on our side like Ronald Reagan did, we need to have a Strong Military and we need to make sure that the world respects us, but then we need to have activities and actions and stands that win their respect. Them knowing we stand with those people who will stand firm against this threat to the world, otherwise someday we will there could be another world war iilike thing 10 years down the road when we say why didnt you stop that fanatic hitler when he was just talking around, goose stepping around in these towns in germany when he could have been stopped . Why didnt you stop him then . No then there was hundreds of millions of people, this could lead to that type of conflagation. Unless we stop this radical movement there now, they will find ways of killing thousands of americans, and there will be other walls with other pictures saying, why didnt you do something . No. I call on my colleagues now to seriously look at this challenge that we face. I hope that those people, my negative comments about what i believe is the president not dealing with the situation in the right way is something that came from the heart. This is not im not doing this for political reasons. And let me just say today, we see examples where we need to make stands. We need to make sure, for example the regime in iran is facing a president of the United States and American Government thats making demands that they do not become that they do not use this system that they are developing now. That they have signed a treaty agreeing they will not have a nuclear weapon. We should hold them to that treaty, and we should be helping the people in iran who are struggling against that regime. I dont say we should attack iron with iran with American Military might. We should be supported and have done so all along. There were demonstrators in the streets of tehran and there was no message, there was no message at all of support from our government. That was the first thing this president did is he refrained from helping and supporting those young activists for democracy in iran. The about a luche people are fighting the baloch people are fighting against the corruption and oppression of the pakistani government which is dominated by these radicals. We should be helping the blooch who can also well, that goes this. Anyway. There are options that we can have throughout the world today. Actions both in terms of policy and in terms of actually helping People Struggle for freedom that will ensure the peace of the world 10 years down the road. It will ensure as Ronald Reagan when he took over he left us a better world. We need to take the steps now to make sure that when we leave this body when we leave congress or leave the whoever becomes president the next time around that we leave that government, this government at a time when our people have a greater chance for freedom, a greater chance to live in peace and we need to make sure that our people can live in peace and prosperity. Those pictures on the wall at the 9 11 memorial shout out to us do your duty. You didnt do it. You let us down. Dont do it again. Make sure the American People are safe. You have a challenge now. Meet that challenge. Stand firm. Stand strong behind those who are with you. I now yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore under the speakers announced policy of january 6 2015. January 6 2015, the chair recognizes the gentleman from arizona, mr. Franks, for 30 minutes. Mr. Franks well, thank you, mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, weve heard a great deal about protocol this last week, and it all centers around the invitation by the speaker of this house to the Prime Minister of israel to come and speak to the body as he has done twice before. Its worth pointing out mr. Speaker, that Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most precious voices we have in the world to address some of the subjects and dangers that face the United States of america. And yet this administration is caught up in a conundrum over prote owe crawl. While it might protocol. While it might be worth reminding this government that it is made up of three equal branches, its more important to remind this administration that when iran is pursuing a Nuclear Weapons capability with which to threaten the peace and security of the entire world, when isis and groups like it are slaughtering people the world over, when isis is crucifying and killing and torturing people in iraq, when theyre burning their prisoners alive in cages, this administration is caught up in protocol. Mr. Speaker, that is a profound distortion of reality. And yet this administration, for all its talk of protocol, not only violated protocol when it traded five taliban leaders for sergeant beau bergdahl, this administration has usurped the power of the legislative branch by brash fiat. It has chose to listen to this mysterious voice of those that didnt vote in this election. Obamacare and a number of others, but if we just put that litany aside for a moment and just consider the arrogance of this administration as it comes now to claim to proclaim that are the speaker of this house has somehow broken protocol by inviting the Prime Minister of our most vital ally on earth to speak on this floor. Worse, mr. Speaker, it has sought to go after and silence the guest speaker himself. Hearing the visceral rhetoric of this white house, one would think our speaker had invited the Prime Minister of an enemy nation instead of one of our best friends on the planet. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately this administrations claims of breached protocol are an attempt to overshadow the real elephant in the room and truth itself. The actual outrage here is not about the israeli elections as some might say. It is not about the doomed diplomatic overtures of this administration. The real crisis and threat is a Nuclear Capable iran. And president netanyahu, with the greatest credentials, in coming to speak to all of us, is acting as a trusted ally should act. And i hope this administration and in congress and the American People will listen to him very carefully. The true problem here mr. Speaker is that an outspoken enemy of our nation, one that is indeed the leading state sponsor of global islamic terrorism, is actively pursuing Nuclear Weapons that could create the gravest of threats to the United States, israel and the entire free world. How quickly we forget that rhine considers the United States of america the, quote, great satan. How quickly we forget that last year on november 4, iran once again celebrated death to america day, commemorating the 1979 seizure of the United States embassy. How quickly we forget that death to america is the rallying cry of hezbollah for which and its been backed by iran and launched attacks on israel just last week, killing and wounding good men. How quickly we forget that one of irans stated goals is quote, wiping israel off the map. How quickly we forget that iran collaborates with u. S. Antiu. S. Regimes in south america and is actively seeking to exploit our borders and, of course, this administrations complete inattention to them. How quickly we forget that iran continues to cooperate with north korea and the development of longrange missiles capable of carrying Nuclear Warheads to the United States of america. Mr. Speaker is this administration so naive or were so arrogant as to believe welcome have any type of credible diplomatic agreement with the leadership of such a regime . I think its embarrassing, mr. Speaker, to the United States of america that this supposed breach of protocol has somehow permitted this administration through anonymous yet somehow authoritative sources to politically threaten the elected leader of our only democratic ally in the region calling him names in the media and being vindictive in every interaction with him. Yet none of sh suave of the ego has furthered the interest of the United States one iota. Ultimately, it has only diminished Americas National security and israels right to defend herself. Mr. Speaker, there are unfortunately only three things that will prevent iran from eventually gaining Nuclear Weapons. One is a fundamental change of the regime in iran. Two, a direct military action to destroy their capability to build Nucl