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Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, on November 11, 2001--exactly 2 months after the September 11 attacks--President Bush spoke to the United Nations General Assembly about the universal threat of terrorism.

I want to share just a few lines from that speech:

The suffering of September the 11th was inflicted on people of many faiths and many nations. All of the victims, including Muslims, were killed with equal indifference and equal satisfaction by the terrorist leaders.

Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children.

And the people of my country will remember those who have plotted against us. We are learning their names. We are coming to know their faces. There is no corner of the Earth distant or dark enough to protect them. However long it takes, their hour of justice will come.

Every nation has a stake in this cause. As we meet, the terrorists are planning more murder--perhaps in my country, or perhaps in yours. They kill because they aspire to dominate.

Now, 21 years later, I fear that President Biden and many of my Democratic colleagues have forgotten the lessons they learned from that day and in the years that have followed.

What I recall most about the weeks and months following the attacks is that everyone I talked with, no matter their politics, believed that we were facing a battle of good versus evil.

There was a real clarity of conviction that demanded we all choose a side. Would we stand with freedom or with the enemies of freedom? You can dither and dally all you want on national security policy, but there was not much dithering to be done on that point, at least not in 2001.

But now, in the mainstream media and at the highest levels of the Democratic Party, we see that clarity of conviction ceding ground to moral relativism. It infected this weekend's remembrance. It infected the debate surrounding Joe Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. And it has all but derailed any serious discussion about emerging threats, not just from terrorist organizations but from hostile regimes that the Biden administration seems determined to appease.

During this past August work period, I had the opportunity to visit two of the hot spots. Working with our counterparts in Taiwan and Israel was illuminating for many reasons. I wish every single one of my colleagues would get off their computers, get on a plane, and go talk to them about what it is like to spend every day on the frontlines in this battle against the new ``axis of evil.''

Here in the United States, we are blessed by the benefit of physical distance from the hot spots. And it is no guarantee of protection, and I believe it has lulled many of my colleagues into a false sense of security concerning the threats we face.

Our friends in Taipei and Jerusalem don't share this benefit. They spend their days watching missiles fly closer to their homes and listening to authoritarian propaganda from Beijing and Iran that threatens innocent families with extinction for the crime of simply existing.

In Israel, they are gravely concerned about the Biden administration's desire to enter into a new nuclear deal with Tehran. They worry that this will move Iran closer to a nuclear warhead. They are concerned about what would happen with the billions of dollars that would flow into Iran's coffers. What would happen with sanctions relief? How will they use this money?

Overall, their fears are dominated by the knowledge that, yes, indeed, Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. How will they use the money to finance the work of their proxies? They are particularly concerned how this will instigate growth and expansion of terrorism in Palestine.

In Taiwan, they are concerned about the growing intensity of Chinese Communist Party aggression. I have also heard grave concerns from other island nations that if China overruns Taiwan, they could be the next to fall.

But above all, they conveyed a strong desire to continue working with the United States. Yes, we are their preferred partner. They need our foreign military sales. They want to be able to defend themselves. It means they have to increase their defense capabilities.

Taiwan and Israel aren't the only hot spots that should concern us, but they both represent the first line of defense against the growing influence of the new ``axis of evil.''

The one thing I heard, over and over again when I was overseas, is that if we allow these nations to become overrun, it will start a domino effect in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East that will be difficult, if not impossible, to stop.

And as we have seen before, when we give nations like China and Iran an inch, what do they do? They take a mile.

So it is incomprehensible to me that Joe Biden and the Democrats are not doing everything--everything--in their power to stop this from happening.

Over the past few years, I have watched the President and his allies treat the threat posed by the new ``axis of evil'' like an academic problem, rather than what it is, a true threat to our freedoms.

There is no excuse for this. They all have access to television and the internet. They know exactly who is in charge in Tehran and Beijing and what they are willing to do to expand their power.

So why have we made so little progress repatriating our supply chains and protecting our economy from the Chinese Communist Party? Why is Joe Biden trying to force the American people into another failed nuclear deal with Iran? Why are they not listening to our closest allies and partners in these regions? Why is this administration having Russia negotiate a new Iran nuclear deal?

If this country continues to treat China and Iran like difficult neighbors instead of a threat to our freedoms, eventually the balance of power will shift in their favor. Nations like Taiwan and Israel will fall. The United States could suffer another devastating attack.

Joe Biden and the Democrats have wasted time rejecting reality in favor of appeasement. They believe that they can negotiate the upper hand and settle things diplomatically. But this isn't diplomacy; this is a hostage situation. If it weren't, images of missiles flying towards civilians would have reignited the same clarity of conviction we all felt after the towers fell and the people in charge of our government would be shouting warnings from the rooftops rather than negotiating away our security behind closed doors.

I would remind my Democratic colleagues that U.N. human rights reports and strongly worded statements and all the other trappings of your current brand of diplomacy mean nothing if you are not willing to put lives and livelihoods on the line to defend them.

So it is time to decide: Will you stand with freedom or with the enemies of freedom?

I want to reiterate President Bush's assessment of the terrorists who attacked our country 21 years ago this week because it is an apt comparison to be made. ``They kill because they aspire to dominate.'' Think about that one. ``They kill because they aspire to dominate.''

What the regimes in Tehran and Beijing are doing right now to our friends in Israel and Taiwan looks different from what al-Qaida did to us on 9/11, but their goals are the same. They seek global domination, and they are growing impatient. We can either wait to see what they will do next or we can stand with our allies and partners and demonstrate our resolve to ensure that the new axis of evil fails.

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