By Congressman Joe Pitts
Like
many other Americans, I’ll never forget where I was on September 11,
2001. I saw firsthand the damage to the Pentagon, passing plumes of
black smoke rising as I drove
to the Capitol on that morning.
These
horrific attacks, which killed over 3,000 innocent people, were sudden,
and jolted the country out of a decade of relative calm after the
downfall of communism.
Thirteen
years later, our country, which in the previous century defeated
totalitarians called fascists and ones called communists, continues to
face the specter of totalitarians around the
world, some using the Muslim faith as their pretext.
We
have sacrificed greatly since then. As the world’s indispensable
nation, to whom all free peoples look for hope, we have borne the heavy
weight of the responsibility that comes with prosperity
and power. It is neither a coincidence nor an accident, that the United
States is the top target of terrorists: the very greatness of America,
the success of our model of self-governing free people, is offensive to
them.
Evidence
coming out of Iraq and Syria, sad to say, confirms this. Minority
groups are being driven by the hundred-thousand into exile or
relentlessly pursued for extermination by the so-called
“Islamic State,” or ISIL, which controls a territory the size of the
United Kingdom. ISIL is well-funded, well-armed, and well-manned.
ISIL
began as al-Qaeda in Iraq, but after ISIL refused orders from al-Qaeda
Central to stop killing so many Syrian civilians, Bin Laden’s former
group publicly renounced ties to ISIL on February
3. ISIL simply has no respect for human life, and no respect for
economic or religious liberty, as they continue to remorselessly kill
children, political dissidents, apostates, and religious dissenters by
the thousands.
ISIL
threatens our homeland. They have murdered two Americans, recruited
hundreds of Americans, and, according to Francis Taylor of the
Department of Homeland Security, ISIL supporters are
plotting to sneak through our vulnerable southern border. In June, a
jihadist social media posting showed a picture, with a dated,
handwritten note, in Chicago and Washington reading, “we are in your
cities.”
The
President has rightly taken action against ISIL, authorizing airstrikes
in Northern Iraq to prevent an outright genocide of the Yazidi people. I
share his goal to “degrade and ultimately
destroy” ISIL, and I am prepared to work with him to protect the
American people and American interests.
The
attacks thirteen years ago and the stark reality in today’s Middle East
remind us also of the many blessings we enjoy in this country. Though
Republicans and Democrats have our differences,
we are both committed to this country, and we believe that our ideas
will help our fellow Americans. It is more exciting of a headline, I
know, to report on bickering and backbiting, but the reality is that we
do work together on a variety of issues all the
time.
I
was pleased to speak recently at a conference entitled “In Defense of
Christians” with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, including Reps.
Darrell Issa, Brad Sherman, Chris Smith, Kerry
Bentiviolio, and Dan Lipinski. Though we may not agree on absolutely
everything, we stand together for the protection of the inalienable
human rights for innocent civilians and minorities around the world.
We
cannot count on these or any threats to freedom to go away: they won’t.
As Ronald Reagan put it in 1961, at the height of the Cold War,
“freedom is never more than one generation away from
extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.
The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight
for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well
thought lessons of how they in their lifetime must
do the same.” It might be tempting to pull back from the world stage
and hope that freedom’s enemies will leave us alone, but we know that
they will not.
As
we mark this solemn anniversary of this mass murder, may we stand
together once again, as we did in those dark hours thirteen years ago,
and recommit ourselves to the principles that make
this nation exceptional.
US Rep. Joe Pitts is a Republican who represents Pennsylvania's 16th Congressional District.
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