Washington, DC, Jun 12 -  Mr. CARTER:.I live in a district where on any given day we have between 15,000 and 20,000 American heroes standing on that wall protecting freedom in the United States, in harm's way, giving their lives and limbs and time so that we can sit here in this House and so that our children and our wives and our loved ones can walk the streets of the United States free.

You know, this war on terror is a war on a cancerous idea that is, when you really think about it, is really one of the most horrible, horrible things there is; that there is a group of people that are fighting a war not against military soldiers as proud warriors marching off to war. No. In fact, they do not want to even see an American soldier anywhere near them, if they can help it. They want to terrorize society. And that terrorism, in their way of thinking, starts with civilians, not military.

We got a real good dose of that on 9/11, a dose that I do not know how the American people can ever get it out of their minds. When we were attacked at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, they attacked our military installations at Pearl Harbor. But when we were attacked on 9/11, a building full of business folks was attacked. This was not an attack on a military target, this was an attack on a civilian target, and its sole purpose was to kill American citizens.

We need to thank the Lord that their timing was slightly off and that the building was not completely full. If it had been, instead of numbering in the thousands we might have been numbering in the hundreds of thousands of people in those two buildings that might have died. But that was their purpose. Their purpose was to change how we live by hitting us where we live. I just can't think of anything more horrible.

You know, I was in the judge business for a while, as were several people in this room here today, and we know from experience that there's a lot of evil out there in the world, and we spent our time trying to deal with that evil. And I think, from what I know of my colleagues here in the House, we did a pretty good job of fighting evil. One of the things we did to curtail evil was we put them away, and we put them down so that the price of being evil was a high price in the places where we lived. And we are proud of that.

I think the American soldier knows that the hard part of fighting the war on terror, on fighting people who are really not out to fight them but are out to fight their children and their wives and their moms and dads back home, and moms and dads and children of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and many other countries in this world, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the list goes on and on and on, they are always attacking the innocent trying to live their lives.

But what is their theory behind this? I have thought about this. And I want to say that Mr. King gives some great insight into some of the things he has read, and I was fascinated by some of the things he had to say. But I think about this, and what they are really trying to do is to change the way we live until we just really cannot tolerate living that way any longer and we are willing to compromise and give in to what they view as a world view, until their radical Islam dominates the world.

They want our school children in Texas, or our school children in Tennessee, or our school children in Iowa to get up in the morning, every morning, and be afraid to stand at the bus stop, be afraid to ride on the school bus, be afraid to go to their school for fear that somebody might blow it up, somebody might shoot at the bus, somebody might hijack them or kidnap nap them. That is the world they are developing right now that we are tearing apart right now in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is not easy work for our soldiers. Our soldiers are out there in a special role that soldiers have never been in. Soldiers are trained to fight soldiers. Soldiers are trained to go onto a battlefield and fight a battle. And sometimes it is an unconventional battle, and we are trained to fight unconventional battles. Our soldiers are not policemen, although some are trained as policemen. Our soldiers shouldn't be policemen, but today the American Marine on patrol in Iraq or Afghanistan has a special mission, and that mission is to make sure that the safety of that population is as safe as the safety he wants for his population back home.

And he cares about those people. He cares about those kids. A great story I heard when I was back in Iraq was about a soldier walking down the street and a little girl comes running out and hands him one rose. A beautiful rose. He later gave it to a lady at the hospital who told me the story. She explained, and somebody was able to speak the language and tell this to the soldier, that that was the only thing living left in their garden. But she knew he deserved to have that rose because he was keeping her garden safe. This was a little 10-year-old girl.

Now, I'm sure that soldier will go for the rest of his life with the memory of that little girl. And I know sometimes they have to be standing out there in 115 degree heat with all that armor on and saying, man, this is a tough job. But that is the kind of thing that tells us what we are fighting for. We are fighting to protect innocent human beings. Not warriors, but to protect innocent human beings from being terrorized until they surrender their freedom and their will to terrorism.

That is what terrorists want. That is what they do. They just attack the innocent until the innocent throw up their hands and say, whatever you want, you can have it.

And we have examples of how they have done that. Look at Lebanon. Look at the other places around the world where the terrorists have just run rampant through the streets until Lebanon, which used to be called the Riviera of the Middle East, is now an example of destruction when people use the term Lebanon.

So why are our American soldiers doing this? They are doing their duty with pride and with conviction. And I will tell my friends on the other side of the aisle who seem to have this cut-and-run mentality, I want them to think about the times, and I know they have visited Iraq and they have to have talked to the same soldiers that I have talked to, but the soldiers that I talked to are proud of what they are doing in Iraq. They are confident that they are succeeding in what they are doing. They do not understand why the American people don't hear about their successes.

But, folks, even when we don't publicize their successes, they are having them. This last week has been a huge step forward in the war on terror because we took out the top terrorist. And from his little notebook, over the next couple of days we took out 17 other locations. Today we had another very successful raid. And we are not only getting rid of the bad guys and punishing them for their misbehavior by putting them into the Never-Never Land, but we are also capturing things that tells us more.

So I say to the terrorists: Beware. The American soldiers are coming. Beware. We are learning every day and we are getting better and we are learning more and more information about you, and we are coming to get you. We are going to stop what is going on.

I was real proud to know when Zarqawi was killed that the first people at the site were my boys in the 4th Infantry Division. Proud of them. They are the guys who caught Saddam Hussein. They are the guys who have been up front on every war, as has the 1st Cav. The 1st Cav. Gave us free elections. The 4th Infantry Division gave us Saddam Hussein, and now the first people on site after that beautiful job the Air Force did.

But you know what, the real war on terror, and we need as American citizens to think about this real strongly, is the first time the President spoke, I think it was after this thing happened, and he said what would be our top policy on the war on terror. He said if you help our enemies, you are our enemy. We are taking the fight to the enemy.

I think that is the right policy. I think the right policy is to say, we are not going to stand for people who kill innocent civilians no matter where they are, and we are going to stand up to them. Why? Because as Prime Minister Blair said right here in this House, it is our turn. We are the beacon of freedom in the world. We have the resources, intelligently used, to meet the challenge.

People say, oh, but it is going to be a long war. You know what? I think it is going to be a long conflict, but it's going to be a conflict that is going to have a series of battles in it. We are misdefining Iraq by calling it the war in Iraq. We are misdefining Afghanistan by calling it the war in Afghanistan. It is the battles in Iraq, the battle in Afghanistan. And maybe whatever we do in the way of successes will postpone the next battle.

Folks, we went into what we called the Cold War, and the Cold War included the battle of Korea and the battle of Vietnam and the battle of Panama and a lot of other battles that took place. But we won the Cold War by sticking to the principle that freedom and democracy and the ability to live your life in a world that was peaceful and loving was worth fighting for and worth standing up to people who wanted to change that and put totalitarianism in place of freedom.

We have now got a group of people who are fanatics and who want to put this radical Islam in place of freedom. And, unfortunately, once again, we have to stand up and be counted. And we will, as long as we produce people like I have met at Fort Hood and many other places where I have gone with the military, these quality young men and women. And as long as the American people are willing to stand the ground and do the job we back here have to do to win the war on terrorism, we will succeed.

Mr. Speaker, it is critical that the American public realize that the only thing standing between us and another 9/11 is the will to face the terrorists' onslaught not only with our troops but with our hearts and minds in America we should stand up for what is right. There is right and there is wrong in this world, and imposing the will by terror, by Islamic terrorists, is wrong.

Standing up for freedom and letting our kids be able to go to the park and play without fear of terrorism or wander the streets or your wife to go shopping at the grocery store or you be able to go to work every day without the fear of terrorism, that is right. It is the freedom we fought for and died for in this American country, and it is the freedom the whole world should be able to enjoy.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say, I am proud to say that I am an American and that Americans stand for right, I yield back to the gentlewoman.

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much how well the gentleman represents his constituents at Fort Hood, and I know he is so very proud of them and the work that they do.