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Madam President, it is truly an honor to have the opportunity to come and speak on the floor of the Senate today. This is one of those days when the Senate chamber is really the people's forum, when the partisan or ideological or regional or whatever differences that separate us in votes fall aside, and we stand here before the slogan that describes us -- E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one -- and shows the aspirations of our people.
I am proud of what my colleagues have said thus far in this discussion, and very grateful for the opportunity to be part of it. In New York City today, Madam President, they are reading the names of the victims. The names of the 3,000 of God's children, magnificent in their characteristic American diversity, whose lives were savagely taken on September 11 last year, simply because they were American.
None of us here can say anything as powerful or profound as the recitation of those names today. The Pentagon, the World Trade Center, that field outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania are places of worship really, where we will revere the lives lost and honor their place in our history. This morning, as I left the very moving and unifying commemoration and rededication service at the Pentagon, I came across a family and I said hello and shook their hands and I realized that these were survivors of a man killed in the Pentagon on September 11 last year.
A young boy, 10-12, full of the innocence of youth, great-looking kid, carrying an American flag in a case. I presume the flag that was either placed over his father's coffin or given to him in memory of his father. A woman who was the wife of the deceased and his parents. The man wearing the cap of a veteran, tears under his eyes and there it was, a son without a father, a woman without her husband. Parents without their children. And I was speechless. There was nothing I could say except to shake their hand and put my hand over my heart.
And in some ways, silence is a more appropriate response to the dreadful losses that were suffered on September 11. Silence somehow speaks more loudly to the horror and the complicated feelings that we all had on that day. Nevertheless, we must speak to reflect on what has happened that day and in the year that has passed, and to try to learn from that day and chart our way forward.
Madam President, our enemies hoped September 11, 2001 would be the first page of a new chapter in world history: the end of the American century. The end of America as we know it. The beginning of a civilizational conflict based on theological differences, taken to an inhumane extreme, which would end in the victory of radical, extreme Islam. As a distinguished Muslim citizen of Connecticut said yesterday at a public ceremony, al Qaeda hijacked his religion.
In this, the terrorists betray their ignorance not just about Islam, but about America. Not just about the American people, but American democracy and its values. I want to speak for a moment about this conflict that September 11 has put us into and the differences between us and our enemies, which is what this is all about. This is not a simple struggle for power; this is a global conflict for values. For ideals.
We are idealists. We and our many allies around the world, including millions in the Muslim world, believe in the in alienable and inviolable rights of every citizen. Our enemies are craven cynics who desire raw power for themselves, and seek to crush those who look or act or think differently. They claim to be religious, but how can they be religious and faithful in any way in which any of the world's religions understand it, if they are prepared to kill thousands of God's children allegedly in the name of God?
We are different. We are optimists. We grant people liberty, not as the gift of politicians, but, as our Declaration of Independence says, as the endowment of our Creator. We have confidence that a society governed by its people will progress, and that's why we seek to open up the world and broaden the community of nations living under democracy as we have so magnificently since the fall of the Berlin wall.
Our enemies are not just pessimists, they are fatalists. They fear the voices of people. They want to bring down a theological iron curtain to divide the world into acceptable and unacceptable people and nations and faiths. And to those worthy of living, and those targeted for death and domination.
Third, we are skeptics in a very healthy way. We question one another and ourselves. We are proud of who we are, but not so proud that we pretend to be without fault. Our enemies proceed with a chilling sense of certainty and an unwillingness to look at themselves in the mirror.
Madam President, it is those values that have guided us through our history and distinguished us now from our enemies. The men and women of our military have performed brilliantly in unfamiliar territory against an unprecedented foe. Our police officers, firefighters and other first responders have had reason to despair, but they have risen to the immense challenge and reminded us of what heroism they display every day.
Every day Americans in our communities have had reason to lose faith and to turn from hope to fear, but they have not faltered. They have come together, finding our strength, not losing our optimism and courage.
And here in Congress, we still have work to do. We have faced the new realities of the post-September 11 world. We have asked tough questions of ourselves. We have supported our president as commander-in-chief. We have realized that we have not been as prepared as we should have been on September 11 last year and we are taking steps to close our vulnerabilities.
As we do, we must remember that September 11 was not just a tragedy that happened. It was not just a natural disaster. It was an unnatural disaster, carried out as an intentional act by people who were evil.
That is why, as Charles Krauthammer wrote in The Washington Post a while ago, we must understand this anniversary as more than a day of mourning and solemn remembrance. It must be not just a day of commemoration, but a day of rededication.
He wrote, "...we would pay such homage had the World Trade Center and the Pentagon collapsed in an earthquake. They did not." That is commemoration. "And because they did not, more is required than mere homage and respect. Not just sorrow, but renewed anger. Not just consolation, but renewed determination."
We will build beautiful memorials to those killed on September 11, but there are other memorials that we here in Congress can and must build: a Department of Homeland Security that does everything humanly possible to prevent anything like September 11 from recurring. And it need not recur.
We must support and encourage our military to search out and destroy or capture al Qaeda wherever they exist. We must reach out to the Muslim world, the great majority, who are not fanatics, who are not extremists, who suffer from a lack of freedom and a lack of material resources and hope and offer them the support and the freedom that they desire, and that is ultimately the best defense against the evil terrorism of the minority and the Islamic world that al Qaeda represents.
And Madam President, as we look back and yet approach looking forward the debate coming in this chamber on Iraq, having heard the warnings of Osama bin Laden, having experienced the attack against the World Trade Center in 1993, against the two embassies in Africa, against the U.S.S. Cole, as we look back, don't we wish we had taken the kind of action we are taking today to destroy al Qaeda?
Madam President, in her forward to "At Home in The World," a collection of Daniel Pearl's writings, his wife wrote those "who killed Danny stood at the other extreme of what Danny represents. They could only wield their knife and cowardice against Danny's intellectual courage and bold spirit. Danny died holding only a pen. They stole his life but were unable to seize his soul. By killing Danny, terrorists took my life as well but could not lay claim to my spirit. Dead and alive we will never let them win."
So too, the terrorists may have killed 3,000 innocent Americans on September 11 of last year, but they will never lay claim to America's living spirit. We will never let them win.
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