Rick Santorum

The following is a rough transcript via The Corner, of a speech given earlier today by Rick Santorum on the floor of the US Senate. (I’ve edited it somewhat for readability purposes, and will update it later should an official transcript become available.)

I stand here in just — in just sadness.
The president of the united states gives an address about the condition of our country five years after the events of 9/11, gives an address and lays out the scope of the problem that we are confronting. The people all across this world who subscribe to a radical, perverted form of islam want to destroy everything that we believe in; that is the enemy that we are confronting. We are in an active war with our military against them in afghanistan and iraq. That’s the reality. The minority leader just referred to it as sectarian violence. Sectarian? Hmm… What is that word? Religious violence, radical skhraeupl — islam violence. Some shoe — some sunni, some shia, but both. That is the reality of who the enemy is today. The very people that planned the attacks are the people who are in iraq — al qaeda — in iraq causing that sectarian violence. Should we ignore that i would ask the senator from nevada? Should we just ignore that? That doesn’t exist? Just pretend that they’re not there, not talk about that last night, pretend that al qaeda is not in iraq, this is not part of the mission that we are trying to accomplish?
It’s sad. We’re at war against an enemy that i happen to believe is the most dangerous enemy ever to confront this country. We play petty politics constantly here on the floor of the senate, even after a solemn day of remembrance for the valiant people who died on september 11. This is chilling. We just can’t get past the politics around here, just can’t get past the partisan advantage around here, can’t face the reality that we have a dangerous enemy out there, an enemy that wants to destroy everything we hold dear, an enemy that is very clear about what they want to accomplish.
How clear? They say it. Not to mike wallace on “60 minutes,” i might add. No. No, when you’re spinning in english here in america, you put on the nice face. You put on the happy face that we want peace and we want to live together in brotherhood and all this wonderful stuff. That’s a lie, because when they go back and speak in arabic and farsi, they give a very different story. And it’s a consistent story, i might add. It is the destruction of the state of israel and it is the submission of the infidels to what they believe in.
That’s the enemy we confront. It’s real. We can play politics about it and say it’s not real. We can say it’s a trumped-up war. They are at war with us. We may not want to be at war with them, but they are at war with us not just in afghanistan and iraq, not just in southern lebanon, not just in great britain, but here. They want to defeat us. Their intent is to defeat us. And they are motivating people in the middle east and around the world to join the ranks and attack us.
One of the things i learned from my days in little league and in everything else i’ve ever engaged in. One sure-fire way to lose anything that you’re engaged in with an opponent is not to take your opponent seriously, is not to look at what they really are about, look at their capability and not take them seriously. I remember early in this war many were calling the terrorists cowards, as if these people were weak and that they had no real resolve. These people are not weak. They are misguided, horribly misguided. But they are not weak. They are a dangerous enemy. They are a dangerous enemy that has an ideology that is phoet — that is motivating people. And they have a tactic that is uniquely effective against us. As osama bin laden says, “we will defeat you because you love life. We love death.”
And we do love life in this country because we have a lot to live for. We have great freedom. We have great material wealth. We have a wonderful culture. They, on the other hand, for the most part have none of those. They love death because they see death is better than life, and they’re willing to die. In fact, they want to die. We’ve never fought an enemy like this. We’ve never fought an enemy that wanted to die as part of the victory for them. We always fought enemies who saw death as a tragic consequence of war and that their objective was an earth lick kingdom. Not this — an earthly kingdom. Not this enemy. This enemy, death is the part of the war as a desire for entering into this battle, and that their kingdom is not one that they want to build here but one that they want to achieve after death.
This is an enemy that wants a nuclear weapon in iran not because they want to stave off Because they want to use it to attacks. No. pursue their messianiac vision of the return of the hidden imam. They give speeches across the state of pennsylvania and lay out for the people in my state this vision of president mahmoud ahmadinejad, the vision of the shia 12th or hidden imam who is to return at the end of time. That’s what the shia believe. But president ahmadinejad and the rulers of iran believe different than most shias. Thank god different from most shias. They believe it is their obligation to bring about the end of time by the destruction of the state of israel and by world chaos in which islam is suppressing the infidels. And only at that time will this hidden imam return and the actualization of the religion come to pass. This is a serious enemy. This is an enemy with resources. This is an enemy with growing technology, and this is an enemy with fervent disciples who are willing to go around and kill themselves in pursuit of this objective.
This is not something to be playing politics with. This is not something to ignore and pass off as sectarian violence that we brought about because we happen to be there. These people have been at war with us for 20 years, and we’ve chosen to ignore them. And we paid a very high price.
And so what’s our lesson? If you listen to the democratic leader, our lesson is let’s continue to ignore them. Let’s continue to play politics. Let’s put domestic politics ahead of the security of this country. That’s the message. This isn’t real. This is trumped up. If we leave them alone, they’ll leave us alone. Oh really? Do you really believe that? That if we were to leave these people alone, that somehow or another we’d be safe here? We just garrison america, make all public buildings like we have here at the capitol. Put jersey barriers around everything. Have police on every corner. Who will protect ourselves from these people? Is that the america we want to live in? Not me. Not me. We are at war, the most serious war this country has ever faced against an opponent like none we have ever faced.
And yet, we play politics. We ignore the reality. We pretend they’re just not there, at least until november. At least until we can get control. And then maybe we’ll come to our senses and recognize the grave threat that confronts our country.
No, the president did not give a political speech last night. He spoke the reality of the conflict that is before us. It is not popular to do so. I know. It is not popular to stand up and support a conflict that is difficult — difficult — to deal with every day. But understand that’s exactly what they have in mind. Did you ever wonder why they don’t kill 3,000 people in one day? I mean, they have the capability of doing so. You just send out, instead of one every day or two every day, you send out 200 in one day. Why not? Why don’t they just have one mass, huge offensive? Because that’s not what they are all about. That’s not terror as a tactic. Terror as a tactic is every single day cause death. It doesn’t matter who, but just cause death. So why? To defeat the military? No. Their objective isn’t to defeat the military or drive back the lines of our troops or to control more area. No. Those deaths are not aimed at They are aimed at us. our military.
Every day they want to make it harder for you and you and you to open the paper, to turn on the television, to see more death. It’s just a steady drum isbeat of the psychological war of terror being inflicted on the american public. They will keep up the drumbeat every single day, not in big conflagrations. Every day to make it painful, to make it hard. They want one thing out of us. They know our military — and i’m going to submit for the record a serviceman who wrote me who provided his experience in iraq of success, i might add. Our military knows that they must win this war and they are succeeding at some level.
They’re not attacking our military. They’re attacking us psychologically every single day unless until finally they get us to say one word — enough “enough.” Enough. We’ve had enough. We can’t take this anymore. It’s just too hard. They believe we will say “enough “enough.” Because they believe we are weak weak. They believe that we in the modern world just don’t have the stomach to fight and die for what we believe in anymore. We like our things too much. And so we will just leave them alone until they get stronger and stronger, in a position to do more and more damage to our children and grandchildren.
The president is right. This is our hour. We can play politics with the hour, we can seek political advantage and to win the next election with this hour. We can confront the reality of this hour and do something about it. On my watch, even though i’m ing what many consider to be face a difficult time back in pennsylvania — on my watch, i’m going to confront the reality of the threat to me, to this country and to our children and grandchildren. It is just too important to walk away and play politics to get re reelected. It is too important to the future of this country to minimize the threat that we are engaged in and play politics with it. It may win and lose elections. Matters not to me. Matters not to me. What matters is, defending our country when it needs to be defended. Not putting personal politics above what’s the best interests of the national security of this country.
I believe the president, given all the mistakes that this administration has made in the conduct of this war — and they certainly are numerous — the president has it right. This is the greatest threat for our generation, and i pray we have the courage to confront it.