Steve Pearce: “the images of 9-11 are very vivid in my mind. That unsolicited, unprovoked attack on the American population is one of…”

“the images of 9-11 are very vivid in my mind. That unsolicited, unprovoked attack on the American population is one of the most heinous things that this generation will see. Mr. Speaker, we are given two choices when we are struck like that. We can choose appeasement. That was the policy of the preceding 10 years. Appeasement where we do not respond or we can respond to try to stop the threat. Under President Bush we have responded. President Clinton chose appeasement. If you watch the graduation of the attacks under the appeasement policy of President Clinton, you will see that the attacks began to escalate. The severity of the attacks began to take a greater toll. The terrorists have one thing in mind when they attack innocent civilians and countries that have not provoked them. They desire to create instability, understanding that if they create economic instability, they will create political instability. That was the mode of operation for the terrorists as they graduated through the 1990s. We recall that the World Trade Center was struck previous to 9/11. It was struck 10 years previous. On 9/11 we lost over 2,000 lives and it cost our economy $2 trillion, and it is still costing today as businesses face increased insurance premiums to cover the losses of that 1 day. When I hear critics talk about the war and the cost on the war, and it is an expensive war, make no doubt about it, the costs are up around $200 billion now.…”