William M. ``Mac'' Thornberry: “I first want to thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding, and, secondly, commend him for his work to try to tailor…”

“I first want to thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding, and, secondly, commend him for his work to try to tailor this measure in as narrow a way as possible. I also want to commend the gentleman from New York (Mr. King) for his strong, persistent advocacy for the families of the victims of 9/11. All of us share in their grief. The country has not gotten over that horrible incident, and all of us have contempt for those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who support them. My concern for this legislation, however, is more related to the unintended consequences that it may have because one of the key protections that the military, diplomats, and intelligence community of the United States has around the world is this doctrine of sovereign immunity. Once that doctrine gets eroded, then there is less protection, and we, the United States, has more at stake in having our people protected than any other country because we have more people around the world than anyone else. So, in this Congress, we can control the laws of the United States, and we can write them narrowly in a fine-tuned way to just achieve our objective. But then other countries respond. They may not have their laws narrowly defined in such a fine-tuned way. They may make them broader. Their practice may not have the protections that ours do. So the concern is that this starts a series of unintended consequences that will increase the risk to U.S. military personnel around the world, U.S.…”