美国共和党议员每周视频致辞（2016年6月11日）

Weekly Republican Address

Colorado Senator Cory Gardner

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Hi, I’m Cory Gardner and I’m proud to represent the great state of Colorado in the United States Senate.

This past week, the Senate continued to debate the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. The NDAA is important because it supports our troops and their families.

It’s also essential to combating threats around the globe and protecting the homeland, which includes blocking the President from moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States. These detainees aren’t in Gitmo for parking tickets; they’re there because they want to kill Americans and hate everything that we stand for. They’re the worst of the worst.

Current law already prohibits the President from bringing these terrorists to communities in the U.S. And several top Obama Administration officials have acknowledged this fact. The White House, however, has not ruled out unilateral action.

Closing Guantanamo Bay and transferring the detainees to the United States would jeopardize our security.

Here’s why:

Guantanamo Bay presents the opportunity to capitalize on our intelligence-gathering capabilities when additional terrorists are captured and detained. Closing its doors may mean the loss of an important tool that could potentially prevent future attacks.

Secondly, closing Guantanamo Bay means that the Obama Administration will accelerate the release or transfer of its prisoners to the United States or abroad. This is simply reckless. When the Middle East is growing increasingly unstable, we lack a real strategy to defeat ISIS, and the threat of prisoners returning to the battlefield has materialized time and time again.

According to the Director of National Intelligence, three in 10 of the detainees released prior to 2015 either have or are suspected to have returned to fight against the United States. And upon release, we know that some of them have killed Americans – the Obama Administration has even admitted this.

Lastly, the detainees who are deemed “too dangerous” to release will be sent into the United States. And Americans across the country don’t want that. I stand with them, the American people, in opposition – especially after a visit to Guantanamo Bay this spring.

A visit that confirmed that we live in very a dangerous world with reckless actors who seek to destroy the democratic principles that have made our country so great. It also reminded me that when the United States retreats, a power vacuum is created that unprincipled and destructive powers will fill. That’s why it’s critical that we continue to share our values and the ideas that flourish in a free society that empower men and women. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press – these unalienable rights that are entrenched in our Constitution are out of reach for many people around the world.

That was clear to me on a recent Congressional delegation trip to Asia when I met with government officials and military commanders and reaffirmed our shared values. We discussed the importance of U.S. leadership and strengthening our alliance with our allies in the region.

It is more critical now than ever that the United States sends a strong signal that it is ready and willing to work with our allies in and across the Pacific, and our crucial NATO allies to protect these rights. This requires not only maintaining, but growing our presence in the region.

The President must sign the NDAA because it will bolster our national defense and equip our military with the resources it needs. At the same time, the NDAA reminds us what inspires our brave men and women to serve – and that’s our freedom and the democratic principles that we cherish and our enemies fear.