2012 Keeper of the Flame Award: Peter King

KOF2012-PeteKing Washington, D.C.: Amidst a continuing lack of clarity about the nature of the enemy we face in the “War on Terror” and the character of the attacks against us, Representative Peter King of New York provided a characteristically frank, coherent and accurate depiction upon receiving the Center for Security Policy’s 2012 “Keeper of the Flame” award. During a black tie dinner at Washington’s historic Union Station, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said of the murderous assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012:

For the [executive branch] not to know this was a terrorist attack shows they have no idea what’s going on in the world – or they’re willing to sacrifice American security for the sake of getting through this election so the president can say that he defeated al-Qaeda: ‘There is no al-Qaeda. It was just some pornographic film that set off a massive riot-demonstration-attack which killed four Americans.’ In either event, it’s inexcusable. It’s disgraceful. And the American people should reject it out of hand. And the ambassador to the United Nations should resign for going on television shows spreading those lies and misrepresentations about what happened in Libya.

On the eve of a visit to New York by the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Rep. King took him to task for his role in the sacking of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo:

What we saw in the last week – when we saw the president of Egypt, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, who receives $1.6 billion in aid from the United States of America, refuse to defend the American embassy against mobs; when we saw mobs in Egypt overtake the American embassy, burn our flag, take the flag down, and fly an al Qaeda flag over the American embassy – and that Muslim Brotherhood president continues to get 1.6 billion dollars. And the next day, when the president of the United States goes out to talk about what happened the day before and never even mentions what happened in Egypt, never even mentions that the person he has authorized to receive this aid, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and also the president of Egypt has refused to carry out the most basic obligations of a head of state and a head of government – and that’s to protect foreign embassies in his country. It’s an absolute disgrace what president Morsi did. It’s also a disgrace the president of the United States refused to publicly call him on it. That is wrong. It should not be tolerated by the American people.

Chairman King concluded his forceful remarks with an urgent appeal to his countrymen:

We have to stay focused. We have to stay focused on who the enemy is. The enemy is not an amorphous group called ‘terrorists’ or ‘extremists’ or ‘violent extremists.’ The enemy is Islamic terrorism. Islamic terrorism which is dedicated to destroying our way of life and our civilization. If we don’t identify the enemy, if we don’t know who the enemy is, that enemy is going to end up defeating us. You cannot defeat an enemy unless you know who the enemy is and the enemy is Islamic terrorism.

The Center’s Keeper of the Flame Award recognizes those who have, like Congressman King, exhibited an outstanding commitment to freedom for their unstinting efforts to ensure that the instruments of national power are effectively brought to bear to safeguard it. Past recipients include: President Ronald Reagan, Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, James Schlesinger, and Caspar Weinberger, Senators Jim Inhofe and Joe Lieberman and Generals Richard Myers, Peter Pace, James Jones and James Conway. (For more on the Keeper of the Flame, see the Center for Security Policy’s events page at www.SecureFreedom.org.)

Rep. King was introduced on this occasion by his colleague, Rep. Gus Bilirakis, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee’s Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee. All present were welcomed by Dr. J.P. “Jack” London, Executive Chairman of CACI International and a member of the Center’s Board of Directors. And a “benediction” was provided by one of the Americans most heroically engaged in the counter-terrorism and homeland security challenges of our time: Debra Burlingame, the sister of Captain “Chic” Burlingame, whose plane was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon on 9/11.

Other highlights of the evening were tributes to and remarks by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona. The approaching end of his extraordinary service on Capitol Hill was marked by two of those to whom he will be passing the torch – Senators Jeff Session of Alabama and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire – and by the presentation of a second-degree Keeper of the Flame (which he received originally in 1994), dubbed the Oak Leaf Cluster decoration, after the military practice. The three Senators spoke of the urgent need to address today’s and tomorrow’s national security shortfalls and threats by, among other things, staving off the devastating “sequestration” round of cuts to Pentagon budgets now in the offing. Sen. Kyl charged his colleagues and the rest of us to make a redoubled effort to assure “peace through strength” in such areas as assuring our nuclear arsenal in the face of the increasing challenge to its deterrent effectiveness posed by Communist China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Center for Security Policy President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. said of the evening:

It was an extraordinary moment of celebration of and with several of America’s most consequential national security-minded public servants. We are honored to recognize the innumerable contributions Rep. King and Sen. Kyl have made to the common defense and look forward to working with them in that connection in the future.