[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 13, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E347-E350]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   ADDRESS BY DR. JOHN DUKE ANTHONY ON VIOLENCE IN AMERICA AND KUWAIT

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOHN D. DINGELL

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 13, 2001

  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following for the Record.

    On Violence in America and Kuwait: The Kuwait-America Foundation

                         (By John Duke Anthony)

       This past week's tragic incident in California in which yet 
     another student at an American school killed his classmates 
     was as senseless as all the similar acts that went before. It 
     is no less tragic for the likelihood that, short of effective 
     remedies, the phenomenon is destined to recur in the future.

[[Page E348]]

       As with the earlier school killings, there will be much 
     wringing of hands and soul searching among pundits and 
     politicians in search of ways to cope with this ongoing 
     blight on a significant segment of American society. In the 
     debates that will ensue, much can be learned from a hitherto 
     little known effort by the Kuwait-America Foundation that is 
     helping to address this problem and others related to the 
     violence that persists in the lives of Americans and 
     Kuwaitis.
       Two weeks ago, the nonprofit and nongovernmental Kuwait-
     America Foundation (KAF) administered a multifaceted program 
     to commemorate both the fortieth anniversary of Kuwait's 
     independence and the tenth year since its liberation from 
     Iraqi aggression. Over a period of several days, KAF 
     manifested a growing phenomenon in international relations: 
     the efficacy of having such organizations play pivotal roles 
     in matters of global importance.
       Like innumerable other Arab and Islamic philanthropic 
     associations, KAF has yet to become a household word in 
     America. However, the day is fast approaching when it will be 
     recognized as having become a respected albeit low-key 
     activist in support of laudable objectives in American 
     national life.
       Until ten days ago, KAF was not as well known in Kuwait as 
     one might have thought. Many outside observers had believed, 
     mistakenly, that Kuwait's government and private sector must 
     have held annual commemorative events to honor the country's 
     liberation from aggression ten years ago.


                        A County's Yellow Ribbon

       Not so. The commemorative activities were the first of 
     their kind. The previous national decision to forgo any 
     annual outpouring of joy at the return of the country's 
     internationally recognized government, and with it, the 
     restoration of freedom and safety to the Kuwaiti people, was 
     deliberate.
       The decision not to celebrate was, in essence, reflective 
     of a people's collective preference instead for wearing a 
     yellow ribbon in memory of hundreds of missing Kuwaiti and 
     other nationals who have yet to return from the months-long 
     nightmare that Iraq unleashed against Kuwait on August 2, 
     1990.
       For most, the idea of rejoicing with so many of their 
     fellow citizens' still in Iraq was seen as premature and 
     inappropriate. It was overshadowed by the ongoing grief over 
     the country's hostages, its missing in action, and the fate 
     of other nationalities abducted to Baghdad in the waning days 
     of the war that have yet to be accounted for by Iraq.
       The Numbness of Numbers. In Kuwait as elsewhere, the 
     process of coming to terms with the impact of an adversary's 
     aggression and violence against it is considered by most to 
     be an essential component of reconciliation. But among 
     outsiders who have wanted to see reconciliation between 
     Kuwait and Iraq occur sooner rather than later are many who 
     appear to wonder whether the concern about those missing from 
     Kuwait has been a Kuwaiti pretense or, at least exaggerated 
     for effect.
       If so, many reason, could it not be little more than a 
     carefully crafted device deliberately tailored to garner 
     international sympathy for the country's ongoing deterrence 
     and defense needs that might not be as effectively obtained 
     in any other way?
       By the standard of Great Power populations, the number at 
     issue, cynics seem prone to emphasize, appears to be 
     minuscule. In noting that the total is 608, the tendency of 
     some has been to think that this is a typographical error and 
     that one or more digits must be lacking.
       Nothing could be further from the truth. The Kuwaiti 
     citizens who vanished from their country in the course of 
     being spirited off to Baghdad by Iraqi forces a decade ago 
     are hardly faceless statistics. No Kuwaiti of this writer's 
     acquaintance knows fewer than four who disappeared without, 
     to date, there being a trace of what happened to them. By 
     extension, most Kuwaitis know and regularly come into contact 
     with an average of forty other Kuwaitis who long for the 
     return of those missing.
       Because the population of the United States is so large, 
     and that Kuwait is so small, it is difficult for many 
     Americans to grasp the extent of the tragedy that befell the 
     Kuwaiti people as a result of the Iraqi invasion and 
     occupation.
       The following, however, provides perspective that may be 
     otherwise hard-to-come by. In terms that U.S. citizens can 
     relate to, the number of Kuwaitis missing in Iraq is 
     equivalent to 270,000 Americans being incarcerated and 
     unaccounted for in undisclosed sites in Canada or Mexico. In 
     terms that the British and French can understand, it is as if 
     60,000 of their citizens had been forcibly seized, carted 
     across the border, and, to this day, were still being held in 
     a neighboring country.
       On a related additional Richter scale of human tragedy, the 
     recent commemorative events in Kuwait, in which this writer 
     was privileged to participate, revealed yet another daunting 
     set of numbers. One of the highlights was the unveiling by 
     Kuwaitis, former President Bush, and former British Prime 
     Ministers Thatcher and Major, of a memorial to the war dead 
     resulting from the country's liberation. Listed were the 
     names of the 351 Kuwaitis and 331 Allied Coalition country 
     and other nationals killed during Operation Desert Shield and 
     Desert Storm.
       Three hundred fifty-one. Some may say, `for an 
     international conflict that dominated the headlines for more 
     than half a year, that's not so many.'
       Those Killed: American Comparisons. Any in doubt as to 
     ``how many is many?'' might ask a Kuwaiti. The number, again 
     in terms equivalent to the population of the United States, 
     is equal to 135,000 Americans having been killed. For further 
     context and comparisons, consider that the United States lost 
     58,000 in Vietnam.
       Here, two points are especially pertinent. The first is 
     that the proportionate number of Kuwaitis killed by Iraqis, 
     is comparison with Americans killed in Vietnam, is almost 
     three times as many. The second is that Iraqis killed this 
     many Kuwaitis over a period of just seven months. The 58,000 
     Americans that died in Vietnam were killed over a 12-year 
     period, i.e., a span of time nearly 24 times as long.
       The survivors of the Kuwaitis killed during the conflict, 
     including their spouses, children, and other relatives of 
     those missing and unaccounted for, were front and center 
     recently in Kuwait. Former U.S. President George Bush, Sr., 
     U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, former British Prime 
     Ministers Dame Margaret Thatcher and John Major, General 
     Norman Schwarzkopf, and many another
       KAF, Violence, and The Do The Write Thing Program. On 
     display by KAF in the same ceremonies was another side of the 
     same coin minted in the currency of violence. These were 
     American grassroots leaders of KAF's ``Do The Write thing 
     (DTWT) Program.'' The Program exists in a growing number of 
     american cities that have long been plagued by exceptional 
     levels of violence among their inner city youth. A range of 
     civic, religious, and professional leaders from Atlanta, 
     Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and 
     Washington, DC were among the cities represented.
       In the aftermath of the reversal of Iraq's aggression, a 
     great many Kuwaitis wanted to convey their gratitude to the 
     United States in a way that would have practical meaning and 
     great symbolic significance to what lay at the heart of a 
     country and a people's violation. To this end, KAF 
     spearheaded a one-of-a-kind movement to ensure that the lives 
     of Americans and others that had fallen in Operations Desert 
     Shield and Desert Storm were not in vain.
       Reaching Out to American Schools. KAF has reached out to 
     American school districts where guns and acts of violence 
     remain commonplace, where parents, with abundant reason, 
     worry for the safety of their children, and where students 
     and other children often live literally in fear of their 
     lives.
       In so doing, KAF joined forces with national and local 
     humanitarian and nonprofit associations, including the 
     National Urban League, the National Council on U.S.-Arab 
     Relations, the U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee, and 
     several other civic and professional organizations. Ever 
     since, KAF has been working with leaders in America's urban 
     centers in a way that, thus far, is unparalleled among non-
     governmental and nonprofit groups in other countries.
       Of direct relevance to what transpired in a California 
     school last week, KAF has targeted a core constituency within 
     which the incidence of acts of violence per capita in the 
     United States remains all too frequent: intermediate and 
     secondary school students. Working with school 
     superintendents, principals, guidance counselors, and 
     teachers, KAF several years ago initiated a bold and 
     innovative program that has met with increasingly widespread 
     appeal among American leaders concerned with curbing the 
     incidence of crimes against youth. The program has inspired 
     thousands of american students to write essays about the 
     effect of violence on their lives and what they propose to do 
     to bring about its end in their community.
       Paneled judges read the essays and select the finalists. 
     The winners, together with their parents or teacher, get to 
     visit Washington, DC. There they are recognized in an awards 
     ceremony attended by national dignitaries, meet their 
     Congressional representatives and officials at the Department 
     of Justice and the Office of Education, and tour the cultural 
     and civic highlights of the nation's capital.
       In arriving to this way of contributing something of 
     meaning and lasting value to the United States, the citizens 
     of Kuwait, through KAF, have unlocked a powerful positive 
     force for good. The beneficiaries are numerous American 
     metropolitan areas previously in a quandary as to how best to 
     begin to loosen the grip of violence upon their communities.
       KAF, in essence, has provided hope for countless American 
     youth who had all but given up hope that there was a reason 
     to believe that they could make it to adulthood unscathed by 
     the infliction of physical pain upon them or a loved one by 
     someone in their community. It provides them a ticket to non-
     violence.
       A Recipe for Responsible Citizenship. Participation in 
     KAF's Do the Write Thing Program offers American students a 
     sure-fire recipe for instilling a significant measure of 
     personal responsibility, accountability, leadership skills, 
     and the means to responsible citizenship. And it does all 
     this in association with the students' parents, teachers, 
     schools, and a plethora of civic and professional 
     associations within their communities.
       A student's right of entry to the DTWT Program is 
     completion of a three-part essay.

[[Page E349]]

     Students write about how violence has affected their lives. 
     They suggest ways for ending this scourge upon the quality of 
     life in many of America's inner cities. They express their 
     resolve to do what they can to
       Sound schmaltzy? Not to the survivors of thousands of those 
     gunned down in the prime of their life, like those in 
     California, Colorado, Georgia, and elsewhere, Not to those 
     who had previously despaired of having a reason to believe 
     that they could make it through school without their or 
     someone dear to them being killed or falling victim to bodily 
     harm en route.
       Not to the unsung heroes and heroines among teachers who 
     struggle daily and valiantly, often against seemingly 
     insurmountable odds, to try to instill a sense of self-worth, 
     values, and the pursuit of excellence among America's leaders 
     of tomorrow.
       Not to school guidance counselors, leaders of youth 
     associations, crime prevention and law enforcement officers, 
     and civic as well as business, professional, and religious 
     leaders committed to offering youth a range of opportunities 
     for self-development no matter how disadvantaged their 
     personal, home, and community situations might be.
       Not to former Kuwaiti Ambassadors to the United States 
     Shaikh Saud Nasser Al-Sabah and Dr. Muhammad Salim Al-Sabah. 
     Not to KAF Chairman Dr. Hassan Al-Ebraheem, KAF Vice-Chairman 
     Anwar Nouri, and not to KAF co-founding board members Fawzi 
     Al-Sultan and Daniel Callister. Not to Kuwait University 
     President Dr. Faizah Al-Kharafi, Kuwait Foundation for the 
     Advancement of Science Director General Dr. Ali Al-Shamlan, 
     and the Kuwaiti members of KAF's board of directors.
       Not to Administration and Congressional leaders who endorse 
     President Bush's encouragement and empowerment of private 
     sector initiatives that seek to reverse the emasculating 
     effects of school and urban violence on our country's would-
     be future leaders.
       Practical Idealism. What KAF has done is help bring into 
     being in an important corner of American national life the 
     essence of practical idealism. It has done so through joining 
     hands with the National Campaign to Stop Violence, the 
     National Guard, the regional and local offices of the Federal 
     Bureau of Investigation, the Council of Great City Schools, 
     the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the 
     National Association of Secondary School Principals, the U.S. 
     Department of Education, the National Council on U.S.-Arab 
     Relations, and the U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee. 
     Each of these organizations supports KAF's Do The Write Thing 
     Program.
       KAF's programs and activities also receive support from 
     nearly a dozen Kuwaiti companies and leading American 
     multinational corporations. In addition to the Marriott 
     Corporation, the list of U.S. firms that support KAF's Do The 
     Write Thing Program is impressive and growing. they include 
     U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee members Boeing 
     Corporation, Booz Allen Hamilton, Bryan Cave, Ltd., Chevron 
     Corporation, CMS Energy, ExxonMobil, General Dynamics, 
     General Electric Corporation, Lockheed Martin, Lucent 
     Technologies, McDonnell Douglas, Merrill Lynch, MPRI, 
     Northrop Grumman, Parsons Corporation, Philip Morris 
     Companies, Inc., Raytheon, SAIC, Texaco, and TRW.
       KAF Student, Teacher, and Parent Award Ceremonies. Anyone 
     search for an injection of idealism would do well to attend 
     one of the DTWT awards ceremonies. Present at each is an 
     assemblage of national dignitaries and, in the wings, a 
     significant number of journalists, television producers, and 
     film crews.
       The opportunity to observe the press in such a setting is 
     illuminative of the powerful impact that this program has on 
     young and old alike. In few other settings are media 
     professionals so predictably moved to tears as they are by 
     the impact that the Do The Write Thing Program has on 
     American youth, their teachers, and their parents.
       Each year during the filming of the annual awards ceremony, 
     this writer has seen cameramen involuntarily reach for their 
     handkerchiefs. They become caught up in their emotions from 
     seeing, at the end of their lens, a mirror image of someone 
     who could easily be their daughter or son.
       This is what invariably happens when one sees and hears the 
     students read their prize-winning essays to appreciative 
     adult audiences in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol and 
     elsewhere.
       The stirring and uplifting scene happened again ten days 
     ago in Kuwait instead of Washington, An added feature to the 
     ceremonies commemorating the anniversary of the country's 
     liberation was a recent KAF-commissioned film about the DTWT 
     Program. The film premiered at the Kuwait-based
       The film's main actors were an unlikely collection of 
     celebrities: former President Bush, former Secretary of State 
     James Baker, former Secretary of Defense and now Vice-
     President Dick Cheney, current Secretary of State Powell, and 
     General Norman Schwarzkopf. Each testified to the efficacy of 
     the Do The Write Thing Program as a major contribution to the 
     national challenge of ending the continuing pattern of 
     violence in the lives of America's inner city students and 
     children.
       A Symphony and Two American Teenagers. One of the many 
     highlights of the several days' festivities in which this 
     writer was a participant was a specially-produced symphony by 
     a Kuwaiti artist that included strands of ``America the 
     Beautiful.'' The symphony was performed by an ensemble of 
     Kuwaiti musicians.
       At the end of the concert, young Rominna Vellasenor, a 13-
     year-old student from an inner city school in Chicago, took 
     the stage to read her essay. One could barely see her head 
     behind the podium as she hurled thunderbolts of insight about 
     the phenomenon of violence in America. She was followed by 
     John Bonham, now in university but earlier a student and 
     resident of a crime-plagued neighborhood in Washington, D.C.
       Rominna, one of this past year's Do The Write Thing Program 
     winners, was there with her mother. John was a prize-winner 
     several years ago. Rominna's essay was cast in the immediacy 
     of the here-and-now of a life that has been seldom far from 
     crime in her school and community. John's was forged from the 
     perspective of the rear view mirror, contrasting the 
     downwardly spiraling life he had led before he participated 
     in the program and the one hundred and eighty degree turn-
     around for the better that it has taken since then. Following 
     their speeches and the film, there was not a dry eye in the 
     audience, the President's included.
       KAF's Further Preparation of America's Leaders of Tomorrow. 
     Only days before the anniversary celebrations began, a group 
     of American university and high school students had visited 
     Kuwait as participants in the National Council on U.S.-Arab 
     Relations' Kuwait Studies Program. What all had in common was 
     their outstanding participation as delegates to one of the 
     National Council's annual Model Arab League Leadership 
     Development Programs, which are currently underway and 
     involve 2,000 students and their teachers in Models in 18 
     cities across the United States.
       For years now, KAF, the University of Kuwait, the Kuwait 
     Foundation for the Advancement of Science, and the American 
     Embassy in Kuwait, headed by former Ambassadors Edward Gnehm 
     and Ryan Crocker, and by current Ambassador James Larocco, 
     have hosted the Kuwait Studies Program for promising American 
     youth that have performed with distinction in the Model Arab 
     Leagues.
       Considering that all of the participants to date are still 
     in their twenties, the results, to date, are phenomenal. One 
     of the program's alumni is currently assigned to a major U.S. 
     government post that deals daily with pressing issues 
     pertaining to the Kuwait-U.S. bilateral relationship. Another 
     entered the Foreign Service and was posted to the U.S. 
     Embassy in Kuwait. Another is a career military officer 
     working full time on strategic U.S. defense planning relating 
     to Kuwait and other GCC countries.
       Yet another alumnus of the program is currently a Rhodes 
     Scholar. Others include the winner of First Prize for Best 
     Master's Thesis on the Middle East at Oxford University last 
     year, a former intern at the National Council and KAF who is 
     finishing her Ph.D. at Stanford, and one of the best of a new 
     breed of American foreign affairs specialists who is 
     currently teaching tomorrow's military leaders and defense 
     strategists at one of America's service academies.
       More than half a dozen of the Kuwait Studies Program and 
     Model Arab League alumni have returned to Kuwait for a year 
     of intensive Arabic language training at Kuwait University. 
     Others are working in the United States for member companies 
     of the U.S.-GCC Corporate Corporation Committee that have 
     invested in Kuwait's economy. Each of these young American 
     leaders of tomorrow has been exposed at length to a side of 
     Kuwait culture and society quite different from any they 
     could have imagined short of visiting the country and meeting 
     with its people.
       KAF As A Bridge To The Future. In this way, KAF is helping 
     to prepare a cadre of Americans that will manage the future 
     bilateral Kuwait-United States relationship and America's 
     ties to other Arab countries, the Middle East, and the 
     Islamic world.
       This group of American youth that KAF has assisted is only 
     a few years older than those mowed down by gunfire in the 
     California school. Each acknowledges their debt to KAF and 
     recognizes it as an organization that helped them, much 
     earlier than most of their peers, to take responsibility for 
     their actions and to do what they can to make a positive and 
     lasting difference in the lives of others.
       For any nation in search of a cure for the phenomenon of 
     violence and other behavioral excesses that plague its 
     society, it is incumbent upon its leaders to look first and 
     foremost to their country's own resources for solutions. 
     This, to be sure, has been and will continue to be done by 
     America's national, state, and local leaders. But here is a 
     sterling example of how one can also learn much that is 
     timely and relevant from the private sector and civic 
     activist efforts of a dedicated group of Kuwaitis.
       These Arab allies, though geographically remote, are no 
     less profoundly concerned than Americans are with funding the 
     means to come to grips with the vicious cycle of violence 
     cycle of violence visited upon their

[[Page E350]]

     country and people. They are committed to doing something 
     positive and lasting about it, both here and in Kuwait, in 
     the course of working side by side with their counterparts in 
     the United States.
       The efforts of the Kuwait-America Foundation to help 
     American youth expand their horizons and break the barriers 
     of violence have emerged from the horrors of the Iraqi 
     invasion of Kuwait and the deepening bonds of U.S.-Kuwaiti 
     friendship spurred by Kuwait's liberation ten years ago. The 
     spirit of understanding and reciprocal respect that these 
     efforts represent are a testimonial to the wisdom, necessity, 
     and mutuality of benefit that flow from closer U.S.-Arab 
     relations.

     

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