[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 22 (Tuesday, March 5, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H675]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




IDENTIFYING THOSE KILLED IN OPERATION ANACONDA, AND URGING AMERICANS TO 
              FULLY SUPPORT THE REBUILDING OF AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Schaffer). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, having just returned from 
Afghanistan just a few hours ago, being on the ground and visiting with 
the military personnel, serving and dedicating themselves to freedom, I 
thought it was appropriate to come to the floor of the House to 
acknowledge the cause upon which we fight, and to call the names of 
those in the last 72 hours who have lost their lives:
  In the Army, Sergeant Bradley Crose, 27; Sergeant Philip J. Svitak, 
31; Specialist Marc A. Anderson, 30; Private Matthew A. Commons, 21.
  In the Navy, First Class Neil C. Roberts, 32;
  In the Air Force, Tech Sergeant John A. Chapman, 36; Senior Airman 
Jason D. Cunningham, 26.
  And in the last 72 hours, as well, Army Chief Warrant Officer Stanley 
L. Harriman, 34.
  It should be recognized that the American people love freedom and 
they love their values of democracy and justice. Those young men and 
women that we visited with likewise love those values and fight for 
them. To them I pay great tribute this evening.
  I say to the American public that we must look at their battle that 
is continuing as we speak as a battle for the recapturing, if you will, 
of the virtues of democracy and justice and freedom and equality for 
the people of Afghanistan.
  As we traveled the one road they had and saw the conditions of their 
major cities, and looked at the frighteningly poor people with no food 
and 97 percent illiteracy in their women, and thousands of children 
living in orphanages and burned-out and bombed-out buildings, it did 
not occur because of the American influence of the last couple of 
months, but because of the 23 years of war.
  It is important for America to understand that if we are to fight 
terrorism and win, we must rebuild Afghanistan, its systems of 
government, its love for freedom, its economic structure. That must be 
the war we must fight.
  I will take to the floor of the House to tell Members what I saw: The 
conditions of women, the conditions of the people who lived there. 
There is no agriculture and no food. Hospital units that I visited had 
malnourished babies and children because there is no food.
  So as Chairman Karzai has said, Afghanistan would have been in hell 
if it had not been for the brave men and women that are fighting there 
today. But as we fight to rid it of the last vestiges of terrorism, let 
us not be fearful of investing dollars, so they might not only love 
freedom, but they may act upon freedom.
  Again, I will share with the Members how the women still wear burqas 
and that there is no system of equality of rights for women. But we 
must never undermine those young men and women who fight and stand side 
by side because they believe in those values and virtues that we cling 
to in this Nation.
  Hopefully, we will realize as Americans that what we fight most of 
all for, what should be the end result, is peace, not only in central 
Asia but peace in the Mideast; and the only way we can secure peace is 
if we engage in diplomacy and begin to put into structure 
constitutional rights and privileges: equality, justice, and democracy.
  Mr. Speaker, we have a lot to learn, but the one thing we know today 
is that brave men and women offered their lives so we might be free, 
and others around the world.




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