[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 26, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1363-H1364]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE TOWARDS FRANCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, tonight I wish to express my profound 
gratitude toward President Jacques Chirac and toward the French 
Parliament for their enduring alliance with our country and with NATO. 
I would also like to offer my respect to French Foreign Minister 
Dominique de Villipin. The civilized world cannot know yet the best 
method for stemming the growing terrorism that is engendered by the 
revolutionary fervor found in the Middle East and Central Asia, but I 
am certain of one thing: We will not succeed without our historic and 
valuable allies in Europe. They are priceless. War must be the last 
resort, only after tough and thorough inspections performed by U.N. 
agents have been exhausted.
  I would like to speak of relations between the Governments of France 
and the United States and between the citizens of our countries. Our 
friendship is important and historic and dates from the days when 
General Marquis de Lafayette helped us win our own revolution for 
independence. Our very capital city, the city of Washington, was 
designed by a Frenchman, Pierre L'Enfant, and was modeled after Paris. 
The words of the French Revolution, ``liberty, equality, fraternity,'' 
remain true today, and in our Congress they are truly carved for all 
time.
  Just this week, I opened a medal for our Uncle Stanley Rogowski, who 
had fought in Normandy. Three Bronze stars. Bloodied for 3 years across 
the northern plains of France. As I visited the cemeteries there, I 
thought about the close alliance between the American people and the 
people of France and the struggle for freedom over tyranny in the 20th 
century.
  U.S. President and U.S. Ambassador to France Thomas Jefferson wrote, 
``I do not believe war the most certain means of enforcing principles. 
Those peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if 
undertaken in concert and in time of peace, are more likely to produce 
the desired effect.'' He wrote that in 1801. He loved France. He 
traveled there, he learned much, and he helped weave that into the 
fabric of American life in our earliest years.

                              {time}  1815

  As Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa urged from a continent 
torn by terrorism in Sudan, in the Ivory Coast, in Egypt, in Nigeria, 
``Peace. Peace. Peace. Shouldn't America listen to the rest of the 
world?,'' he said. ``Give the inspectors time.''
  Note what is happening throughout the world. The largest antiwar 
turnouts in U.S. history. In London, 750,000 citizens marched against 
the war, that city's largest demonstration ever. In Rome, 1 million 
people. In Spain, millions marched in Madrid and Barcelona. In Berlin, 
half a million. People marching in nations whose homelands have been 
ripped apart by past wars and who are victims of terrorism as well. 
Surely they know the price of suffering.
  Imagine the message these demonstrations are sending across the caves 
of terrorism. America is being isolated in world opinion. This is 
neither wise nor politically sustainable for our Nation to go it alone. 
The war on terrorism can only be won with a broad and committed 
international coalition starting with America's most historic allies.
  In this new struggle of righteousness, moral force is more important 
than bombs. The war on terrorism is actually a political insurgency 
halfway around the world, first against the corrupt regimes in the 
world of Islam, much like a civil war. Lacking any experience with 
democracy, desperate and politically motivated masses grasp Islam as a 
metaphor for political change and reform. The United States should not 
become the beleaguered referee caught between warring factions who also 
happen to sit atop the world's largest oil wells on which we have 
become dependent. Rather, America must unhook ourselves from that oil 
addiction; and as important, America must work with a broad 
international coalition to support the forces of popular reform and 
rising hopes for a better and more just way of life.
  In some of the most undemocratic places in the world, in places like 
Pakistan and Afghanistan, two-thirds of the

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population is younger than 20, uneducated and often hungry. A major 
international commitment to feeding hungry children while educating 
them would serve the world much more durably in the years ahead.
  In embracing the future, America must hold to its deepest ideals in 
this sea of political discontent and ally with rising aspirations of 
the dispossessed and forgotten. America should not, as happened in 
Iran, be caught on the wrong side of an unsustainable dictatorship or 
propping up weak regimes. Only broad and committed international 
coalitions can triumph in this struggle. Of three facts we are certain: 
we need our friends; America cannot win this battle alone; and only 
with justice will peace come.

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