[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 78 (Tuesday, May 13, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H3769-H3773]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     UNDERSTANDING THE MIDDLE EAST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk tonight about Iraq 
and the Middle East in general, but specifically about the present 
crisis in Iraq. And what I would like to do is to explain the present 
crisis based on recent history and from my perspective, Mr. Speaker, 
what is the way forward. Is there a solution to the war in Iraq.
  And the other thing I would like to discuss is this: Do the American 
people have a role to play in the conflict? And to discuss this 
tonight, I would like to frame the picture of the present crisis in 
Iraq by a couple of quotes from a book called ``Human Options'' written 
about, oh, I would say 30 years ago by the former editor of the 
Saturday Evening Post, a man named Norman Cousins. Two extraordinary 
quotes in this book. One is, Knowledge is the solvent for danger. The 
other quote is, History is a vast early warning system.
  And so what I will do tonight is attempt to convey to the Speaker, 
the Members, and the American people the importance of knowledge in a 
conflict to find a solution and a reconciliation to the warring 
factions.
  The other is history's advanced early warning system. Many people 
will say that 20 years from now we'll have hindsight to the present 
crisis. Twenty years after the war in Vietnam ended, former Secretary 
of Defense Robert McNamara said, If I only knew then what I know now. 
Well, if the former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara read history 
in the fifties and the early sixties, he would have had a better 
understanding of the conflict in Southeast Asia, Indochina, the 
conflict between the French and the Vietnamese who were trying to seek 
sovereignty and get rid of Colonial rule. In other words, Mr. McNamara 
would have understood, with hindsight, the conflict in the war in 
Indochina before it started if he had a better understanding of its 
history.
  And what I'm going to try to do tonight is give a better frame of 
reference for the present crisis from the historical point of view so 
we don't have to worry 20 years from now whether this policy was a good 
policy or not. We can't let the troops fight that long if it is not 
necessary. And so a history of the region of the Middle East will give 
us a better sense of the conflict and how to resolve and reconcile the 
vast, intricate, violent conflicts that exist there now.
  I also want to quote a British author, Rudyard Kipling, who had to 
face the tragedy of his son being killed in northern France during 
World War I. This literary giant at the time made this comment soon 
after his son's death, but he spoke to all the young men who were dying 
in Europe during that tragic event of World War I, and Rudyard Kipling 
said this: Why did young men die because old men lied?

                              {time}  2200

  I'd like to paraphrase that quote in the present crisis today. I'd 
like to paraphrase that quote for foreign policy for the 21st century. 
Old men should talk before they send young men to die or old people 
should talk before they send young people to die. A country does not 
become strong by filling up its cemeteries.
  Our role as legislators, as policy-makers and the role of the 
American people, what is it? What is our role? What is the role of the 
American people? How do we support the troops in the Middle East and 
Afghanistan and Iraq? How do policy-makers, how does the 
administration, and equally as important, how do the American people 
support the troops in Iraq?
  First of all, we recognize their stunning competence. The soldiers in 
Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world from around the United States 
are stunningly competent. Why? Because they're well-trained. They're 
well-informed. They take the time to know what they're doing, to be 
competent at their job, to use technology, to be aware of the soldiers 
next to them. They work hard to be knowledgeable as soldiers.
  Do we take the initiative to be informed and knowledgeable? The 
soldiers take the initiative. They volunteered. They go through boot 
camp. They go through very skillful training of the technology, of the 
weaponry, of troop movements, of how to protect each other, of how to 
move through villages at night, of how to find the enemy. The troops 
are competent because they take the initiative.
  Now, do we take the initiative as legislators to be competent and 
informed about the conflict that we send them to? Do the American 
people take the initiative to become knowledgeable about all of the 
issues? Are we knowledgeable about the present crisis and past crises 
that have brought us to where we are today?
  I want to tell you that I've been to many meetings around my 
district. I've talked to many, many people about the conflict. I've 
done my best to explain that the troops are competent, but in a certain 
measure, the policy is flawed.
  And like many people, we often hear Americans say that we need to 
pray for the troops, for their safe return, for the end of the 
conflict. I will say that that's a very important thing to do, to pray 
for the troops.
  I remember when I was in Vietnam in 1966 standing, what we called, 
lines where we were in bunkers and barbwire, and at night we had to 
stand the lines and make sure the enemy didn't sneak into the camp. And 
a chaplain came up and he would come up to the lines very often. His 
name was Chaplain Doffin, D-O-F-F-I-N. He's now a retired Baptist 
minister in Charleston, South Carolina. At the time, he was a young 
navy chaplain who often went on patrols with us.
  And he came up to me while standing lines one night. We were having a 
wonderful conversation that became very philosophical. It was 
philosophical in 1966 about the present crisis at that time in Vietnam, 
and I asked the chaplain if he believed in prayer. And I asked the 
chaplain if he believed in prayer because we prayed mightily for the 
conflict to end as young soldiers, young Marines. We prayed mightily 
for the butchery to stop because that's what war is. It's brutal and 
it's tragic.
  I said, ``Chaplain, do you believe in prayer?'' And he said, ``Yes, 
but when I cross the lines to go out on a patrol,'' which he would 
occasionally, ``I make sure I have my helmet, my flak jacket and my 
rifle.''
  That means the soldier needs to be prepared. Believe in prayer, but 
that the soldier needed to be competent, the soldier needed to be 
informed, the soldier needed to be prepared.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, what I'm going to do tonight is suggest to my 
colleagues and the American people that they should be prepared as the 
soldier is prepared. They should be knowledgeable and competent about 
this crisis. So I'm going to give you, Mr. Speaker, and the American 
people a reading list, and I want you to consider that this reading 
list is your helmet, your flak jacket and your rifle, and you are to 
stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the servicemen and -women who are now 
in harm's way. They are counting on you, like the soldiers when I went 
across the

[[Page H3770]]

line. When I went on patrol or operations, I was a squad leader, then a 
platoon sergeant, and the soldiers and the Marines standing right next 
to me wanted me to be prepared, wanted me to know what I was doing. 
They wanted me to be competent. They wanted to make sure I had my 
helmet, my flak jacket, my rifle, and I knew what I was doing.
  So these soldiers in Iraq, they want us to stand shoulder-to-shoulder 
with them. They want us to be competent.
  Now, the soldiers in Iraq are competent. They are sacrificing their 
time every day to serve this Nation. They don't watch television at 
night. They don't saunter around the malls looking for things. They 
don't pass their days idly. They pass their days with horrific, 
vicious, violent incidents. They serve this Nation. Are we willing to 
serve our Nation? Are we willing to serve those young men and women? 
And how can we do it? Well, by being competent.
  I'm going to give a list of 10 books. I will say the 10 books at the 
end of this address as well.
  The first is a very easy read, ``A Letter to America,'' just written 
by the former senator from Oklahoma, David Boren. ``A Letter to 
America.'' What should America be like in the 21st century? It's an 
extraordinary read. It's a view of how we would like America to be.
  The second book is--you've heard it before--``The Iraq Study Group 
Report.'' Iraq Study Group. It's by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. And 
it has a strategy for dealing with the conflict that I think the 
American people should read and become informed of.
  The third book is a book called ``Fiasco.'' It's a harsh word. It 
describes the present crisis in Iraq. ``Fiasco.'' If you want to know 
the problems we've seen in Iraq and what went wrong from the very 
beginning, read the book ``Fiasco'' by Thomas Ricks.
  The fourth book is ``A Struggle For Peace,'' General Tony Zinni. 
Actually, I think it's called ``The Battle for Peace'' by Tony Zinni, 
and it's a book describing how we can find peace in the volatile areas 
of the world through dialogue, through consensus. We need a strong 
military, we need good intelligence, but the third thing Tony Zinni 
talks about is understanding the nature of the culture and having a 
dialogue.
  The fifth book is ``Violent Politics'' by William Polk. He worked for 
President Kennedy and President Johnson. ``Violent Politics'' is a 
discussion from the American Revolution in which we were the 
insurgents, all the way to the present crisis in Iraq, and also talks, 
interestingly enough, about the 6-day war and how it was won between 
Israel and the Arab Nations. The war was won in 6 days, mission 
accomplished, but the horrific struggle continues. There is no end to 
the violence. ``Violent Politics'' is a discussion about insurgencies 
when diplomacy goes wrong.
  Number six is called ``Treacherous Alliance'' by Trita Parsi. 
Interestingly enough, it's a relationship between the Israelis and the 
Iranians, or the Jews and the Persians from 1948, the inception of 
Israel, till today, the present crisis. But what it showed through most 
of the Cold War, Israel and Iran, who seem to be bitter enemies today, 
were quiet, secret allies from 1948 to 1991 because they had the same 
enemies. They were both bitter enemies of Russia, the Soviet Union. 
They were bitter enemies of Iraq and many of the Arab countries, 
especially Saddam Hussein. And so what the Iranians and the Israelis 
did was trade oil for technology. They were strong quiet allies.
  Number 7 is ``All the Shah's Men'' by Stephen Kinzer, K-I-N-Z-E-R, 
``All the Shah's Men.'' It showed a problem that we created, the United 
States, in our relationship with Iran, starting in 1953. We lit a slow 
fuse in 1953 because the United States, with the significant help of 
the grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt, planned in the 
American embassy in Tehran to violently overthrow the duly elected 
prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, of the Iranian people, with the help 
of the British. We kicked him out of office violently. Thousands of 
people were killed, and then we put in the person now known as the 
Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who did not believe in democracy, who was 
a harsh, dictatorial monarch. And that slow fuse was lit in 1953, and 
it blew up in 1979.
  Number eight, ``The Silence of the Rational Center'' by Messrs. 
Halper and Clark. Basically, what they say, there are many people 
around this country, universities, former diplomats, diplomats who have 
a better understanding of the cultural, religious, historic facts of 
many regions of the world, especially the Middle East, but what they 
say in this book is it's not just enough to know. You have to take the 
initiative, use your ingenuity and your intellect and your courage, and 
begin discussing with the American people, with the Congress, with the 
administration what is wrong with our policy in the Middle East.
  Number nine is a historic book, interesting though. It's called ``Why 
Vietnam?'' by Archimedes Patti, who was in the OSS, the Office of 
Strategic Services, a forerunner of the CIA, who was with the first 
Americans to meet Ho Chi Minh in 1945, who found that Ho Chi Minh 
wanted to work with the Americans to get the wording right in his 
Declaration of Independence from French colonial rule and be sure that 
he used the words, ``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all 
Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the 
Pursuit of Happiness.''
  And Ho Chi Minh put that in his Declaration of Independence, those 
words, and Archimedes Patti, the author of this book, ``Why Vietnam?'' 
helped Ho Chi Minh do that.
  The reason I suggest ``Why Vietnam?'' is because years later people 
had no historic understanding of Ho Chi Minh, that he, in fact, Ho Chi 
Minh, back in 1919 at the Treaty of Versailles in France at the end of 
World War I, was knocking at the door of America to ask for their help 
to gain his independence from the French. He didn't go to Russia to 
help gain his independence. He did not go to China to help gain his 
independence. He came to the United States, and because of not enough 
knowledge, not enough information, not enough inquiring politicians, 
did we have the war in Vietnam where 58,000 Americans died.
  The last book, ``Human Options'' by Norman Cousins. ``Human 
Options.'' What are your options when you have a situation? What do you 
base your decision on, your opinion on? Is it good information? Is it a 
broad array of knowledge that you have or do you let somebody on the 
radio or the TV filter out and distort the information so you only get 
a small piece of it?
  Knowledge makes you more informed, more competent and gives you 
hindsight in the present crisis. The military does it all the time. 
They're knowledgeable and they're competent and they're doing it now.
  Mr. Speaker, what I would like to go through very briefly now is 
recent history that can help us in this war in Iraq to show what other 
leaders did in our recent past to resolve conflicts.

                              {time}  2215

  And I want to start with the Cold War, which ended at the end of 
World War II.
  World War II was a war where you could bomb munition factories, you 
could bomb huge armies, you could bomb supply lines, you could bomb 
convoys. World War II was not an insurgency like we see in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. World War II is probably something of the past. We are now 
faced with an insurgency with violent politics, not a standing war.
  And right after World War II, Winston Churchill coined the phrase 
``An iron curtain has descended around eastern Europe and the Soviet 
Union.'' We were engaged in what was called the Cold War. We know that 
in the 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev said on a number of occasions, pointing 
to western diplomats in foreign countries and in the United Nations, he 
would say, ``We will bury you.'' ``We will bury you.'' And he had 
thousands of deployable nuclear weapons.
  The point here, Mr. Speaker, is: What was President Eisenhower's 
response to that violent rhetoric? President Eisenhower's response was 
to invite Nikita Khrushchev to the United States to tour our cities, to 
tour our suburbs, and to travel through the beautiful farming regions 
of the United States. President Eisenhower's response to his violent 
rhetoric was dialogue. Let's sit down and discuss the issue.
  1962, President Kennedy; what did he do when he found out there were

[[Page H3771]]

deployable nuclear weapons minutes away from the United States in Fidel 
Castro's Cuba? The military said we need to attack, we need to bomb, we 
need to get rid of those nuclear weapons. What was President Kennedy's 
response? Let's work through channels. Let's talk to Khrushchev. Let's 
have a dialogue. And the crisis passed.
  Communist China said throughout the sixties that it would be worth 
half the population of China dying if the United States was wiped off 
the face of the Earth. And what was Richard Nixon's response to Mao 
Tse-tung's violent rhetoric? Richard Nixon's response? Dialogue. Nixon 
went to China.
  Is China the flower of human rights today? Is there religious freedom 
in China? Is there freedom of thought, freedom of conscience? No. Are 
they better today than they were 30 years ago? They are, but they still 
do not have a country that is democratic. There is no democracy there. 
And there are human rights violations every day. But we have a dialogue 
with China. We don't have violent rhetoric about an evil empire. We 
have trade wars with China. China is better. Richard Nixon went to 
China.
  I want to briefly mention Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh in 1945 
wanted independence from the French. He wanted freedom for his people. 
In 1949, he would have never known that he was going to have to wait 30 
years; it was 1975 before Vietnam was fully united and had complete 
independence. We did not have a dialogue with Ho Chi Minh during that 
same period of time that we were pursuing dialogue with Khrushchev, 
with Cuba, and with Red China. And as a result of not having dialogue, 
58,000 Americans died, hundreds of thousands were wounded, and several 
million Vietnamese were dead.
  Throughout that same period of time of the Cold War there was a wall 
dividing Berlin, east and west, and many people were killed trying to 
cross that wall. And Kennedy went to that wall and said, ``I am a 
Berliner,'' meaning there is freedom for the people in the city of 
Berlin because we believe in freedom. Ronald Reagan went to the Berlin 
Wall and said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.
  And when the wall was finally being torn down, there was a moment 
when no one knew what Gorbachev was going to do. Was Gorbachev going to 
bring in more Soviet troops and repair the wall and keep the Iron 
Curtain the way it was? Was it going to be like the Hungarian 
revolution in 1956, when the Hungarians revolted and wanted to be free, 
wanted their independence? What was going to happen? Was Gorbachev 
going to do the same thing that Khrushchev did in 1956? Well, what did 
President Bush do at that moment? He showed Mikhail Gorbachev that 
President Brezhnev signed the Helsinki Accords. And the Helsinki 
Accords talked about sovereignty, human dignity, and respect for 
international law.
  President Bush, 1990, did not resort to violent rhetoric, threatening 
Mikhail Gorbachev. He quietly, deliberately, but effectively, showed 
Mr. Gorbachev that there was agreement with all European countries, 
including the Soviet Union, called the Helsinki Accords; that there was 
to be respect for human thought, human consciousness, freedom of 
religion, sovereignty, and international law. And what happened? The 
Berlin Wall came down, Eastern Europe became free.
  Let's take a look at the same period of time, but concentrate just in 
the Middle East. Same period of time, 1948. The Cold War has basically 
just started. Israel becomes a nation, and it is, this week, 
celebrating its 60th anniversary, the independent country of Israel. It 
was carved out of an area known as Palestine in 1948. But when Israel 
was formed in 1948, it threw the entire region into what some people in 
the region said would be a 100-year war. That war between Israel, the 
Arabs and the Palestinians is now 60 years old. Must we wait 40 more 
years for peace?
  I mentioned ``All the Shah's Men'' by Stephen Kinzer. 1953, the 
height of the Cold War, Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Teddy 
Roosevelt, unfortunately with the blessings of John Foster Dulles, the 
Secretary of State of the United States, staged a very violent coup in 
support of the British independent Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, today 
known as BP, because that Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, not a British 
company, but an independent oil company headquartered in Britain, 
wanted to extract as much oil as they could from Iran without sharing 
the proceeds, without sharing the profits.
  And so Mohammad Mosaddeq came into power in 1950, and he nationalized 
the Iranian Oil Company because it was Iranian oil, and he wanted the 
Iranian people to have some of the benefits of that natural resource. 
And the British didn't like that. The British tried to get President 
Truman to stage a coup, and Truman refused to do it. Eisenhower, with 
much trepidation, allowed it to go forward. And what happened from 
1953, when we staged the coup in Iran? In the embassy in Tehran we lit 
a slow fuse, and that slow fuse burned until 1979 when the Islamic 
Revolution was staged in Tehran in 1979 and our embassy was taken over.
  The Soviet Union in the Middle East during the Cold War was like a 
roller coaster ride. Sometimes they were a friend of certain Arab 
countries and sometimes they were an enemy of certain Arab countries, 
depending on what the Soviet policy was.
  Israel and Iran, we talked about that in the book ``Treacherous 
Alliance.'' They both shared a common interest. Neither country, Israel 
nor Iran, are Arab countries, obviously; the Israelis are Jews, the 
Iranians are Persians. The Israelis speak Hebrew, the Iranians speak 
Farsi. They had strategic interests that were similar. They had enemies 
that were similar. They had ideological differences, but they resolved 
those ideological differences and began quietly trading with each 
other. Those ideological differences were resolved because geopolitical 
realities trumped those ideological fantasies. Let me say that again. 
Israel and Iran, from 1948 to 1991, they had many ideological 
differences, but the geopolitical realities--that means, because of 
where they lived, because of the region--the geopolitical realities 
trumped their ideological fantasies, and they were quiet, but strong, 
allies.
  We know during the period of the Cold War--the end of the Cold War 
anyway--in the Middle East there was a war between Russia and 
Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989. When that war was over, the Soviet Union 
declined precipitously as a super power. It lost significant influence 
in the Middle East and it limped home defeated by Islamic 
fundamentalists. Those same Islamic fundamentalists that we helped, the 
mujahidin, that we helped in the war against the Soviet Union, they 
then turned around and focused their attention on the western world.
  But let me show you something that's interesting. During the war in 
Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, who was their enemy? The mujahidin was 
their enemy, but gradually turned into the Taliban and al Qaeda. 
Pakistan fought with the mujahidin. And who was the third ally against 
the Soviet Union? The United States. The United States, Pakistan, and 
the mujahidin fought with the Afghan and foreign fighters against the 
Soviet Union. Things are a little different today. Over one million 
deaths just in Afghanistan.
  What happened at the same period of time in the Middle East just a 
few short years ago? Iraq and Iran went to war from 1980 to 1988. This 
was over border disputes, oil, and so on. 1,500,000 deaths. Not 
1,500,000 casualties; 1,500,000 deaths. That's more deaths than all the 
Americans that died in World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam 
combined.
  We are in a huge violent region today where these people, the Middle 
East people, are very used to violent politics and violent death. Can 
you resolve these conflicts with more violence? I think the answer is 
no.
  What happened back in 1978 and 1979, a period of time when the 
Iranian Revolution took place, the Afghan war with Russia was about to 
take place, and the war between Iran and Iraq was about to take place, 
what happened when Jimmy Carter got Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin 
together for a period of time in the United States? What happened? 
There was peace on the edge of conflict between Egypt and Israel. They 
reconciled their differences.
  The last piece of conflict that I want to discuss in the Middle East 
during the Cold War, right at the end of the Cold War, was the Persian 
Gulf War when Iraq invaded Kuwait over border disputes. They felt that 
Kuwait was actually a part of Iraq historically.

[[Page H3772]]

  When we went into the Persian Gulf War in 1991, there were very 
clear, defined objectives. And when those objectives were met, we came 
home. There was truly an international coalition; I mean, an 
international coalition that was so good the United States spent no 
money on the Persian Gulf War because those countries that did not 
contribute troops contributed large financial assistance. International 
financial assistance helped resolve that conflict. We had greater 
integrated diplomatic initiatives by the international community. And 
so the Persian Gulf War came, it was violent, and then it was resolved 
in a very short period of time.
  The present crisis, Iraq, right now in the Middle East; what is it 
like in Iraq?

                              {time}  2230

  There are three great religions there, Judaism, Christianity, and 
Islam, that at times throughout history have had violent interactions. 
But there are also many, many examples over the centuries where these 
three great religions have lived together in peace. Faith is a very 
important part. Religion is a very important part of the Middle East.
  Oil exports are vital to the economic viability of the region. Oil 
exports are very important.
  The geopolitical balance of power in the Middle East today is 
fractured. There are no more super powers. There is not a conflict 
between the Soviet Union and the United States. Saddam Hussein, who was 
one of the more powerful dictatorial leaders in the region, is gone. 
Who will have more influence there? No one knows. The geopolitical 
balance of power is fractured. So what direction will the Middle East 
take, and how can we be a part of the solution?
  The Shiites and the Sunnis, these are both Muslim. They are both of 
the Islamic faith. But there are differences. But their differences are 
much greater than the differences between the different denominations 
in the Christian church. They are much different from Catholicism and 
the Protestants. They're different from the Baptists and the Methodists 
and the Episcopalians and the Lutherans and so on. And one of the major 
differences between the Shiites and the Sunnis is who has authority 
over the religion of Islam. There was a shift, a break, between the 
descendants of Muhammad. So authority creates significant differences 
in how religion works. And there are differences between the hierarchy 
of Shiites and the Sunnis; hence we see sectarian violence and we see 
intrasectarian violence. But I can tell you the vast majority of Arabs 
who are Muslim, who are Sunni, and who are Shia, especially in Iraq, 
have lived peacefully for centuries, have intermarried for centuries. 
And for the most part, there is not sectarian violence between the two 
religious groups. There is not intrasectarian violence within the Shias 
or within the Sunnis. This conflict has separated the two. But more 
importantly, the differences between the Shias and the Sunnis can be 
reconciled.
  But make no mistake, there is a difference, a fundamental difference, 
between an al Qaeda member and a Sunni or a Shia. There is a 
significant difference between someone who is a Taliban and someone who 
is a Shia and a Sunni. And it is the same difference, if we go back 30 
some years, to a group of people called the Khmer Rouge in Thailand led 
by a fanatical maniac called Pol Pot. He was a Thai. He was Southeast 
Asian. But to compare Pol Pot with the Khmer Rouge with any average 
Buddhist in Thailand would be completely out of the question, 
completely false.
  So trying to lump all the Muslims together into one picture is a 
stereotype. That's a big mistake. Al Qaeda are terrorists. They are the 
enemy. The Taliban are very strict, ancient, primitive. They have a 
very primitive, ancient interpretation of Islam. But if you're a Sunni 
or a Shia and you're living in Iraq, you want your country to be at 
peace and you want to be modernized. We need to understand this culture 
a little bit better.
  The war in Iraq has now more than 34,000 casualties. What does that 
mean, 34,000 casualties? That means more than 4,000 Americans dead that 
will never come home. That means more than 30,000 Americans wounded, 
hospitalized, disabled that will never be the same; $600 billion and 
counting, about $12 billion a month; global dissent; soldiers on their 
third and fourth tour in Iraq and Afghanistan; posttraumatic syndrome.
  Now let me say something about posttraumatic stress syndrome. It's 
when you have a violent incident in your life and it doesn't go away if 
you're a soldier from Iraq when you go home. You just can't put it 
aside. Posttraumatic stress syndrome is nothing more than remembering 
your past, a year ago, 10 years ago, 6 months ago. You remember these 
incidents. You remember what a land mine in the middle of the road did 
to your Humvee or your tank or your jeep or your buddy. You remember 
that. The violent incident that occurred does not get forgotten any 
more than you remember what you did in high school or what you did in a 
picnic last week or whom you spoke to in a church last week or a 
birthday party that you had. Posttraumatic stress syndrome is basically 
100 percent for anyone who has been in combat, 100 percent. Now, some 
people are able to deal with it, they digest it, and they move on with 
their life, and they're normal and they're successful. But for some, 
depending on their physiological capacity, they cannot forget that 
incident where they saw children blown to pieces, where they may have 
pressed the barrel of their rifle against another man's chest and 
pulled the trigger. Do you forget that? Children burned with napalm, 
violent conflict, do you forget it? You don't. You deal with it. But 
posttraumatic stress is a problem.
  The troops are stunningly competent. Are we policymakers informed 
enough to deal with these issues in a way that we can bring the 
conflict to an end?
  Does that mean, then, because of these casualties, because of this 
conflict, that we should leave Iraq right away? Let's talk about that 
for a second. We left Mogadishu, Somalia. And what did we leave behind 
in the early 1990s? We left behind chaos. So we can't leave right away 
without any consequences. What happened to the Russians when they left 
Afghanistan? We wanted them to leave Afghanistan, but who took care to 
look at the diplomatic effort to build up Afghanistan? Nobody. And look 
what happened to Afghanistan after the Russians left. It turned into a 
haven for al Qaeda and the Taliban.
  But how many troops should we leave behind or leave in Iraq? That's a 
consideration. If we go back to 1954, the French were leaving Vietnam, 
and they left a group of soldiers at Dien Bien Phu, and they were all 
killed or captured. So we don't want another Mogadishu. We don't want 
another Afghanistan. We don't want another Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam in 
1954.
  General Petraeus says there is no military solution. Under the 
present situation, it doesn't look like there is a political solution. 
So what do we do? Well, we look beyond Iraq. If we just look at Iraq 
alone, there is no political or military solution. But to understand 
the way forward, we need to frame a regional strategy. So what does it 
look like?
  Right now the U.S. military is a skeletal structure upon which Iraqi 
society rests. You pull the military out, it may collapse. We are the 
skeletal structure. So we need to be strategic about what we're doing 
there now, and being strategic means we look at the region.
  First, the Palestinian-Israeli issue, unsettled since 1948. What has 
that caused? It is the biggest advertising recruitment tool for 
violent, radical al Qaeda. We need to begin to seriously resolve that 
conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
  Saudi Arabia, they live in a fractured Middle East. Saudi Arabia 
fears, a natural fear, that Iraq will be an Iranian satellite; so we 
need to deal with the fears of Saudi Arabia.
  Syria, a secular Islamic country, not a fundamentalist Islamic 
country, still has concerns about its role in Lebanon and the Golan 
Heights that were taken from them in the 1967 war. We need to engage 
the Syrians at the highest levels.
  Iran, they have historic fears of Iraq and Russia, now China. They 
are Persian. They speak farsi. They are not Arab. We need to engage the 
Iranians with no preconditions. We didn't put conditions on Khrushchev 
when we engaged him. We didn't have any preconditions against Mao Se 
Tung when we engaged them.

[[Page H3773]]

  Turkey, what of the Kurdish question? We need to bring Turkey into 
the process of reconciliation.
  The problems of the Middle East are centuries old. It is an 
interconnected, integrated region that must be brought together. An 
integrated region needs to be brought together with an integrated set 
of diplomatic efforts.
  And by the way, the countries that I just mentioned, Palestine, 
Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, those countries in and 
of themselves without U.S. aid could deal and take care of al Qaeda.
  It would be wise to remember Eisenhower's words: A country like the 
United States needs a strong military, strong intelligence, but it also 
needs consensus and dialogue. The third leg of the three legged stool, 
consensus and dialogue, is also a part of America's arsenal. And it 
includes exquisite diplomacy, which means trading, education, science, 
technology, cultural, social, and religious exchanges. That's what the 
third leg of that stool does. That is what diplomacy is. Eisenhower 
spoke to Khrushchev. Kennedy spoke to Khrushchev. Nixon spoke to Mao 
Tse-tung. Knowledge is the solvent for danger, said Norman Cousins. The 
troops know that. The troops know the smarter they are, the better 
prepared they are, the better their day is going to be. Do the 
policymakers know that? Do the policymakers know what their role is in 
this war? Standing shoulder to shoulder with the troops means more than 
just praying for the troops. It means you also wear a helmet, a flak 
jacket, and a rifle. And what is that helmet, flak jacket, and rifle? 
That's knowledge. That's knowing something about the issue.
  History is a vast early warning system. The Arabs, the Persians, the 
Israelis know the history of the last centuries of the Middle East. Do 
we? Sam Rayburn, former Speaker of the House, said, ``Any mule can kick 
a barn door down, but it takes a carpenter to build one.'' We need 
carpenters. A lot of them. Remember what Rudyard Kipling said when his 
son tragically died in northern France during World War I: ``Why did 
young men die? Because old men lied.'' And to paraphrase that today, 
old people should talk before they send young people to die.
  The landscape of human tragedy since the dawn of time, who has been 
our enemy? Ignorance, arrogance, dogma. It leads to monstrous 
certainty, monstrous dictators, monstrous violence. Ignorance, 
arrogance, dogma. What's the antidote? More violence? Filling up our 
cemeteries?
  The answer is knowledge replaces ignorance, humility replaces 
arrogance, and tolerance replaces dogma. Consensus and dialogue. A 
diplomatic initiative with the region. A full diplomatic initiative 
with the region. That comes out of the intelligence and the ingenuity 
of our arsenal. Certainly we need a strong military. Certainly we need 
a strong intelligence community. But we need the other leg of that 
arsenal, a regional diplomacy policy.
  An international support structure, do we have it in the middle East? 
Do we have it with the Palestinian and Israelis? Are we working with an 
international support structure in Iraq and Afghanistan? Not enough.

                              {time}  2245

  Integrated security alliance. We had it with NATO. We had it with 
SEATO. We have it with OAS. The U.S. has it, and many countries want to 
join it. The integrated economic alliance. It is with the European 
Union. All of the Eastern European countries and the Balkans want to 
get into that integrated security alliance and that integrated economic 
alliance.
  We can do that in the Middle East. We should continue the current 
military draw down strategically and responsibly, a reconciliation 
among the different factions to reduce the sectarian violence, an 
effort that is ongoing. And we should continue it.
  Let's take a walk down Memory Lane going back to 1941 just at the 
very early stages of World War II. A number of countries signed what 
was called the Atlantic Charter. And the Atlantic Charter was to deal 
with sovereignty, freedom and independence. The Atlantic Charter led to 
the organization now known as NATO. That integrated security alliance 
kept the peace in Europe basically as a result of that from 1948 to the 
present.
  I will say a little side remark. The Atlantic Charter, which talked 
about sovereignty and human rights, when Ho Chi Minh read it shortly 
after it was signed, he wondered if it would apply to Asians. That is 
what he said. And apparently it didn't for some time to come.
  The Helsinki Accords, which we mentioned earlier, which President 
Bush reminded Mikhail Gorbachev of and so there was a peaceful solution 
to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the Helsinki Accords was signed 
in 1975 by a number of European countries, including the Soviet Union. 
And that Accord said the following, there should be territorial 
integrity, peaceful settlements of disputes, freedom of thought, 
conscience, religion and belief, equal rights and respect for 
international law. That is what the Helsinki Accord said.
  The Helsinki Accord gave people under the Soviet domination courage 
to strive for a better life. Look at Eastern Europe and many of the 
former Soviet Republics. They read the Helsinki Accords. It gave them 
hope to put aside their fear and their despair and dream for a better 
life to come and then make it happen.
  The Geneva Convention, 1949, talked about the treatment of prisoners, 
all prisoners, not just certain types, but that all prisoners should be 
treated humanely. And I would suggest that my colleagues and those who 
are listening read the Geneva Convention. It is only 59 pages. You 
ought to have some understanding of who is a prisoner of war, who is an 
enemy combatant, is there some kind of difference between someone that 
doesn't come from a state or a country or wear a uniform? Read the 
Geneva Convention. It's 59 pages.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude my remarks tonight with a quote from 
a book, that was not on the list, written by Jacob Bronowski. It's 
called ``The Ascent of Man.'' It is about 30 years old. It is an 
interesting book because it talks about the evolution of science in 
human civilization. But there is a chapter in this book about World War 
II and the Holocaust. The author of the book had most of his relatives 
die in Auschwitz. But here is what Bronowski says about war, which is 
still applicable in the present crisis: There are two parts to the 
human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means, that 
push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering that has 
become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the 
human spirit where a nation becomes a nation of ghosts, obedient ghosts 
or tortured ghosts.
  Where do we fit into that equation?
  Mr. Speaker, before I finish, I did tell the listeners that I would 
reread the list of books that I call your helmet, your flak jacket and 
your rifle. So now are you ready to cross the line to stand shoulder to 
shoulder with the troops who are knowledgable and competent about what 
they do? And so we as policy makers, are we knowledgable? And what is 
the role of the American people?
  The first book is ``A Letter to America'' by David Boren.
  ``Iraq Study Group Report'' by James Baker and Lee Hamilton.
  ``Fiasco'' by Thomas Ricks.
  ``The Struggle for Peace'' by General Tony Zinni.
  ``Violent Politics'' by William Polk.
  ``Treacherous Alliance'' by Trita Parsi.
  ``All the Shah's Men'' by Stephen Kinzer.
  ``The Silence of the Rational Center'' by Stefan Halper and Jonathan 
Clarke.
  ``Why Viet Nam?'' by Archimedes Patti.
  And the last book, number 10, ``Human Options'' by Norman Cousins.
  One more quote from Norman Cousins and the book, ``Human Options.'' 
This is us. Man is not imprisoned by habit. Great changes in him can be 
wrought by crisis once that crisis can be recognized and understood. 
And so if we have recognized the present crisis, great changes can take 
place.
  Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

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