[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 191 (Wednesday, December 16, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H15485-H15487]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          THE IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WARS AND HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Tonko). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Grayson) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Speaker, in some respects the policy regarding the 
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan comes down to the subject of leadership. 
And as I have said, leadership is sometimes simply a question of 
looking into the future, seeing what's inevitable, and doing what you 
need to do to make the future come faster. I think that's true in both 
the case of Iraq and the case of Afghanistan.
  In the case of the Israelites in Egypt, Moses did not say to the 
pharaoh, Would you please let my people go starting 2 or 3 years from 
now? Instead what he said is ``Let my people go'' now.
  We all know that sooner or later our troops will be withdrawn from 
Iraq. They will be withdrawn from Afghanistan. So the question is why 
not now?
  Now, if you ask that question to the other side, the people who want 
to perpetuate these wars, the answer is always the same in one form or 
another. That answer is, something bad is going to happen. But what 
that really means when you get down to it is that something bad might 
happen. Nobody knows for sure what might happen. They're speculating 
that something bad might happen. But you can be sure that if the war is 
perpetuated, something bad will happen. And that is the loss of 
American lives, the loss of foreign lives, the loss of our national 
treasure.
  In the case of Iraq, $3 trillion already and the amount grows every 
day. This in a country like ours with a total net worth accumulated 
over more than two centuries of $50 trillion. We have taken 6 percent 
of what our great grandparents and our grandparents and our parents 
produced and left to us and everything that we've toiled to produce 
over the course of our lives and everything that our children have 
produced. We have taken 6 percent of all of that and dumped it into the 
sands of Mesopotamia and lost 4,000 American lives and countless Iraqi 
lives to boot. Now, this is what happened because we entered into this 
war, because we continue this war, because the war continues to this 
day.
  We have an enemy in this war. The enemy is called al Qaeda; al Qaeda 
in Iraq, al Qaeda in Pakistan, wherever they might be, but that's the 
name they go by. But ask yourself, what could they have possibly done 
to inflict that on us? What could al Qaeda have done to make us lose $3 
trillion, 4,000 American lives, countless lives of other people? What 
could they have possibly done? They would have literally had to 
vaporize New England in order to inflict the same amount of economic 
damage on us to destroy 6 percent of our economy. It simply wasn't 
possible. It isn't possible. It never was possible.

[[Page H15486]]

  And that's why the war was such a mistake to begin with. It was born 
in sin, it lives in sin, and in the end it will die in sin. It never 
should have started, and it never should be perpetuated because every 
day the war continues. Every single day is another day that we risk 
American lives, on many occasions we lose American lives, other people 
die, and again our national treasure is dissipated until in the end it 
will be gone.
  As Senator Kerry once asked, famously, ``How do you ask a man to be 
the last man to die in Vietnam?'' That's a good question. How do we ask 
a man today to be the last man to die in Afghanistan? How do we ask an 
American soldier today to be the last American soldier to die in Iraq? 
There is no good answer to that question. There's no good answer to why 
we continue to perpetuate these wars knowing full well that they will 
end. And they'll end only one way.

  Paul Simon once had a song called ``50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.'' 
There actually are 50 Ways or more to start a war. That much is true.
  Once the Europeans fought a war because a pirate cut off a man's ear, 
the War of Jenkin's Ear, and that plunged two different nations into 
war for years. At another time a murder was committed. A man was shot, 
one man, only one man. He happened to be Archduke Ferdinand, and an 
entire continent was plunged into war. That was the origin of World War 
I.
  There are all sorts of ways to begin a war. There are all sorts of 
ways to perpetuate a war. The Hundred Years' War in Europe was fought 
for more than a hundred years, left two different countries, both 
England and France, absolutely penniless, as many wars often do, for 
the simple reason that it takes an awful lot of effort to build a 
school, almost no effort at all to blow it up. And the same thing is 
true of anything that you can create. So wars destroy, and very often 
they destroy the countries engaged in them.
  In the case of America, when America starts a war, when America is 
involved in a war, we are so strong, we are so powerful that the only 
way to end a war is for us to end it. There is only one way to end the 
war that America is involved in, and that is for us to decide as a 
country enough is enough, we're done. We spend more on our defense than 
all other countries combined, and the result of that is that these 
decisions are made by us, often by the people in this room, often by 
the President. And it's up to us to decide when enough is enough, when 
enough people have died, when enough money has been lost, when the 
price in both blood and money is simply too high. I submit that we've 
reached that point in Iraq a long time ago. We reached that point in 
Afghanistan a long time ago.
  In the case of Afghanistan, within 2 months after 9/11, we had 
expelled the Taliban Government from the capital. Within 3 months we 
had expelled al Qaeda from the country, and our enemies were no longer 
even in Afghanistan at that point. They were in Pakistan and they 
remain there today. It's not a secret. Everybody knows it. So the 
result of that is within 2 months or 3 months after 9/11, we had won 
our victory in Afghanistan, and at some later point even in Iraq I seem 
to remember our President standing on an aircraft carrier and behind 
him the giant sign ``Mission Accomplished.''
  Yet both these wars go on and on and on for one reason, one reason 
only: It's because we Americans decide to perpetuate them. And we do so 
out of fear, out of the sense that something bad might happen, without 
realizing that something bad happens every single day that we are at 
war. So there may be 50 ways to start a war, but there's only one way 
to end it, and that's for us to end it and hopefully not too much 
longer from now.
  I think the President missed an opportunity. He took office with a 
great deal of goodwill on the part of not only my party, the Democratic 
Party, but also on the part of good people all around America who 
simply want better lives for themselves. Let's not squander that 
opportunity. We all deserve a direction that we regard as the right 
direction. There are too many people in this country even today who 
think we're going in the wrong direction. In Iraq the wrong direction 
is simply the same direction. The same thing is true in Afghanistan. 
The wrong direction is the same direction. We voted for change. We 
deserve change. That's just as true with these foreign wars as it is 
with anything else.
  We know that at some point in the future these wars will be over. And 
with regard to what the situation will be then, we will know that 
George Bush started these wars and I sincerely do hope, I sincerely do 
hope, that Barack Obama will end them, if not right now then as soon as 
possible.
  Then at that point the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley will tell us what 
the circumstances are at that point, and I yield to Percy Bysshe 
Shelley for a moment or two. He described those circumstances in the 
poem ``Ozymandias.'' This is what those circumstances will be like when 
these wars are over:
  ``I met a traveller from an antique land
  Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
  Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
  Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
  And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
  Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
  Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
  The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
  And on the pedestal these words appear:
  `My name is George W. Bush, king of kings:
  Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
  Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
  The lone and level sands stretch far away.''
  The lone and level sands will stretch far away when these wars are 
over, these monuments to the mistakes of our previous President. But in 
the end that's what it will be, simply a statue in the desert, 
pointless, endless, bare.
  With regard to the issue of health care, we are now waiting for the 
Senate to act, this House having acted quite a while ago now.

                              {time}  2100

  And I have to wonder why. Why are we waiting so long? What facts are 
different today on this day in December than were any different in 
November, or any different in October, any different in September, 
August, July? What can we do today that we could not have done then? I 
think the sad fact is, nothing. Nothing has really changed. The 
fundamental facts are the same. Americans are still denied care every 
single day on the basis of preexisting conditions, on the basis of 
reaching lifetime caps. There are still millions upon millions of 
Americans who have no health care coverage. There's a million, who, 
every year, go bankrupt because of that. And there are thousands upon 
thousands who die every single month for the simple reason that they 
have no health care coverage. That's been true, not only for this 
month, not only for last month, but for year upon year.
  And we Democrats in the House of Representatives, we took it upon 
ourselves, with the political capital that you, the American people had 
given to us, we took it upon ourselves to make that our priority once 
we had done what we could to steady the shaken economy. We delivered. 
We did what we needed to do. And we have waited and waited and waited 
for the Senate to do what it needs to do.
  I pointed out here on this pedestal several weeks ago that the cost 
of delay is death. People die every single day, 121 of them, 122, every 
single day because they have no health care coverage in America. And I 
pointed out that there are people here in this Chamber who are dead set 
against health care reform, even at the cost of the lives of their own 
constituents. I gave their names. I gave their numbers for how many 
people would die in each of their districts on account of our not 
passing health care reform. Now I think it's time to do the same for 
the obstructionists in the Senate, those people who think that health 
care reform doesn't serve their own purposes, and they are, therefore, 
willing to deny it to their own constituents.
  This is not a case of one State opting out. This is a case of 
Senators, en

[[Page H15487]]

masse, deciding, one by one, that there will be no health care reform, 
not just for their States, but for all America. And so what I've done 
is I've created another list. This is a list of States and a list of 
those who die in that State, one by one, on account of there being no 
health care coverage, not once, but year after year after year. And now 
I propose to provide that list to you all. You'll be able to see it at 
our Web site later on today.
  In the State of Alabama, the number is 541 deaths each year.
  In the State of Alaska, 124 deaths each year.
  In the State of Arizona, 1,185 deaths each year.
  In the State of Connecticut, 326 deaths each year.
  In my State of Florida, an astounding 3,542 deaths each year.
  In Georgia, 1,640 deaths each year.
  In Idaho, 217 deaths each year.
  In Indiana, 727 deaths each year.
  In Iowa, 272.
  In Kansas, 329.
  In Kentucky, 609.
  In Louisiana, 800.
  In the State of Maine, 123 deaths each year.
  In Mississippi, 518 deaths.
  In Missouri, 714 deaths.
  In Nebraska, 216 deaths.
  In Nevada, 450 deaths.
  In New Hampshire, 132 deaths.
  In North Carolina, 1,424 deaths.
  In Ohio, 1,279 deaths.
  In Oklahoma, 550 deaths.
  In South Carolina, 693 deaths.
  In South Dakota, 88 deaths.
  In Tennessee, 883 deaths.
  In the State of Texas, 5,857 deaths each year for lack of health 
coverage.
  In Utah, 342 deaths.
  In Wyoming, 69 deaths.
  And on it goes.
  And for those Senators who have shown some reluctance or some lack of 
interest in health care reform, I'm going to provide your names right 
now to go with your States.
  In Alabama, I'm talking about Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby; in 
Alaska, Lisa Murkowski; in Arizona, Jon Kyl and John McCain; in 
Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman; in Florida, George LeMieux; in Georgia, 
Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson; in Idaho, Mike Crapo and James 
Risch; in Indiana, Dick Lugar; in Iowa, Chuck Grassley; in Kansas, Sam 
Brownback and Pat Roberts; in Kentucky, Jim Bunning and Mitch 
McConnell; in Louisiana, David Vitter; in Maine, Susan Collins and 
Olympia Snowe; in Mississippi, Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker; in 
Missouri, Christopher Bond; in Nebraska, Mike Johanns and Ben Nelson; 
in Nevada, John Ensign; in New Hampshire, Judd Gregg; in North 
Carolina, Richard Burr; in Ohio, George Voinovich; in Oklahoma, Tom 
Coburn and James Inhofe; in South Carolina, Jim DeMint and Lindsey 
Graham; in South Dakota, John Thune; in Tennessee, Lamar Alexander and 
Bob Corker; in Texas, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison; in Utah, 
Robert Bennett and Orrin Hatch; and in Wyoming, John Barrasso and 
Michael Enzi.
  Please remember these names. These are the people who have stalled 
health care in this country. These are the people who have watched 
when, day after day, month after month, people go broke, people remain 
sick and people even die because they have no health care in this 
country. And I want to assure each one of you who has done anything to 
obstruct health care reform in this country that people will remember. 
Maybe not the people who die, but the people who love them, the people 
whose names I read day after day at our Web site, NamesOfTheDead.com, 
and the people whose stories I told day after day. These are people who 
are gone, but the names, the list grows every single day until we solve 
this problem. And then, in the end, when we do solve this problem--and 
it's inevitable. Every other industrial country in the entire world has 
health insurance for everyone. When we do join the ranks of those 
countries, people are going to remember who made that happen and show 
kindness and love to them. People are going to remember who blocked it, 
and they'll show undying hatred. People are going to remember.
  And you'll remember, too. You'll remember that when the time came for 
you to do something for your fellow man, to stop the suffering, to stop 
the hurt, to stop the pain and to stop the dying, you did nothing, or 
you didn't do enough. You're going to remember that, and you're going 
to know that blood is on your hands.
  May God have mercy on your soul.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind the Member to refrain 
from engaging in personalities toward the Senate or its Members. 
Remarks in debate may include policy criticisms, but may not descend to 
personalities.

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