[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 44 (Wednesday, March 30, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H2095-H2099]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT LIBYA?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, always an honor to come to this floor in
these hallowed Halls and address the issues of the day.
My colleague from across the aisle was discussing jobs. That is so
important to most Americans, and there is one way we could do a great
deal toward immediately putting Americans back to work, and that would
be if we started utilizing more of our own energy resources, which is
what this Nation has been so blessed with. When you consider all of the
natural resources that are natural energy sources--coal, natural gas,
oil, we do have wind, places where solar works--but all of the carbon-
based energy resources that are so valuable around the world, the ones
for which we keep paying trillions of dollars to other nations that
could be utilized here in the United States and could be utilized to
create jobs right here at home, it does not make sense to keep sending
hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars to countries that don't
like us. We're doing that through the purchase of energy.
I've listened to all the explanations about why we've gone into Libya
that have been made in the press. Those press conferences, all kinds of
releases by this administration, and you still come back to trying to
figure out why Libya was so much more important than Tunisia or so many
of the others, Iran.
I mean, the people of Iran have attempted rebellions against madman
Ahmadinejad, and this administration didn't seem to lend a helping
hand, and that's a nation whose leader has sworn to see that the United
States, Ahmadinejad said, will soon no longer be a Nation. As
Ahmadinejad had said, we'll soon be able to experience a world without
the United States and Zionism. So he says he's going to eliminate the
United States; we're going to eliminate Israel. That ought to cause
concern.
Have we lifted anything other than trying to prevent people from
buying goods from Iran? Not really. Oh, yes, and those sanctions are
going to work, and probably in another 15, 20 years they've got a real
chance of working. The trouble is, in 15 or 20 years--and, actually,
the possibility exists in a whole lot less than 5--if we continue to
persist in sanctions and nothing more with Iran, they will get nuclear
weapons, and then they will give us a choice: either remove the
sanctions or count on a nuclear blast coming in your country. That's
why we have to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. But we use
them, and they will certainly threaten to use them so that they can get
what they want. In fact, they may get more by threatening the use once
they have them than they would to actually use them.
But Ahmadinejad has made clear in a number of settings he expects the
12th Imam, the Mahdi, to be coming, and he believes he can hasten the
return of the Mahdi, have a global caliphate where all of us fall on
our knees supposedly or die. Well, we could prevent that, could have
stopped it long before now, but we haven't.
So what makes Libya so special? It's really interesting, and it's
hard to put our finger on it. Libya does produce oil. China, I
understand, may be the biggest purchaser of Libyan oil but not the
United States. So why should we go rushing to spend hundreds of
millions or billions of dollars in Libya? Europe, England are big
customers of Libyan oil. So why would we be running to help Europe and
England with their Libyan oil? Well, the President's made clear, it's
because they asked us to. You know, we've got a number--and Secretary
Clinton has also said, she's made the rounds of the news programs, the
Arab States asked us to, the U.N. asked us to, Europe and England's
asked us to, so why would we ever need to come to Congress.
It's been made very clear, you know. The public has heard those
comments. You don't have to come to Congress when the U.N. has said
that's something that needs to be done.
It's interesting, though, I don't recall any of the Cabinet members
or the President raising their right hand and taking an oath to defend
the United Nations. I was thinking their oath had to do with our
Constitution and our country.
And it's also been made clear that Libya was not a threat to our
national security, not a threat to our vital interests; yet we're
willing to put our treasure and our American lives on the line for
something that's not in our vital interests. That does not make sense.
{time} 1850
But then again, as you continue to piece together the Obama
doctrine--we get it, that apparently intervening, risking American
lives, and spending American treasure that this administration didn't
earn but they are taking away from taxpayers and then borrowing from
others, that's okay if it kind of feels like it ought to be something
we do, you know?
If it feels like we ought to go to Libya and risk American lives and
spend all that American treasure, then let's go because, after all,
people asked us to do that. Why would we not go when people around the
world ask us to do that? Could it possibly be that a reason for not
doing it is because an oath was taken to this country--not to the U.N.,
not to the Chinese or the European constitutions or the European Union,
but to this country? This is where the oath was taken. These are the
people in America for whom and to whom the oath was made.
But then we look at energy again and we look at spending treasure;
and as more people are finding out, in the last couple of years this
administration has said, You know what, we're shutting down drilling on
the gulf coast. We're not just going to stop the one company that had
around 800 safety violations while others had one or two during the
same period because, see, that's British Petroleum.
And British Petroleum, as we found out, was poised to come public and
be the administration and the Democratic Party's one big energy company
that rode in on a white horse and said, we support the cap-and-trade
bill. We're going to make money like crazy for BP on the side trading
in carbon. These stupid Americans. They don't get it. It's a transfer
of wealth like nothing anybody has ever seen before. The American
people lose. Companies like BP and General Electric, they'll all win
big. But the American people lose.
They wouldn't go after BP. It took so long to go after them. And when
you know that BP was going to be their big energy company to embrace
and endorse the cap-and-trade bill, then it makes a lot more sense as
to why it took the administration so long to respond. Then of course we
will recall the President sat down with the BP exec and said, Okay,
let's tell the American public that you are going to put up $20
billion. They did. Well, that saved some feelings, but there was never
$20 billion put up.
So isn't it amazing. We don't know what all was discussed. We don't
know what all quid pro quo was promised for BP coming in and offering
large sums of money. Obviously, there were a lot of people on the coast
that were devastated and continue to be devastated who were not
compensated by any money from BP. But nonetheless, it took the heat off
of BP for a while.
So perhaps the administration thought that after having the
moratorium and putting tens of thousands of
[[Page H2096]]
families out of work, putting tens of thousands of families onto
unemployment insurance, devastating tens of thousands of families,
perhaps the administration thought that nobody would notice that the
first permit that was extended after this moratorium, to hurt the
Southern States--it actually hurt the whole country--but the first
permit, I believe, went to Noble Energy Company.
But the major investor was a company called British Petroleum. Now,
was that a quid pro quo? Okay, BP, we are not going to be able to take
you out into the Rose Garden, have you announce that you support the
cap-and-trade bill because, you know, you are just not well thought of
right now. It wouldn't work right now. But there will be pie in the sky
by and by if you will just play along with us for a while. Who knows
what conversation occurred there.
But isn't it interesting that BP was the largest investor in the
company that got the first permit after the drilling moratorium.
Now, understand, there haven't just been a glut of permits come
rushing forward. There are still tens of thousands of families that
were made destitute by this administration because they chose to punish
the entire South and even the country, rather than allowing energy jobs
to go forward in the gulf coast area.
So imagine the surprise of some of those destitute folks that have
just been traumatized by this administration when they find out that
our President has just been down in South America, telling the
Brazilians that we think so much of their drilling that we're going to
loan them $2 billion to drill off their coast and that, when they
strike this oil off their coast, the President tells them, We're going
to be your best customer.
Why couldn't we be our own best customer? Why couldn't we be drilling
off our own coast? Why couldn't we be drilling in ANWR? Why couldn't we
be drilling in the North Slope area where there's no drilling allowed
yet? We would be our own best customer. We would create millions of
jobs not just in the oil industry but all kinds of jobs if the
President were not wanting to punish this area.
I mean, it's as if we're wanting to punish free enterprise. Actually,
we've had a very cold winter where I live. Yet the EPA, under this
administration, doesn't care, and they don't care that the new
regulations they are coming out with would not have maybe one-billionth
of 1 percent effect on the CO2 level in the atmosphere.
Yet as a result of this administration and their war against jobs--
the war on jobs--you've got the EPA out there trying to put people out
of business, keeping people from hiring, when the truth is, when those
jobs leave here, they go to South America. They go to China, India,
different places. Then they pollute a minimum of four times more than
the pollution in this country from the same industry because we do a
good job of policing industries.
When the economy is going well, that is when you have the best chance
of really cleaning the environment because when an economy is
struggling--and China knows about a struggling economy, trying to
employ people, keep them from getting upset and revolting. When an
economy is struggling, people don't care so much about the environment.
They are more interested in just feeding themselves, having a roof over
their heads, and surviving. So if you want to help the environment, if
that is the true purpose, then what you do is allow the economy to
thrive.
This President has had a war on jobs, and that continues--oh, I'm
sorry. I should qualify that--a war on jobs in America. Because
obviously we're helping create jobs in Brazil. We're helping the
Democratic largest contributor, Mr. Soros, with his single largest
investment for drilling down in South America or Brazil. So the
Democrats' largest investor is going to make a tremendous amount of
money because we're loaning $2 billion to pay him for his investment
down there to do the drilling that we won't allow in this country.
Why is it that our global President is more interested in creating
jobs in Brazil than in the United States? I guess, whenever we find out
that reason, it may help us understand why we expend American treasure
and risk American lives in a country that is of no vital interest to
this country.
It is interesting. When you look at the history of Muammar Qadhafi,
this is not a nice man. This is not a man that should have avoided
prison and perhaps even capital punishment, depending on the charges,
the evidence, and proving the charges.
{time} 1900
Yet you have to look at what will replace Qadhafi when he's gone.
Now, first we hear from the administration, no, there's no al Qaeda
there rebelling, and then we find out, yes, there is. They're involved.
The Muslim Brotherhood is involved in the rebellion in Egypt.
Now, Mubarak was a dictator. We're not big fans of dictatorship in
this country. But when you have to look at the national vital interest
here and you have a man who is in charge in Egypt who is not a threat
to the United States and was living as best one could with the status
quo next to Israel and yet there is an effort to throw Mubarak out of
office and any kind of decent intel would indicate you've got the
Muslim Brotherhood that in all likelihood will replace Mubarak, then
why did we call for Mubarak to leave and allow himself to be replaced
by a group that wants us all to bow the knee in one giant global
caliphate to religion when some of us believe in our own, my case,
Christian beliefs, heart and soul, which I had hoped to get through
this life without having to die for?
But there are people who are trying to take over Egypt who we've
given great encouragement to. There are people in Libya that are
wanting to take over that country and its powerful military who would
like us to either convert from Christianity or to lose our heads. Why
would we be helping them? That's a difficult question. So if it weren't
so serious, it would be an amusing game to try to figure out what this
administration is attempting to do.
What is the Obama doctrine? When it comes to the budget, the
President gave a wonderful speech. He read it impeccably well, about
how we have got to cut spending. He gave that speech right before he
released his budget. And that budget was projecting around a $3.75
trillion expenditure when we were only going to take in around $2.1
trillion. So he gave a speech about cutting spending, and he's been
doing that the last 2 years, and it turns out the first year we had a
$1 trillion deficit. The next year we had more than that. And this year
the President's proposed a budget and spending that will be a $1.65
trillion deficit. That makes no sense. Why would you give speeches
saying you're going to cut spending, and yet every year it goes up and
up dramatically? That doesn't make sense.
Yet we know the results of the election in November indicated very
clearly the American people want the spending cut. We can't continue to
live in a country that is running up trillion dollar deficits. People
will quit buying our bonds. We're dangerously close to having our bonds
downgraded, our rating lowered, and if that happens, interest rates go
up. And if the interest rates go up like that, that will give fodder to
those who are demanding that something besides the dollar be used to
buy oil. I mean, it could put this country in a terrible financial
spiral downward from which it might be impossible to pull out.
I was in a plane once when I was told the baffles were taken out. It
was aerobatically qualified, and I was being allowed to sit in the
copilot's seat. It was a crop dusting plane, and it was kind of fun
flying the plane with the joystick.
I said through the radio system in the plane to the pilot, This thing
is aerobatic qualified, isn't it? You know, we could do loops and go in
and out of spins. And he said, It would be, but we removed the baffles
from inside the wings where the gasoline for the fuel is stored; so if
we go into a spin, then the fuel all runs to one end of one wing and we
go into a spin we can't get out of, and we'll crash and both of us die.
Well, that's kind of where we're heading with this thing. If we don't
get the spending under control, one thing leads to another and we're in
big trouble. And it's got to stop.
At the same time, we're supposed to be helping Americans with better
[[Page H2097]]
health care. If you liked your insurance, you were going to keep it.
Yet we found out that absolutely was not true. If you liked your
doctor, you can keep him. We found out that absolutely was not true.
It's a bad bill.
Then when you find out that the prior Congress not only passed that
2,800-page bill with all kinds of things in it, including a new
President's commissioned officer corps and noncommissioned officer
corps, do we really need that, I wondered, when I had read that in the
bill.
But then when you find out we're being sent to Libya and going to use
our treasure and our American lives there, maybe there's intention to
so deplete the military that we're going to need that Presidential
reserve officers commissioned corps and noncommissioned corps that the
President can call up on a moment's notice involuntarily, according to
the ObamaCare bill.
But the trouble is there's already been $105 billion appropriated.
It's like writing postdated checks that are due to be cashed each year
into the future. Well, you're really not supposed to do that. That's
not appropriate.
This isn't like Social Security where it is controlled by formulas
and it's in automatic motion. This was just an appropriation. It's not
mandatory. It could be repealed; but, to do so, it actually has to be
rescinded.
My friend Steve King has got a bill that would prohibit any money
that's currently been appropriated through the present from being
utilized for the purposes; in other words, it ties the hands of the
administration from using any of the money already appropriated for the
purposes of implementing this ObamaCare program.
Denny Rehberg has an amendment that was voted in that also has some
effect in that regard.
Jack Kingston is an appropriator and has come up with an idea that a
couple of us have joined forces with him, and I think we've got around
22 cosponsors, and that's growing constantly. But it is an approach
that I would hope would attract Democrats in both the Senate and the
House because it is an important principle. And I would certainly hope
that it would attract Democrats in the House because it, in effect,
says we're not going to do postdated checks for something besides
Social Security, those type of things that were controlled by formulas.
We're going to cancel the postdated checks.
Now, it should be attractive to my friends in the minority now
because, someday, they may be back in the majority. If and when that
happens, they surely would not want the Republican majority to have
passed a decade worth of spending bills, not for Social Security, not
for mandatory spending, but a decade worth of spending with postdated
checks, say you can't ever stop this.
So the principle that the Kingston bill would stand on is that these
type of things must be taken up annually. So we're going to cancel all
the postdated checks that were going to be cashed in the future. And if
the Democratic Representatives get back in the majority, some will say
it's not a good idea, because if they get back in the majority, they
can just appropriate that money. Well, of course they can.
{time} 1910
They can pass a whole different health care bill if they get back in
the majority. That's the way it works. When you are in the majority,
you can pass things.
So it would not be unfair to just say we are canceling all those
postdated checks, we are canceling $105 billion worth of spending; and,
if you get back in the majority, it is up to you what you appropriate.
But as long as we are in the majority, we are not spending that money.
That allows us to keep our promise. It allows people on both sides of
the aisle to say we are standing on principle and on procedure that the
majority should rule in the legislature, and not a minority that years
ago was a majority. That's a better way to do it.
So there have been those questions. Some have said, why make it so
complicated? In the new bill that we have proposed today and filed
today, it would effectively end the $105.5 billion in the funding that
was in Obamacare by turning them into an authorization without the
appropriation. That means not this or any future administration would
be able to spend the money without first coming to Congress and getting
a majority here in both the House and the Senate to approve it.
Now, there are those that say, well, you know, there are a few good
things in that Obamacare bill. Well, my gosh, when you have a 2,800-
page bill, there surely ought to be something in there that is decent.
And there were a few good things. But why not make those a 25-page bill
instead of a 2,800 page bill? Why create all these hundreds of new
agencies, the hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations, all those
things that come from this massive government overload? Why not just do
away with all of those things?
That is what we should do, and then start, as Senator Obama had said
we should do when he said repeatedly we ought to have negotiations on a
health care bill. We ought to have hearings, we ought to have
negotiations that are public. Have them on C-SPAN if C-SPAN will carry
it. Let everyone see who is in it for themselves and who is in it for
the American people. I think the American people, even without seeing
the negotiations on Obamacare, got the message who was for the American
people, and that is why the House changed hands.
So we hope that in the next few days there will be more and more
people get on board, because this is an important principle: A
minority, even though they once were a majority, should not be able to
bind future Congresses on things that are not mandatory through
formulas like Social Security.
Now, with regard to Libya, there were some interesting quotes from
the President's speech. He had pointed out that Qadhafi had denied his
people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and
abroad, and terrorized innocent people. This had been going on for
years. It certainly had been going on all the time that President Obama
has been in office. It was going on when he was a Senator, and he had
never called on these kind of things before.
But he goes on. Just two paragraphs down, he says, ``Joining with
other Nations at the United Nations Security Council, we broadened our
sanctions, imposed an arms embargo, and enabled Qadhafi and those
around him to be held accountable for their crimes.''
Now, I'm familiar with holding people accountable for their crimes.
As a former judge and as a former prosecutor, I have done that, held
people accountable for their crimes. I don't see what this
administration has done to make Qadhafi accountable for his crimes. In
fact, there was discussion in the news today that this administration
is floating the idea of some type of amnesty if Qadhafi will just
leave. So that statement in his speech may be like the one, if you like
your health insurance, you will be able to keep it. It sounds good, but
it has no basis in fact.
The President said, ``Military jets and helicopter gunships were
unleashed upon people who had no means to defend themselves against
assault from the air.'' My understanding is that has happened in Burma,
Pakistan, possibly in Syria. There are a lot of other countries it has
happened in where we haven't gone against the administration in that
country. So that was a little puzzling.
The President said, ``So 9 days ago, after consulting the bipartisan
leadership in Congress, I authorized military action to stop the
killing and enforce U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973.'' But the
fact is, we have been told repeatedly that this administration had the
support of the U.N., to whom the President did not take an oath to
defend and did not have the consent of the governed in this country--
not the governed and not the governed's legally elected
representatives.
Now, the President said in his speech, ``We hit Qadhafi's troops.''
Well, I would think, with the President's broad education, he would
understand if an infidel, or an infidel country like we are considered,
kills Muslims, then we are worthy of death under what they consider the
law. So if the President is right and we haven't just shot rockets and
taken out certain type of military hardware, we have actually killed
Muslims in Libya, then we have not made ourselves a bunch of friends.
In fact, that may be one of the reasons we see the President's image
being
[[Page H2098]]
stomped on and burned and destroyed in effigy in Libya and foreign
countries.
The President said, ``I said that America's role would be limited. We
would not put ground troops into Libya; that we would focus our unique
capabilities on the front end of the operation, and we would transfer
responsibility to our allies and partners.'' In other words, we are
turning over command, but our U.S. military is doing the lion's share
of the fighting. And so we keep hearing that in the news. This
administration is turning over the lion's share of the effort when
actually they are turning over the leadership.
My office made an official request yesterday of the administration to
know what percentage of the military of NATO is U.S. military, and we
were given the figure 65 percent. So it doesn't come as a great comfort
to many of us that we are turning over this great responsibility that
we have led as helpers in Libya to NATO when we are 65 percent of NATO.
That is one of those things that sounds good. Kind of like, if you like
your insurance, you can keep it. But it really doesn't have much basis
in fact for comfort.
The President said in his speech, ``NATO has taken command of the
enforcement of the arms embargo and no-fly zone.'' Yet, it is
confusing, because those speaking for the administration here in
Washington seem to indicate that we have not yet turned over command.
He says, ``Going forward, the lead in enforcing the no-fly zone and
protecting civilians on the ground will transition to our allies and
our partners.'' I guess that means NATO, which we are 65 percent of.
I know I look stupid sometimes, but, I mean, I can get that. If we
are turning it over to a group that is 65 percent us, we really haven't
turned it over. Unless we want to say, ``Yeah, but we are not leading
anymore. We are putting our military under the command of foreigners
who have never taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution of
this country.''
{time} 1920
How do you feel good about that? Well, it is hard for some of us to
feel good about it.
The President says Libya will remain dangerous. The question is,
dangerous to whom? We saw that after the invasion of Iraq, that Qadhafi
threw up his hands and said, Hey, we will give up nukes, we will give
up pursuing anything. We don't want you to invade our country, so we
want to work with you. We saw a similar attitude after President Reagan
dropped a bomb down his chimney.
So we know that, as long as Qadhafi knows we have a strong President
who will go after him if he does anything to us, then we have nothing
to fear. But we also know from his history that if he is not
controlled, if we do not have a strong President who is willing to go
after and punish those who are attempting to destroy us, then maybe he
is dangerous. Maybe that is what the President was talking about in his
speech.
Anyway, the President said we also have the ability to stop Qadhafi's
forces in their tracks without putting American troops on the ground.
But, here again, it didn't have the support of the American people; it
didn't have the support of Congress.
It brings back to mind, when George W. Bush was President, he enjoyed
playing golf. He still does apparently. I never played with him, but I
understand he is a good athlete. But once troops were committed to
harm's way, President George W. Bush said it didn't feel right for him
to be out on a golf course while troops he committed to harm's way were
in danger, so he gave up playing golf for the rest of his
administration.
Yet the current administration has a President at the top who not
only doesn't feel any qualms about playing golf while we have troops
committed that he committed to harm's way, he will also play golf and
pause long enough to commit more troops to harm's way.
The President said the democratic impulses that are dawning across
the region would be eclipsed by the darkest form of dictatorship. That
is, unfortunately, what the majority of Americans are concerned about
happening here in America if we get away from the legislative process
and forcing bills through that are not supported by the American public
and forcing American commitments in places that America does not
support and spending beyond anything a drunken sailor would have ever
spent. We are afraid of what is happening in this country. We are
afraid of what is happening to our economy.
The President said it is also what the Libyan opposition asked us to
do. Well, then we find out the Libyan opposition is composed of, at
least numerous members are part of al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood;
and apparently al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood representatives had not
asked us to intervene militarily in Egypt or Tunisia or Syria. Maybe
that is the difference, I don't know. But it is disconcerting.
The fact is, when you look at the oath we took, our allegiance is to
this country. It is not to the United Nations; it is not to other
countries. It is to this Nation. So a serious look at Libya and the
problems there might deserve some intervention. But first we have to
ask the question, is whoever will replace Qadhafi more of a danger to
this country than Qadhafi? If the answer is possibly yes, then we
should not be sending American treasure and American lives to help
intervene on behalf of people who would like to see this Nation
destroyed. That ought to be pretty commonsense.
One other factor is Israel. We have a true friend in Israel in the
Middle East. But, unfortunately, our friends have seen the way we have
treated our best friend in the Middle East, Israel. We vote against
them at times, like we did last May. We snub them in public ways people
hear about. Israel's enemies hear about how we snubbed Israel. And
Israel's enemies know when there is a crack and especially, whether it
is there or not, a perceived distance between Israel and their greatest
ally that used to be us. Then it is time to move. That is when the
flotilla came last May, is after we voted against Israel. That is when
a lot of these actions began taking place. People who want to see
Israel gone seem to be in the middle of revolting in a number of
countries around the Middle East and Africa.
We have got to come back to what is best for the United States, and
it should be very clear. With the common interests and beliefs that the
people of Israel have in the value of life and the value of equality of
people and the equality of women, those ought to be our friends. Those
ought to be people who, when under attack, tell us we are next.
In this case, it is not a hard deduction to get to, because the
people have said we want to eliminate Israel, the little Satan, and
then the United States, the big Satan. So Israel is a great investment
as a defense partner, because if they go, if they go down, we are
certainly next, and also I happen to believe that, in blessing Israel,
we can be blessed.
Before I conclude my time here tonight, it is so important to take a
look historically at things that have been said in the past history of
this Nation, that have been said in this building in official settings,
that have been said by those who have led the way, carried a torch to
light our way down the years. One such man was the Chaplain of the
Senate, Peter Marshall.
I was given this book in the last couple of weeks, two or three
weeks, ``Sermons and Prayers of Peter Marshall,'' while he was Chaplain
of the United States Senate. I would just like to read a prayer that
Peter Marshall gave in the Senate for the historical value and insight
of this brilliant man, a dedicated Christian.
He said: Our father, we are beginning to understand at last that the
things that are wrong with our world are the sum total of all the
things that are wrong with us as individuals. Thou has made us after
Thine image, and our hearts can find no rest until they rest in Thee.
We are too Christian, really, to enjoy sinning and too fond of
sinning to really enjoy Christianity. Most of us know perfectly well
what we ought to do. Our trouble is that we do not want to do it. Thy
help is our only help. Make us want to do what is right, and give us
the ability to do it.
In the name of Christ, our Lord. Amen.
A prayer by Peter Marshall.
[[Page H2099]]
____________________