[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12281-12285]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR IN THE BALKANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Toomey). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) is 
recognized for half the time remaining until midnight, which is 
approximately 30 minutes.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, we are told tonight that we are at the 
beginning of the end of the war in the Balkans. But before the ink has 
dried on the agreement there are a few reflections that I think are in 
order, because we cannot just sign this piece of paper and pretend that 
we can move on, pretend that we have peace, because the truth is that 
problems could arise and we could end up in a multi-party land war 
right in the middle of the Balkans, with our young men and women put in 
grave danger.
  I would like to take this discussion tonight to another level which 
goes beyond the fine print of agreements, which inevitably are lost, 
and goes to higher principles. This is an appropriate time to reflect 
on the lessons that we have learned in the Balkan war, and to take 
those lessons and transform them, and to transform these thoughts of 
war into thoughts of peace, and turn the thought of peace into the 
reality of peace, and to speak to higher principles, which this country 
has the ability to create so that we can continue in our historic quest 
to be the light of the world, to be what the prophet spoke of as the 
shining city on a hill, resplendent in our commitment to all human 
values, to evolve into a country which can win the peace without 
finding it necessary to take up arms to win a war.
  The values which are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence 
animate our concern for each other and for people around the world. 
These words ring in the hearts of Americans: We hold these truths to be 
self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by 
their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
  These values, these ideas, these ideals, are so powerful that they 
cause others to rise up in defense of their own rights all over the 
world. We Americans love democracy, and it hurts us when we see tyrants 
imposing death or death of hope on people anywhere in the world.
  Recent humanitarian catastrophes have occurred and the United States 
did not intervene: 80,000 dead in Algeria; 10,000 dead in the 
Ethiopian-Eritrean war in a recent month; 820,000 dead in Rwanda over 5 
years; 1.5 million dead in Sudan in the first 15 years; 40,000 Kurds 
dead at the hands of Turkish forces; 200,000 people killed in East 
Timor by Indonesian forces.
  These tragedies have befallen our brothers and sisters around the 
world, people we surely care about but people we did not help, people 
who died while the world watched.
  We have the strongest Nation in the world, yet with that strength 
through great difficulty we learned to exercise the greatest discretion 
in the use of force, because once that force is used the consequences 
cannot be predicted. Sometimes the very people we intend to help may 
end up being hurt.
  Such a dilemma has faced us in the Balkans. We have advanced here a 
doctrine of humanitarian intervention. By all fair accounts, that 
intervention has produced conditions which are worse than they were 
before we began our involvement.
  Ethnic cleansing was being undertaken against the Kosovar Albanians. 
NATO's bombing accelerated it. Serbian paramilitary attacks cause 
masses of Kosovar Albanians to flee the province. NATO's bombing turned 
masses into a great human tide seeking to flee the war. Serbian 
paramilitary forces destroyed the homes and villages of Kosovar 
Albanians. NATO's bombing widened the area of destruction.
  Today there will be a semblance of peace or a chance for peace in 
Kosovo, but what kind of a peace? It will be a peace which will have 
been gained at the cost of thousands of lives of innocent civilians of 
both sides? It will be a peace where the province has been decimated by 
both sides by cluster bombs, by booby traps, by landmines. It will 
harken to the comment that was made in another war: We have created a 
desert, and have called it peace.
  Certainly in a democracy our history has shown us that there are some 
things worth standing up for. I think the most important thing that any 
one of us can do in life is to stand up and to fight for those things 
we believe in.

                              {time}  2300

  In this country, we believe in freedom of religion. We hate to see 
that freedom denied to anyone anywhere else in the world. Yet that 
freedom is being denied today in China, in East Timor, in Burma, in 
North Korea, and in other nations; and that bothers us as Americans.
  In the United States, freedom of religion is essential to our 
democracy. It is first in our amendments. It is first in our hearts. 
People come from all over the world here to find freedom of religion to 
follow that truth that resonates with their own hearts. Americans 
fought for that right. Indeed, it is a human right.
  This freedom of religion means that all may pray and worship; that no 
one is forced to worship any faith except that which they believe; that 
the State sponsors no religion, but respects all religion. This is a 
powerful principle of freedom of religion.
  We separate church and State in America, but separation and such 
separation by our Founders was never meant to imply that we should 
separate the practice of government from high principles or the actions 
of government from spiritual principles.
  Our motto in the United States, as we all know, is ``In God We 
Trust.'' That motto is not simply the recognition of an external 
transcended reality. It is a communion of the Nation with the angels. 
It has become a clarion call for moral leadership. If we truly trust in 
God, then each of us must become as moral leaders. If we trust in God, 
each of us can summon a transcendent morality.
  Spiritual awareness enkindles the power of the human heart, which 
brings to each of us love which transcends all, love which heals all, 
love which comforts all, love which sees all, love which forgives all, 
love which conquers all, love which speaks to all, love which you hear, 
love which you can feel, love you can touch, love you can see; and then 
we comprehend understanding, and we are able to touch the wings of 
angels.
  That appeal to sense in essence transcends language when we 
communicate with each other through the heart. Love speaks to all 
languages. The language of the human heart speaks through all 
languages.

[[Page 12282]]

  Now in Christianity, the highest commandment is to love one another. 
Love yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. As we affirm love in our 
hearts, we affirm the future; and the future is in turn revealed to us, 
because a heart filled with love is like a magnet that draws to it the 
love that it desires. What the heart seeks, the heart finds. What the 
heart asks for, the heart receives. If the heart asks for peace, its 
prayer will be answered. So will be the prayer be answered if it asks 
for war. The doors at which the heart knocks on are open. As we affirm 
love in our hearts, we affirm truth, and eternity is revealed to us.
  When this war in the Balkans first began, Mr. Speaker, I felt this 
illogic of war grip this Capitol. It was as a physical force, whirling 
like a vortex, the start of war. Words of war, actions of war produce 
war. We can be co-creators of our own world.
  So as we are near the end of what we can only hope be the last war of 
this century, it is time to ask what kind of a world do we want in the 
next century and how can we avoid the wars of the next century. How can 
we build the peace of the next century.
  We want a world of love, a world of hope, a world of joy, a world of 
prosperity, a world where all may worship, a world where all may live, 
a world where all may strive, a world where all may grow, a world of 
peace.
  Many of us have come to America, indeed many of my constituents have 
come to America from different nations. That is one of our strengths in 
this country, our diversity.
  The motto which soars above this majestic chamber speaks to the unity 
of one people, e pluribus unum: out of many, one. That is why it is so 
painful for we Americans to watch people suffering anywhere in the 
world, because they happen to have a different religion, a different 
race, a different ethnic group, a different political philosophy.
  We come here from many Nations. We share a common destiny as brothers 
and sisters of a common planet. What kind of a world do we want? Only 
through the application of higher principles can we hope to have our 
systems of government forsake war and destruction and to make the 
survival of each person a sacred commitment.
  In this world of strife and war, we are called upon to be channels of 
peace. In this world of darkness, we are called upon to bring light. In 
this world of fear, we are called upon to bring courage. In this world 
of despair, we are called upon to bring hope. In this world of poverty, 
much poverty, let us bring forth plenty. In this world of ignorance, 
let the light of knowledge light the world. In this world of sorrow, 
let us use our spiritual principles to bring forth joy. In this world 
of judgment, certainly we are asked to bring forth mercy. It is through 
the heart that we connect with all humanity. It is through the heart 
that we connect with the infinite.
  These are principles that transcend governments. Governments kneel 
before these principles. The Congress of the United States, even this 
Congress, is nothing next to these principles. The government of any 
country is humbled before these principles. It is through the human 
heart that we meet injustice and we transform it and through the 
application of spiritual principles we change the world.
  We have throughout the last few months employed doctrines which are 
decidedly not spiritual in an attempt to solve our international 
problems in the Balkans. These doctrines speak to our limitations as a 
Nation, limitations which may burden us today, but limitations which we 
can jettison and which can fall away from our conscience, actions like 
the separation of a stage of a rocket falling back into the atmosphere 
as the capsule of destiny rockets higher and higher towards the stars.
  But back on earth, we ought to inspect those doctrines which keep us 
earthbound which will make it impossible for us to have real peace. The 
doctrine of the end justifying the means. NATO has bombed civilians. 
NATO has bombed a civilian structure. NATO has helped to destroy a 
civil society with its bombs. Now the ends which NATO has sought to 
achieve, the end of ethnic cleansing, the dislodging of a powerful 
dictator, we have to ask if the ends have justified the means.
  As one Russian leader asked us when we were in Vienna, would in fact 
it be a proper pursuit of peace if their government had decided to drop 
a nuclear bomb on a U.S. city? So we need to inspect this doctrine of 
the end justifying the means.
  We need also to inspect the doctrine of might makes right. Now, I 
happen to believe that in America the law is what makes right. Yet, in 
this conflict, we have seen the United Nations charter, which this 
Nation was proud to lead the world in organizing, violated by an 
organization which saw fit to take the law into their own hands because 
they did not want to go through the United Nations, a United Nations 
which we recognize at this moment had to have been instrumental in 
finally bringing about an agreement in the Balkans.
  The United Nations charter states that its primary purpose was to 
save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. It States in its 
article IV that ``all members shall refrain in their international 
relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial 
integrity or political independence of any State or in any manner 
inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.''
  If might makes right, the U.N. charter does not mean anything. If 
might make rights, the North Atlantic Treaty signed in 1949, article I, 
may mean nothing. Article I states, ``The parties undertake, as set 
forth in the charter of the United Nations, to settle any international 
disputes in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a 
manner that international peace and security and justice are not 
endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the 
threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of 
the United Nations.''

                              {time}  2310

  So from the United Nations, that principle flowed into the North 
Atlantic Treaty. But if might makes right, the North Atlantic Treaty 
means nothing.
  If might makes right, the Hague Conventions of 1907, which prohibit 
penalizing a population for someone's acts, means nothing.
  If might makes right, the Geneva Convention of 1949, which prohibits 
attacks on objects indispensable for the survival of a civilian 
population, such as an electric system, water system, sewer system, if 
might makes right, the Geneva Convention means nothing.
  If might makes right, the 1980 Vienna Convention, which bars coercion 
to make nations sign agreements, means nothing because the Federal 
Republic of Yugoslavia was told at Rambouillet that they would either 
sign that agreement or be bombed.
  So we need to inspect this doctrine of might making right and we need 
to also, as we inspect it, determine whether the Constitution of the 
United States itself has the meaning which its founders imbued in it 
when it said in Article I, Section 8 that the Congress shall have the 
power to declare war.
  And notwithstanding my affection for the person who holds that office 
right now, I have to ask whether or not the War Powers Act was violated 
and whether or not the Constitution of the United States itself was 
violated in this pursuit of an exercise of power. If might makes right, 
perhaps even the Constitution is without meaning.
  We have to also, as we review this war, determine whether or not the 
doctrine of retributive justice, an eye for an eye, is to stand; that 
by killing people we teach people that it is wrong to kill people. When 
we advance such a doctrine, we end up in a moral cul-de-sac. We find 
ourselves chasing into a darkness and unable to extract ourselves from 
it.
  The idea of vengeance is something that is a very old idea. In the 
literature of Beowulf from many, many years ago the concept of Wergild 
was that if you did something to somebody's relative that other family 
had the obligation to come back and kill one of yours. Yet we were told 
that in this wonderful book we know as the New Testament

[[Page 12283]]

that there was a new law brought forward; that the law of an eye for an 
eye was no more. Vengeance is mine, said the Lord. I will repay. And if 
we have confidence in that doctrine, in the belief that there is a 
higher power who judges all and dispenses justice, then we have to ask 
about our feeble efforts to render justice through retribution and look 
at this doctrine of retributive justice.
  In this war we get the opportunity to inspect the doctrine of 
collective guilt; that just because people happen to live in a country 
which is governed by a tyrant, which is governed by an individual who 
does not support basic human rights of an important minority group in 
his country; that because of that everyone in that country is guilty. 
We need to look at that doctrine. Because behind that doctrine is a 
sense of punishment which NATO apparently felt it had to mete out to 
the people of Serbia, taking over 2,000 lives of innocent civilians. We 
must look at that doctrine of collective guilt.
  We must look at the doctrine of collateral damage. I have been in 
meetings in this Congress where the idea of collateral damage was 
brought forth, and if one did not listen carefully enough, one would 
not be aware that it meant killing innocent civilians. That phrase 
means the death of innocent civilians. And so in this war we have 
developed an acceptance of the idea of collateral damage.
  But these are people. These are innocent civilians who were killed; 
people going to visit their relatives while riding on a passenger 
train; people riding a bus to work or to go to the market; refugees in 
a convoy trying to get out of a war-torn country; people sitting in 
their homes eating dinner; people in factories just trying to do their 
work; people like us who were just trying to live. And yet they become 
collateral damage. They do not even have names. They do not even have 
descriptions. They are deprived of their humanity. And when they are 
deprived of their humanity, we deprive ourselves of our own humanity. 
So we need to look at this doctrine of collateral damage.
  We need to look at the doctrine of accidental bombing. How many times 
could we hear over and over and over again it was an accident; that we 
blew up these innocent civilians? An accident. I mean if any one of us 
driving a car found ourselves over and over and over again getting into 
accidents, two things would happen. We would not be insured any more 
and a court would take our license away. And so should NATO's license 
to prosecute a war against a civilian population be taken away, because 
there are no accidents when the accidents keep repeating themselves.
  The doctrine of necessary distortion of meaning. George Orwell knew 
well this conflict. The idea of peace bombs. A peace war. Bombing for 
peace does violence to cognition and does violence to the commitment 
that this Nation has, as a people, to speak plainly to those we 
represent, to tell them the truth of what is going on, to do it in 
language which is clear and sparkling so that no one can mistake what 
our intentions are and to not distort meaning.
  Indeed, in listening to an earlier discussion about the culture of 
violence in our society, is it any wonder when we send out so many 
conflicting messages about the violence which is wreaked by 
international organizations that the children of any nation would be 
confused about violence being visited in their own midst?
  And one other doctrine we need to inspect is the doctrine of creation 
of enemies. I remember years ago when I was a student at Saint 
Aloysius, an elementary school in the City of Cleveland, the United 
States was in a conflict with Russia. It was called the Cold War, and 
we used to do drills in school in the fifth grade. Some of my 
colleagues will remember those drills. They were called duck and cover. 
We were told that we should expect that at some time there was this 
possibility that a nuclear attack could be launched by Russia at the 
United States.

                              {time}  2320

  And we were told that if only we would put our arms around our head 
and protect it and tuck our head deep into our lap and closed our eyes 
and prayed, that when the flash came, we would not be blinded and 
perhaps we could go back home after school.
  President Eisenhower himself knew in that era that such drills were 
folly because a nuclear strike would mean the annihilation of a major 
population. So those drills were merely to try to assuage the fears of 
the American people about the cataclysm of a nuclear war.
  But we felt throughout that time in the Cold War that the possibility 
for destruction was there because enemies were being created and in 
that dialectic of conflict that went back and forth across the oceans, 
we found ourselves fearing each other, preparing to destroy each other.
  And last month, in the middle of this Balkan conflict, the leader of 
the Yablako faction in Russia said that the effort to blockade the port 
in Montenegro was putting us on a direct path to nuclear escalation.
  Last week, Premier Chernomyrdin of Russia, in an op-ed piece in the 
Washington Post, stated that the world was closer to a nuclear conflict 
than at any time in this decade because of the Balkan conflict. 
Russians were our enemies. They became our friends. And again we have 
tested that friendship and we began a repolarization, trying to exclude 
them right from the beginning from this process of peacemaking which 
could have been made possible through the U.N. Security Council so many 
months ago.
  As we create enemies, we may fulfill the prophecy of destruction; and 
we will bring ourselves to a nuclear confrontation, we fear, if we stay 
on that path of the creation of enemies. We create enemies, and then we 
are ourselves our own enemies. ``We have met the enemy,'' in the words 
of Pogo, ``and he is us.''
  Mr. Speaker, because of this great concern which Members of Congress 
had, 11 of us went on a mission of peace to Vienna on April 30 to meet 
with leaders of the Russian Duma, including Vladimir Luhkin, a leader 
of the Yablako faction, who only weeks earlier had made this powerful 
statement about the nations being on a direct path to nuclear 
escalation.
  And in Vienna, under the leadership of my good friend the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Curt Weldon) 11 of us sat down with leaders of 
the Russian Duma and began to work out a framework for peace, to 
reestablish this amity which we have worked so hard for, where only a 
year ago Russian and American astronauts could work together in the 
same space program, where a short few years ago Russian and American 
astronauts could fly around the world together in the same space 
capsule.
  We went to Vienna at a time where some were challenging whether or 
not Russian leaders and U.S. leaders ought to be together in the same 
room. And yet we took that step forward to apparently and quietly over 
a period of 2 days put together not an agreement between nations, but a 
framework that could be used to take steps towards peace and unravel 
what looked like a concentration of war energy that was moving like a 
juggernaut across this world.
  That was many, many, many weeks ago, Mr. Speaker. And in that time 
since then, many opportunities toward peace were lost and many lives 
were lost and much damage was done to property and to people's hopes 
and dreams.
  There are times that people around the world depend on the United 
States as being a protector of human rights to rise and to defend the 
principles that are enshrined in our own statue of liberty in the 
harbor in New York City, that that lady who holds the lamp in the 
harbor, the encryption at the base, which reads, ``Give me your tired, 
your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched 
refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the tempests, to me. I lift 
my lamp beside the golden door.''
  So I speak of Bosnia. Now, I had the opportunity to witness 
firsthand, as a

[[Page 12284]]

Member of the United States congressional delegation, the effects in 
Bosnia of hatred and tolerance where Muslim people were driven from 
their homes, where there was an attempt to destroy people for what they 
believed in, an attempt to destroy the homeland of Muslim people.
  I saw graves ringed with fresh marble. I saw homes that had been 
blown up everywhere and everything riddled with bullets. I met with 
people that had been driven from their villages by fear and terror. And 
I met people that wanted to go home because home called them, as home 
calls us all. But fear put up a roadblock and governments put up a 
roadblock.
  I met with the Muslim women of Srebrenica who lost their husbands, 
who lost their fathers, who lost their brothers, who lost their 
children when 5,000 Muslims were lined up and murdered only because 
they were Muslims.
  I met with Dr. Sarich in Sarajevo and learned of the difficulty 
placed in the path of Muslims who simply wanted to return home in 
keeping with the Dayton Agreement. I appealed to the State Department 
and the Justice Department for the women of Srebrenica.
  I spoke on the floor of the Congress for an appeal to the Government 
of the United States to remember what happened in Srebrenica and to 
maintain their commitment to the people of Bosnia as they try to 
resettle and restore their country and to help bring those who are 
responsible for the atrocities in Bosnia to justice.
  Indeed, Mr. Speaker, it could be said that the seeds of the current 
war in the Balkans could have been sown because the world community 
failed to bring to justice those who committed war crimes. Because 
until they are brought to justice, can there really be justice with 
respect to Bosnia and to help find the missing and to help heal the 
broken families and broken hearts and to work with the assembled 
nations to help protect the peace and to help rebuild the civil 
society? Can that really be done if those who were responsible for 
creating that moment are not brought to justice?
  The Dayton Agreement was merely a promise. It is not a reality. We 
must continue to work to make it a reality. And it is the 
responsibility of the Government of the United States to show 
leadership in the world and to make sure the promise of Dayton becomes 
a reality.
  I am not a stranger to the Balkans. I was in Sarajevo. I was in 
Brzko. I was in Tuzla. And I was also in Croatia last year to visit 
family, to hope to have a chance to see the place where my own 
grandfather was born, a little town in eastern Slovenia called Botnoga, 
where John Kucinich was born many, many years ago. And I so much wanted 
to see the place where he was born.

                              {time}  2330

  And when I went to Zagreb to visit with friends and relatives, I 
learned that in Botnoga, there was no ``there'' there. In fact, the 
town had been leveled in the previous war with Serbia. And yet when I 
learned in that moment the feelings that I had felt, strong feelings, 
it occurred to me again, do we move forward in this world, hoping for 
peace if we believe that there must be vengeance, if we believe in an 
eye for an eye, if we believe that every injustice which is done to us 
must be returned in full measure by us? And so in my own way I was 
confronted with those feelings.
  I do not think that any of us could say that we have suffered the 
kind of tragedy which the Kosovar Albanians have suffered. And it is 
true that the world community has a responsibility to do everything it 
can to try to repair their shattered lives. We had a moral 
responsibility to take steps that stopped the destruction of Kosovo. We 
have a moral responsibility to bring about a peaceful resolution there. 
But I believe that right at the beginning, our responsibility rested on 
understanding the primacy of international law as expressed through the 
United Nations and through the U.N. Security Council and through the 
Geneva Convention, and through the Hague and through the United States 
Constitution, Article 1, section 8.
  Now, ultimately military solutions are not adequate. Ultimately truly 
peaceful structures, we can call them democratic structures, must be in 
place. We had that opportunity more than a year ago. We remember when 
100,000 people marched through the streets of Belgrade protesting the 
regime, asking for support, asking for an opportunity to uphold 
democratic values, asking for a chance to keep their media free, to 
keep their exercise of basic rights as part of their ongoing civic 
life. And yet that movement did not receive the support which the world 
community owed it. But peaceful structures must be put in place, 
notwithstanding the massive destruction, and the international 
community has agreed to participate in the rebuilding of the Federal 
Republic of Yugoslavia. But with that rebuilding must come democratic 
structures so people can live, people can worship, people can work, 
people can play and people can live out their lives. And so it is 
appropriate for the State Department, working with the United Nations, 
to begin to work to negotiate transitional government structures. To do 
less while simply giving lip service to humanitarian efforts is a cruel 
hoax. It has been said before and it should be said again, until the 
leadership in Belgrade is replaced through a democratic process, it 
will be very difficult to be able to have a lasting peace.
  Now, the Bible says, ``You shall know the truth, and the truth shall 
set you free.'' We have to be seekers of the truth about what happened 
in the Balkans, so we do not repeat the same mistakes. And so that we 
can create new possibilities for peace. Let our country be seekers of 
the truth in our own land and in our own foreign policy, so that we can 
all see the light, when the light of truth shines through the darkness 
and the darkness will not overcome truth. Such is always the promise of 
America when we live by the ideals upon which this country was founded, 
the ideals of truth, the ideals of justice, freedom of religion, 
freedom of speech.
  As we strive to become one Nation with liberty for all, one Nation 
with justice for all, one Nation with freedom of speech for all, one 
Nation with freedom of religion for all, let us remember that unity is 
something that all of us seek after, a transcendent unity of higher 
purpose. So let us strive for a government which strives for peace. And 
let us have a government which protects the freedom of all to worship, 
let us have a government which practices toleration, let us have a 
government which stands against discrimination, let us have a 
government which makes us always proud of our Nation, let us have a 
government which fulfills the promise of one of America's greatest 
Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, who spoke of a government of the people, 
by the people and for the people.
  In America, the beauty of this country is that we are always creating 
a new Nation. Years ago we spoke of creating a Nation conceived in 
liberty. Today we create a new Nation again. And in this new 
millennium, which we are advancing towards, we can create a new 
millennium where peace, not war, is the imperative, begun in unity, 
where those who seek truth, where those who know truth and have found 
truth unite their thoughts across religions and cultures, drawing from 
the universality of the human condition and the higher consciousness 
which is the impulse of a universe that calls us forward.
  Now, there is real power in that kind of America, power that 
transcends a $270 billion military budget. There is real power in a 
kind of America where we live by our ideals, where we stand by the 
spiritual principles which our founders held dear. This recognition 
would lead us to create a harmony that would dissipate the 
inevitability of war and consecrate the inevitability of peace.
  As we move towards a new millennium, we can summon a new creativity 
and thought, a new vibration and feeling, a new consciousness which 
will help us create new worlds. It is time for us to think in terms of 
studying peace as we would study war. We have a war college. There 
ought to be a college for peace. We ought to spend more time in this 
country studying conflict

[[Page 12285]]

resolution and mediation, at local, State and at the Federal level, so 
we can teach people, even in the schools, how to deal with their 
feelings, teach people how to respect each other's rights, make ours a 
quest for something that we have not even been able to grasp, a new 
condition for peace.
  Perhaps it is time for a Department of Peace, as we have a Department 
of Defense, where the impact of every government decision, particularly 
with respect to the work of the Department of Defense, is studied 
finely as to what its effect would be on peace. I mean, if 1 percent of 
the Federal budget would be used for such a department, 1 percent of 
the Federal budget used for the military, that is, 1 percent of $270 
billion, we would have enough to make a major beginning in a new 
millennium towards promoting tolerance which comes from understanding. 
Because once people understand, there will be more tolerance. Once 
people understand, there will be more acceptance, because acceptance 
follows knowledge and leads to the brotherhood and sisterhood of all. 
We could move together to create peace, not the peace of the grave 
which we are all too familiar with in the tragedies we have witnessed, 
but the peace of a joyful life, not just peace which is a cessation of 
war but peace which is something more innate, peace which is inside 
each one of us, peace inside which no one can take away, an inner peace 
which we in turn give to the world.

                              {time}  2340

  Peace on earth truly begins within each of us, and that inner peace 
which makes each of us is a source of peace in the world which we 
extend to those who are persecuted, which we extend to those who hate 
us, which we extend to those who misunderstand us, which we extend to 
those, until their hearts open up and their eyes open up, my fellow 
Americans, our arms open up and we embrace each other as brothers and 
sisters, and we hold each other in a triumph of love, in a triumph of 
universal peace; Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, black, white, 
yellow, red, brown, brothers and sisters.
  Mr. Speaker, peace.

                          ____________________