[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9037-9038]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   CURRENT AFFAIRS AND SMART SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy, heavy heart. 
When we turn on the television or the radio or open a newspaper, what 
we hear and what we read is the great sadness that accompanies the 
deaths of so very many people around our world.
  Reading the newspaper this week, we read that the lives of innocent 
men, women, and children are being taken in such disparate places as 
Sudan and Uganda in Africa; Israel, the Palestinian territories and 
Iraq in the Middle East; Haiti in the Caribbean; Chechnya and 
Afghanistan in Asia; and countless others places around the world.
  Today, another distressing event took place, the beheading of an 
American civilian in Iraq, a video of which was posted on a militant 
Islamic Web site. This was a man who ventured to Iraq to help with the 
rebuilding of its infrastructure, a man whose only crime was traveling 
to an unstable country, thinking he might be able to make a 
contribution in the midst of all the chaos. He was 26 years old. This 
is a terrible tragedy.
  But we are no longer surprised to hear that tragedies of this sort 
are occurring every day around the world. No country is immune. No 
group of people can avoid the misfortune that is accompanied by simply 
existing, by simply being alive in today's world.
  In Haiti, for example, hundreds of innocent people have died of 
starvation. They are so hungry they are eating cakes made of butter, 
salt, water and mud. Mud. Yet here in the United States we do not act.
  The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) has introduced a sensible 
resolution that would establish comprehensive health systems in Haiti. 
Despite the amount of news coverage that Haiti has received these last 
few months, less than 10 percent of this House has signed on to the 
gentlewoman from California's (Ms. Lee) important legislation.
  We watch, as we did during the catastrophic Armenian genocide of the 
early 1900s and during the Holocaust of the 1940s. We make claims of 
never again, but then we sit back and watch as these events occur again 
and again and again.
  Is this the way humans are going to live out their lives on this 
Earth? Are we not destined for more? Are we not better than the sum of 
all these innocent deaths? Can we not address the economic gap between 
rich and poor, between rich countries and poor countries, between rich 
individuals and poor individuals?
  There has to be a better course for humankind than the one we are 
currently on; and there is, one that emphasizes brains instead of 
brawn, one that is consistent with the best American values.

[[Page 9038]]

  I have introduced legislation to create a SMART security platform for 
the 21st century. SMART stands for Sensible Multilateral American 
Response to Terrorism. SMART treats wars as an absolute last resort. It 
fights terrorism with a stronger intelligence and multilateral 
partnerships. It controls the spread of weapons of mass destruction 
with a renewed commitment to nonproliferation, and it aggressively 
invests in the development of impoverished nations with an emphasis on 
women's health and education.
  The Bush doctrine has been tried, and it has failed. It is time for a 
new national security strategy. SMART security defends America by 
relying on the very best of America: our commitment to peace, our 
commitment to freedom, our compassion for the people of the world and 
our capacity for multilateral leadership.
  SMART security is tough, pragmatic, and patriotic. SMART security is 
smart, and it will keep America safe.

                          ____________________