[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1955]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          JOINT BAPTIST BOARD MEETING POINTS OF AGREED ACTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, I think at the beginning of Negro History 
Month it is important to report on the Joint Baptist Board Meeting that 
was held January 24 to 27, 2005, where they jointly, through their 
presidents, affirmed the following points of agreed action that stem 
from the forum sessions presented during that meeting.
  They said: we call for an end to the war in Iraq and withdrawal of 
U.S. military personnel. The war in Iraq, described by the Department 
of Defense as Operation Iraqi Freedom, is a costly and unnecessary 
military action begun on grossly inaccurate, misconstrued, or distorted 
intelligence against a nation that did not pose an immediate or 
realistic threat to the national security of our Nation. No weapons of 
mass destruction have been discovered in Iraq, despite intense efforts 
to locate them.
  The brutal regime of Saddam Hussein and its terror on Iraqi society 
has been replaced by the brutality and chaos of an ongoing war, which 
has ravaged the land, ransacked cherished aspects of Iraqi history and 
culture, and threatened the prospect of what even U.S. intelligence 
analysts fear could be a civil war.
  More than 1,400 U.S. military personnel have lost their lives, and 
more than 10,000 have been wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Over 
5,000 of the wounded casualties have been severe enough to prevent 
return to action. Quoting from a front page story in the January 26, 
2005 issue of U.S. Today, it says: ``The Baptists look upon the sorrow, 
suffering, and financial cost of the war in Iraq and remember the words 
of Martin Luther King, Jr., a black Baptist preacher who challenged the 
military engagement in Vietnam more than two generations ago.
  King's call that we admit the wicked and tragic folly about our self-
righteous choice for war rather than peace and nonviolent change 
reminds us that preference for war always reflects the wrong values. 
Unnecessary and unjust war does not produce genuine peace, only death, 
suffering, more violence and more hate.
  What King said in 1967 when he began his public outcry against the 
war in Vietnam is still true today. ``A true,'' to quote him, 
``revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of 
war: 'This business of settling differences is not just.' This business 
of filling our Nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting 
poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of people normally humane, of 
sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically 
handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with 
wisdom, justice, love or an election.

                              {time}  1845

  ``A Nation that continues year after year to spend more money on 
military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching 
spiritual death. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent 
us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will 
take precedence over the pursuit of war.''
  As religious leaders whose constituents have family members in the 
U.S. Armed Forces serving in Iraq and elsewhere around the world, we 
pray for the security of our Nation and the safety of our military 
personnel. We weep with families who mourn the deaths of their loved 
ones, and we share the anxiety of families concerning the well-being of 
those who press on in service.
  Our call that our Nation end its military involvement in Iraq does 
not rise from a lack of support for our Armed Forces, disregard for 
national security, or lack of resolve concerning freedom and democracy. 
Rather, we are concerned about our troops and our military families 
whose loved ones have been ordered to fight and stay in a war that our 
leaders refuse to even send their own children and the children of the 
wealthy into.
  Mr. Speaker, I implore the President to bring our troops home now.
  As religious leaders whose constituents have family members in the 
U.S. armed forces serving in Iraq and elsewhere around the world, we 
pray for the security of our nation and the safety of our military 
personnel. We weep with families who mourn the deaths of their loved 
ones and we share the anxiety of families concerning the well-being of 
those who press on in service. Our call that our nation end its 
military involvement in Iraq does not rise from lace of support for our 
armed forces, disregard for national security, or lack of resolve 
concerning freedom and democracy. Rather, we are concerned about our 
troops and our military families whose loved ones have been ordered to 
fight and stay in a war that our leaders refuse to even send their own 
children and the children of wealthy families to fight. Again, we quote 
Dr. King's words:

       I am as deeply concerned about our troops there [Vietnam] 
     as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are 
     submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing 
     process that goes on in any war where armies face each other 
     and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of 
     death, for they must know after a short period there that 
     none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really 
     involved. Before long they must know that their government 
     has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more 
     sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the 
     wealthy and the secure while we create a hell for the poor.

  The war in Iraq is not only creating a hell for the poor in Iraq. The 
grief and suffering it has wrought have been disproportionately forced 
onto the lives of poor and struggling families in our nation. These 
families, far more than those who are wealthy, send their loved ones to 
serve as members of the active force or as reservists and members of 
the National Guard. It is not just or patriotic for our leaders to 
thrust the sons and daughters of low income families into unnecessary 
military engagements.

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