[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16169-16170]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           IS PEACE POSSIBLE?

  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the 
House.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentlewoman from Ohio 
is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to tell a little story.
  This week, a wonderful family from my district in Ohio brought to 
Washington a little sketch that they left with me. It is a scene from 
inside a home, and a little boy is standing at a window holding what 
looks like a prayer book. He is looking out this window into a sunlit 
day, and outside the window are these beautiful, beautiful apple trees.
  You do not realize as you are looking at this child, who may be 4 
years old or so, looking outside his window, you do not realize that 
what is walking by his window are bayonets pointed straight up, because 
in the way the artist has drawn the picture, the gun butts parallel the 
trunks of the apple trees.
  You look at this picture and it causes you to pause, and in the 
distance in the sky, you see a small bird flying, a bird of peace.
  As I watch what is happening in the Middle East and the carnage that 
comes over our television screens every

[[Page 16170]]

evening, I cannot help but ask myself, what is wrong with humankind 
that we cannot stop the killing? Is the United States of America so 
strong militarily that it also cannot be strong morally and stand up 
and say to those involved, Cease fire? Cease fire on all sides, now, 
now. Would the world not stand with us? Why should the United States 
not just be silent but step away, step away for all the thousands and 
thousands and thousands of young people whose futures are being 
destroyed, whose countries are being leveled?
  In the Palestinian Authority, in Israel, in Lebanon, I say to myself, 
what is it about human nature that makes us as creatures so marauding 
and so hateful and apparently so incapable of saying drop the bayonets, 
just for a day, just to see if peace is possible?
  I am just appalled at what is happening. I look at our world, I look 
at all of its leaders, I look at all of our material wealth, all of the 
arms, the bunker-buster bombs that are on their way, and I say to 
myself, I thought the 20th century was the century of utter destruction 
and that we had finally contained those forces in the world that were 
so harmful to human life, and that when we turned the new page on the 
new millennium, we would usher in a millennium of peace, and now this.

                              {time}  1645

  I would urge the President of the United States to not just look at 
the military side of the equation but to deeply consider both political 
and diplomatic efforts, initially through back channels. No country 
should be isolated, whether it is Lebanon or Syria, or Jordan or Iran. 
Because out of isolation, even in a marriage, comes an icy standoff and 
no resolution. It is no different with countries. You cannot have that 
kind of icy standoff and think the world will be at peace.
  I can tell you that the southern part of Lebanon that is the object 
of the invasion right now is an area where development was not allowed 
to occur, where the west literally backed away and allowed the forces 
of Hezbollah to gain greater and greater footing. And we are yielding 
the policies of isolation that allowed this to occur.
  So I would say to my colleagues, I would say to people of good 
conscience everywhere, now is the time to stand up to stop the killing 
on all sides in a part of the world where the soils are blood drenched 
from Bethlehem to Gaza to northern Israel, and Haifa now, to southern 
Lebanon again. Haven't we had enough of killing one another?
  I would urge the Secretary of State, the President of the United 
States, the Members of this Congress who are going to be leaving 
Washington tomorrow in this House and I guess next week in the other 
body, to devote your August to thinking how we can all be voices to 
stop the killing and to call for a ceasefire on all sides for the sake 
of the world. Surely we are destroying a part of the earth that will 
take generations to restore, and we every day are watching young people 
and innocence killed by the hundreds and thousands. Can't the world do 
better than this?
  I think about the drawing of the little boy looking out the window at 
a beautiful sky and apple trees with the bayonets walking by.

                          ____________________