[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18537-18538]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentlewoman from 
California is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, this Thursday, September 21, is the 
International Day of Peace, as established by the United Nations a 
quarter century ago. To recognize it, a coalition of peace and 
religious organizations are mobilizing thousands upon thousands of 
people around the country in a week's worth of marches, vigils, and

[[Page 18538]]

rallies. Their goal: an end to the Iraq occupation and the safe return 
of our troops back home to the United States.
  I have signed their Declaration of Peace Congressional Pledge, and I 
strongly urge my colleagues to do the same. In addition to troop 
withdrawal, the pledge calls for important post-occupation steps that I 
and many of my colleagues have been pushing for some time now: among 
other things, no permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq; a 
reconciliation process led by the Iraqis which may include an 
international peacekeeping presence; Iraqi control over its internal 
affairs and its rich oil supply; increased support for veterans of the 
Iraq conflict; the establishment of a peace dividend with the money 
being spent on occupying Iraq being reinvested in our people so they 
will have more jobs, stronger schools, better housing, and more 
efficient and affordable health care.
  So how is the Bush administration celebrating International Peace 
Day? By promising us a semipermanent state of war, an open-ended 
occupation of Iraq. General Abizaid said today that we will maintain 
our current troop levels for at least the next 9 months. There you have 
it. The ultimate expression of ``stay the course.'' So much for last 
year's predictions by General Casey and others that there would be a 
significant drawdown in the year 2006.
  Keeping 147,000 American soldiers as occupation forces in Iraq 
through the middle of next year and beyond, what will that mean? It 
will mean more American casualties. It will mean billions more of the 
people's dollars sunk in a failed policy. It will mean Iraq will become 
an even more fertile terrorist training ground. It will mean more 
violence and venom directed toward Americans by radical jihadists. It 
will mean that the sectarian strife, the civil war in Iraq will 
continue unabated.
  If that is not bad enough, there is convincing evidence that our 
finger is on the trigger when it comes to launching a strike against 
Iran. Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardner, who has taught at the 
Army's National War College, said on CNN yesterday that ``we are 
conducting military operations inside Iran right now. The evidence is 
overwhelming.''
  Mr. Speaker, there has to be a better way to manage global conflict. 
Actually, as he so often did, Martin Luther King, Jr. put it best. He 
said: ``The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending 
spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of 
diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the 
liar, but you cannot murder the lie nor establish the truth. Through 
violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. 
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper 
darkness to a night already devoid of stars.''
  He continued: ``The chain reaction . . . hate begetting hate, wars 
producing more wars, must be broken or we shall be plunged into a dark 
a business.''
  Mr. Speaker, I believe we need to go beyond ending the occupation of 
Iraq to an entirely new national security paradigm, one that emphasizes 
diplomacy, multilateralism, strong intelligence, containment 
strategies, weapons inspections, real democracy building, and 
humanitarian aid. But we must avoid war, rather than making it our 
default national security strategy.
  On this year's International Day of Peace, Mr. Speaker, let us 
rededicate ourselves to protect the country we love, not by relying on 
our basest impulses, but on the most honorable and humane of American 
values.

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