Expressing Sympathy for the Peopl of India in Aftermath of the Deadly Terrorist Attacks on July 11, 2006

EXPRESSING SYMPATHY FOR THE PEOPLE OF INDIA IN AFTERMATH OF THE DEADLY TERRORIST ATTACKS ON JULY 11, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - July 19, 2006)

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s. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, thank him for his extraordinary leadership in making foreign policy for our country that is values based, and it makes us safer.

My compliments, Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) and Mr. Wilson of South Carolina for bringing this important legislation to the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Leach, for your leadership on this as well. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of it.

I wish this resolution expressing the condolences of yet another terrorist attack was not necessary. The people of the United States know only too well the shock and sorrow experienced by the people of India on July 11. We grieve with them and share their resolve to defeat the forces of evil who would perpetrate such heinous and, yes, cowardly acts.

We also salute the bravery of the millions of residents of Mumbai, who got back on those commuter trains the day after the attacks, refusing to alter their lives and thereby concede even a little to the terrorists.

At a time like this, when we are commending the people of India for their courage and expressing the sympathy and condolences of our constituents to the people and the Government of India, it gives us pause to think about how much we owe India. We in the United States came through, a generation ago, a civil rights movement that was inspired by the spirit of nonviolence which was led in India by Mahatma Gandhi. Our own Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King visited India to learn about nonviolence, and we all know what a tremendous impact it had on succeeding in advancing civil rights in our own country. We will be forever in the debt of India for that magnificent contribution to our own social progress in the United States.

And nobody knows better than Mr. Lantos the debt of gratitude we owe India for its hospital to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. When I was a brand new Member of Congress, one of the first meetings I was invited to was by Mr. Lantos to meet His Holiness. He talked about his plan for Tibet. And it has been rough sledding since then, but the Government of India has been a friend to all who are concerned about human rights and respect for the dignity and worth of every person and in the person of His Holiness, a man of peace, a man of balance, a man who would condemn this kind of violence. So India has certainly taken the lead in the nonviolence that influenced our own civil rights movement and the hospitality extended to His Holiness in so many ways as the largest democracy in the world. It is just that democracy and that freedom of movement that, of course, made them a target of these cowards.

So, again, I express the love of freedom and commitment to a democracy that the United States and India share. We will stand together against those who value neither and whose disdain for human life is evidence of the shallowness of the agenda they seek to advance.

The resolution before us is a strong testament to the shared values and the friendship which binds the United States and India. I urge its overwhelming adoption by this House, and again, thank Mr. Crowley for his leadership in bringing it to the floor.

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