Is Peace Possible?

IS PEACE POSSIBLE?

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 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: 16:45]

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.

http://thomas.loc.gov