SMART Security address by U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey
[Congressional Record: November 15, 2006 (House)]
[Page H8658]

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, last week the American people voted for a
new direction in the Nation's Iraq policy. If anything, with the
mandate this Democratic majority received, we can be more unapologetic
than ever about demanding an end to the Iraq occupation and insisting
that we bring our troops home.

But I believe Iraq is a symptom of an even larger problem, that is, a
foreign policy that chooses saber rattling over diplomacy and
negotiation.

We need an entirely new national security paradigm. For too long, we
have equated national security with war and with conquest. It is time
we used less brawn and more brains to protect our people and our
interests.

Iraq is exhibit A in the case that hawkishness does not necessarily
make America safer.

That is where a SMART security plan comes. SMART stands for sensible,
multilateral, American response to terrorism.

At its core is a belief that war is a very last resort, that
peacekeeping and diplomacy, not invasion and occupation, must be the
guiding lights of our foreign policy.

SMART also focuses on stopping the spread of weapons of mass
destruction. Not by deposing regimes that do not have them, but with
diplomacy, with vigorous inspection regimes and regional security
arrangements.

SMART calls for a renewed commitment to the cooperative threat
reduction program and calls on the United States to set an example for
the world by living up to our own commitments to draw down our nuclear
arsenal.

Because, Mr. Speaker, what moral authority do we have to pressure
Iran or North Korea about their nuclear ambitions when our government
consistently undermines the nuclear and ignores our multilateral
obligations in this very area?

Being smart about national security means dramatically rearranging
our budget priorities, which in turn means fewer obsolete Cold War
weapons systems and more investment in strategies that actually address
the security challenges of a new era.

Any smart approach to national security must include an ambitious
international development program for impoverished nations, debt
relief, democracy building, schooling for women and girls, human rights
education, environmental programs, infrastructure development and more.

Think about this, Mr. Speaker. With the money spent on the invasion
and occupation of Iraq, we could have fully funded global antihunger
efforts for 14 years or provided basic immunization to children around
the world for 113 years or fully funded worldwide AIDS programs for 34
years. We could have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to save
lives, instead of destroying them.

For the sake of the next generation, the only future that we have
got, before we have destroyed civilization itself, we should strive for
nothing less than the end of all wars.

Because of the insanity of war and its disproportionate impact on
children, I am pledging never again to cast a vote in Congress in favor
of any military action, barring an attack on the United States or
protecting against genocide and/or ethnic cleansing, and then only with
multilateral humanitarian intervention.

Nor will I pick sides in violent global conflicts, except to condemn
all acts of war and terror regardless of ideology, regardless of
national interests or religion that motivates them. I refuse to decide
who is less wrong.

If I could be persuaded that taking up arms actually builds enduring
stability, I would reconsider my position, but this notion that war
begets peace is as illogical as it sounds. Our preemptive strike on
Iraq has, in fact, been a catalyst for increased violence and higher
rates of terrorism. Our continued occupation is emboldening the
insurgents rather than defeating them. Instead of liberating a nation,
the Bush doctrine has ripped it apart, ripped it apart at the seams,
and instead of protecting America, it has dealt a blow to our very
security.

``War,'' said Martin Luther King, Junior, ``is a poor chisel to carve
out tomorrow.'' Tomorrow belongs to our children. So for their sake,
Mr. Speaker, let us protect America by relying not on our basest
impulses, but on the most honorable and humane of American values, and
let us bring our troops home now from Iraq.