6 January, 2009
[Editor’s note: Congressman John Lewis gained famed in public life through his efforts as a leader of Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the early 1960s. Though many people of that generation were targeted, harassed, jailed, and killed, not everyone has lost their moral compass in the fight for justice and freedom. On March 20, 2007, Mr. John Lewis spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives and addressed the supposed “compromise” offered by pro-war, chicken hawk Democrats who glibly encourage Bush to send jingoists, bigots and illiterates (Hey Sabrina Harman, what is a R-A-P-E-I-S-T?) in the frontlines of empire and waste tax monies that would be better spent to get us off the petroleum economy, lower class sizes, support organic farming and end the drug war. As the chicken hawks and corporate criminals in Congress pondered giving away another year with $120 billion for war crimes and war profiteers like MPRI, Blackwater USA, and Raytheon, Representative Lewis objected.
One last point, while Nancy Pelosi told us, ad nauseum, “impeachment is off the table” she conveniently omitted her pro-Bush corollary, stopping the wars and war crimes will not be a priority of the Congressional Democrats and the Democratic Caucus. As one who long recognized that the national Democratic party is pro-war, pro-military industrial complex, pro-drug war, and anti-labor, I am not surprised by the Pelosi-doctrine, “all we need is war.” I can only hope that her constituents, and all those who voted to end the war in November 2006 recognize this too and jump ship or mutiny.]
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Mr. LEWIS of Georgia: Mr. Speaker, I rise with deep concern that on this very day four years ago, our Nation inaugurated a conflict, an unnecessary war, a war of choice, not a necessity. The most comprehensive intelligence we have, the National Intelligence Estimate and the latest Pentagon report, tells us that Iraq had descended into a state of civil war. Over 3,000 Americans have died, and hundreds of thousands, some even say up to one million citizens of Iraq, have lost their lives in this unnecessary conflict.
[Editor’s note: As reported on Democracy Now, there are over two million Iraqis who have fled the nation, while more than another two million are internally displaced, making Iraq one of the greatest human rights atrocities ever.]
And while we are telling our veterans of this war, the elderly, the poor, and the sick that there is no room in the budget for them, the American people have spent over $400 billion on a failed policy. We cannot do more of the same. Mr. Speaker, violence begets violence. It does not lead to peace.
President John F. Kennedy once said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” My greatest fear is that the young people of Iraq and of the Middle East will never forget this war. My greatest fear is they will grow up hating our children and our children's children for what we have done. Mr. Speaker, the Bible is right. Even a great nation can reap what it sows.
Nothing troubles me more than to see the young faces of these [American] soldiers who have been led to their death. Some are only 18, 19, 21, 22, 23. It is painful. It is so painful to watch. Sometimes I feel like crying and crying out loud at what we are doing as a Nation and what this administration is doing in our name. Our children do not deserve to die as pawns in a civil war.
They do not deserve to pay with their lives for the mistakes of this administration. They never had a chance. When I was their age, when I was 23 years old, I was leading the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, soon to speak in Washington on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, but then we were involved in a non-violent revolution to transform the soul of America, to create a beloved community.
Forty years ago, I was there in New York City in Riverside Church when Martin Luther King, Jr., gave one of the most powerful speeches he ever made against the war in Vietnam. If he could speak today, he would say this Nation needs a revolution of values that exposes the truth that war does not work. If he could speak today, he would say that war is obsolete as a tool of our foreign policy.
He would say [that] there is nothing keeping us from changing our national priority so that the pursuit of peace can take precedence over the pursuit of war. He would say [that] we must remove the causes of chaos, injustice, poverty and insecurity that are breeding grounds for terrorism. This is the way towards peace.
As a Nation, can we hear the words of Gandhi, so simple, so true, that it is either non-violence or non-existence? Can we hear the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., saying that we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish as fools? Tonight I must make it plain and clear that as a human being, as a citizen of the world, as a citizen of America, as a Member of Congress, as an individual committed to a world at peace with itself, I will not and I cannot in good conscience vote for another dollar or another dime to support this war.
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Special thanks to the staff at Tikkun magazine for forwarding the text of the statement of Mr. Lewis.
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