Alternatives to War

GETTING SMART ABOUT NATIONAL SECURITY

Congress has spent over a $1.31 trillion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an extraordinary amount of money.  Sadly, these massive expenditures did not make and will not make Americans safer.  However, they have forced us to sacrifice on education, healthcare, and homeland security here in the United States.

Over 6,400 American service members have lost their lives in these military operations, and tens of thousands have been severely wounded. Countless innocent civilians have also been killed and millions have become refugees, and the feeling of goodwill towards America has been squandered around the world.

We should back up our men and women in uniform with a new approach to national security, one that emphasizes preventing war instead of preemptive war.  I have proposed a plan called “smart security.” It treats war as an absolute last resort by:

• Strengthening intelligence and law enforcement while respecting human and civil rights;

• Pursuing diplomacy, enhanced inspection regimes, and regional security arrangements to reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons;

• Ceasing the sale and transfer of weapons to regimes involved in human rights abuses and to regions of conflict;

• Increasing development aid and debt relief for the world’s poorest countries;

• Reducing dependence on foreign oil by promoting long-term energy security through greater investment in sustainable and renewable alternatives; and

• Supporting civil society programs as a critical component in the prevention and resolution of violent conflict.

Smart security defends America by relying on our capacity for global leadership, our compassion for the people of the world, and our commitment to peace and freedom.

Since April 2004, I have spoken on the House Floor more than 425 times in support of a smart security approach.  Our men and women in uniform deserve to be supported by a smart national security policy. Instead of continuing the long-term military operations that increasingly exacting their tolls in lives lost and billions of dollars spent, we need to pursue a smart security strategy for the conflicts America faces because such a strategy is the best way to keep our country safe in the in the long run.

(Updated April 2012)