wars that we experienced were traumas that still impact our lives. the treaty of versailles that ended world war i, it was the last gasp of european colonialism. maps drawn at that international gathering brought on world war ii and the plague and that does plague us to this day some of those other lines they drew on that map. those national borders mandated by the versailles treaty made the world temporarily tranquil. haven't we heard that about -- maybe we heard that a few moments ago how we got to overcome the tragedy right now, like we did in korea, by not making the confrontations with those people who are engaged in hostile activity. yes, the treaty of versailles gave the world temporary tranquility but doomed following generations to instability and conflict.

such future challenges were left to the league of nations and the baton was passed to the united nations. global government in one form or the other would solve everything. the e.u., the common market and nato and other bureaucracies would demonstrate how nation states can cooperate and achieve a collective peace and freedom and prosperity. well, just as things change dramatically after the 19th century and when it turned into the 20th century, it became a totally different world. , too, our world is changing 20th must turn from the century to the 21st.

yet, we are plagued with conflicts on peoples that can be traced back to board and sovereign decision made long ago by people who are now dead not only from the 21st century but from the end of world war i. many of the confrontations between the nationalities could be solved and the greatest threats of violence, insurrecollection and war itself could be diffused if our world would again recognize the right of self-determine nation. it seems to have been been forgotten that the united states was not only founded on the principle of liberty and independence, but also the right of people to demand their rights, and yes, that right of independence. they had a right to declare

their independence. this was the revolutionary idea that people have a right to select their government. and this was the revolutionary idea that gave our founding fathers and mothers the moral high ground and to free themselves from the british empire. without this, they probably would not have won. no, this is what the fundamental beliefs were in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and also the right of people to declare themselves free and independent, to create a country based on shared beliefs and shared ideals and values. this is what we hope. those shared beliefs in liberty and justice, we hope those are the things that unite us today and that is what united us and made us a nation.

after all, we don't have one race, one religion or one ethnic group. but that said, there are many other countries of the world whose nationalism and patriotism are based on the fact that they have an identity with other people that share their cultural and racial identities. this is what units them as a people. they are ethnically the same and culturally the same and same type of roots in their past. this is what most countries are like and that is what tw defines a nationality and recognizing similar people do not want to live in the subjew gation of others has been ignored and/or rejected by the powers that be throughout the world. so we live in a world that

people want to be like with similar people and you have differenceses between catholics and protestants and they like to have people who maybe speak their same language and same culture and enjoy the same music, there is nothing wrong with people identifying others as being part of their national family. well, we should promote that as a positive rather as a negative. we should encourage people to work together. there are jewish charities and jewish people have gone through a certain oppression and take each other through charities. yes, it's meant that people do share certain values that they

can work together on and that's a good thing. and, however, the idea that people like that might want to be in their own country, which is what our founding fathers said. it wasn't specific. we wanted freedom of religion for all people. well, they, today, the world is threatened by people who want to be independent of other domination of others who don't share their same values and their nationality. well, the reason why it's being rejected -- being rejected by the power brokers throughout the world because it threatens those in power who are losing authority under people who don't want to live under their domination. letting people decide their own fate, because if a majority of people want to be independent of

a country, that's what they should be, according to our declaration of independence and this is something that brings a more peaceful world rather than having subjew gation of one people by another. there has been a major cause of conflict in the world today when people don't recognize that yes,, there are others who feel that they are being oppressed by being pressed under the jurisdiction of a particular government and would like to have their own independence. this has been especially true where people since the end of the cold war have looked at their own self-identification. when the right of self-determination is recognized, dispute are settled. the czeches and the sl omp vaks

under the treaty, that it became slovak.h republic and that's fine and they are able to separate. if the czeches and the sl omp va kmp and they weren't satisfied, it was a good thing to permit them. if you don't want to be part of a country, you can be a separate country, otherwise there would have been turmoil. solution.w a peaceful tito was dead and the cold war wanted to d slovenia be independent and wanted to do it. perhaps they were able to do it because the serbs launched

attacks on the croatians and other people in yugoslavia yugoslavia that now are splitting apart because they wanted to be independent and free. and the serbs wanted to be free. and by that time, they realized they could not succeed going to war with all of these various groups. have been free to become independent countries and as they would like to be and trying to help them be, well, that would have been been done for serbia and everybody by now an agreement for some kind of free trade zone. when the serbs use force to keep those people under its jurisdiction, we had violence throughout the ball cans that have lasted for several decades.

that is a tragedy. and we should be working in the balkans. an example ay are of people who are reaching out o the kosov arch ra and try to come to an agreement. if you would have had people under their thumb, nobody would be talking to them. people who treat other people as equals and rights as people in the world, they are more likely to reach understandings that will bring peace to the world not saying you have to submit yourself to some other group of people. in the former soviet union, the ukraine and other soviet republics were permitted at the end of the cold war to basically peacefully establish their own

independence. and i know it's not as simple as that, but it happened in a peaceful way in which thousands of lives were not lost trying to force groups of people who do not want to be under moscow's control and those people, whether in the ukraine or elsewhere in the battleics or the balkans, they have the rights. people were permitted to have an independent government free from being only suppressed by moscow and have to follow its orders. that happened relatively peacefully. if that not happened, there would be nuck conflict and communism faltered. it took a lot of prodding for us to make sure that the russians in the soviet union, in moscow

understood that they could not keep people under their thumb. and it was the cold war and thank god we ended the cold war peacefully. because that was the great gift that ronald reagan gave to us and i'm proud to have served ronlt reagan as a senior speech writer to the president for 7 1/2 writers and being a special assistant to the president and being involved with his efforts to try and move peace in the world. and it was about recognizing people's rights to independence. ronald reagan was an irish american and look that the british perpetrated and it happened in ireland because that i they be kept under british rule when it was clear that they wanted to be independent of great britain.

look at what happened in singa important and ma lace yeah and those countries were under the domination and part of the great britain and british empair, they were permitted to leave and establish their independence and ma last yeah and singa important and then they separated from each other peacefully. in any one of these cases if anyone demanded that these people stay in this particular status within this particular government, there would have been a lot more violence. when self-determination and people are subjugated to the orders of a country and don't want to be part of, violence is more likely. special interests and power elites throughout the world are

not so inclined to this obvious reasoning. and why? because it's not in their interest for people just to go when they have them under their control. let's look at a few examples where self-determination is manifesting itself. today, one of the great conflict areas of the world is the middle east. again, most -- but many of the conflicts we see, if not a majority can be traced right back to the treaty of versailles and world war i and the ecisions of colonialists and roilists to draw borders made no sense. and yes, we ended up separating whole nations. for example, one nation of people that we are of today. the kurds were separated in the

various countries by the treaty of versailles and we are supposed to abide by their decision about what the border should be today 100 years later? noise. the kurds were not living to what they they have been dick indicate tated. . they had a vote to determine if their people wanted self-determination and wanted to be an independent country. -- country from iraq. yes. that was a good thing and we should recognize that. they won overwhelmingly and we should look at the map -- we should say, a map of the middle east needs to be changed so you can have a kurdistan that flows all the way from turkey and

iraq and iran and syria, there are more, for example, kurds in iran than there are in iraq. in turkey there are more kurds. and of course in syria. this should be a modern country. why are we letting this turmoil go on when our greatest allies are looking for their own self-determination? and these other countries are becoming or are already enemies? yes. it would behoove the united states to support the independence of kurdistan and all the kurds we should support, in bringing together these kurdish people as a nation. because that's what they are. they're a nation without a state. let them have their country. trying to -- there's been so much bloodshed in trying to repress the kurds. from the iranians, from the mullah regime. but also the shah before him. the kurds were oppressed by

saddam hussein. and right now what we have is a repression of people even in iran, where the mullah regime is oppressing not only the rest of its people, not only the other people that make up iran, but the kurds in particular. look at what's going on with the bluche, for example. there are groups of people. there's an area in iran where the vast majority of people are of the bell uche extraction. they would like their independence. they deserve their right to self-determination. and they're not only suffering from the oppression of iran. and by the way, if we're going try to deal with iran, let's not ratchet up occupy our military and threaten to attack hem -- up our military and threaten to attack them that way. let's -- we can be supportive of the persian people who hate the mullah regime. these are not our enemies in iran. it's the mullah regime, the

fanatics, that would drop a bomb on us and not even think twice, because they think they're doing gods a -- god's work. they're the enemy. we need responsible supportive, for example, of the belluch. they're mainly perts cuted by the pack -- persecuted by the pakistanis who have them under their thumb and they murder people constantly. they pick these young people up and they drop their body -- and they murder them and they drop their bodies in little villages to show people what will happen to them if they try to resist pakistani authority. but this is the history of pakistan. right now they're doing it to he minorities. you have a group of people, except for of course the punjabis and others who control that government. in pakistan.

we've seen it before. when the people of bangladesh wanted to be independent of pakistan. they wanted to control their own lives and government. they were brutally repressed by the pakistani government. and that's what led to the upriding -- to the uprising of the people in bangladesh when they freed themselves. that sometime type of oppression is being -- is continuing not only on the beluch but, for example, the populations that came over from yeas and nays are ordered after india and pakistan split. a lot of them went to karachi and those people in karachi now, there are people who want to have karachi like a singapore of that part of the world. hey do not want this pakistan.

they believe in the same have ale -- values that we believe in. another example of that sfk what we see in spain today. today of course, there are groups of people who live in catalonia. catalonia is a prove ins with a long history -- province with a long history in spain. people identify sthesms as catalonians. they should have a right to vote on whether or not they ant to remain part of spain. do they give up their sovereignty to a several government in madrid or do they want to have a government of catalonia that they can have their own government and their own to sovereignty? well, the spanish overreaction o the efforts of the catalonians just to have a poll. basically it was a vote on independence. but it was -- you know, basically had it to be recognized for it to have a effect. but instead of letting them do this and just saying, well, it

has no legal effect, instead the spanish government came down with brute force and conducted violence as would you think violence coming from terrorists would exert on a group of people in spain. it was their own government that was exercising violent -- violence and force and intimidation against the people of catalonia. now of course the people of catalonia are united because they know the brutality and subject gation of what's going on -- sub jew gation of what's going on with -- sub gation of what's going on with madrid. the british permitted their people in scotland to have a vote. and that was a wonderful thing. the scoths had their vote. there was no -- the scotts had their vote. there was no interference. if they didn't want to be part of great britain they didn't have to be. and that was a wonderful example to the world of how you should do this. now the scots decided to stay. part of england. part of great britain. that's fine. but they had their chance. the people in spain weren't

given that chance. no. instead their government came down and beat them up when they ried to go to the polls. the british believe in self-determination. they're taking the brexit issue of whether or not you should have britain as part of the e.u. and the common market. that vote that they allowed their people to decide, it wasn't decided by an elite. the brexit vote let all the people of britain decide whether or not they were going o be basically part of a subjugated people in europe or whether they were going to be an independent force and a nation which is their history. s a people of great britain. i'm proud they allowed the people of scotland to vote and i'm i'm proud that they voted.

we need to make sure that we stay true to our principles and have a vision about what this world will be. if you're just looking at things, what we can do every day, ronald reagan succeeded because he had a vision of a peaceful world. based on those individual rights and those concepts of freedom and democracy that were at the heart of the american experience. but also an american that encompassed people from all over the world. reagan had a vision and it wasn't to get into a war with the soviet union and destroy communism. reagan's vision was, let's have, yes, we have to have strength in our military in order to defeat this enemy. of soviet communism. because it was threatening the world peace. temperatures take -- it was taking over countries and overthrowing governments and replacing them with atheist dictatorships. reagan knew we cunalt. when he to stop that. just like -- knew we couldn't. we had to stop that. just like our primary enemy

today is no longer the soviet union because reagan helped eliminate the soviet union, the communist threat, the threat today is radical islamic terrorists who will murder our people and are murdering people all over the world and murdering people in their own countries in order to terrorize them into submission. the bottom line is, ronald reagan's vision succeed with russia. because at that time it was the soviet union and now we have a russia that -- we have so much more potential. there's a lot of flaws. a lot of flaws in the russian government. and there are things that we have to make sure that we're taking care of and standing firm on. but by and large we have to understand, they today are being attacked and murdered by radical islamic terrorists as well. they know that and they know the dangers that we face because they face a common danger. so we need to work to build a

new alliance. because what's happening is islam is making such inroads into the stupidity of our western european allies that the western europe that we know, here again, time is going on, 19th century to the 20th century, now we're in the 21st century. e 21st century will see that europe becomes a whole different place than what it's been for the last 150 or 200 years. there will be islamic countries in europe. and they will be then either part of or they will not fight against a radical islamic terrorist threat that today threatens the peace of the world, just as the soviet union did that 10 years or excuse me, 10 decades ago. so with that we need a vision. and one vision that we should have is, number one, a vision of self-determination that we all agree on that. number two, let's make sure that we ally our sneffs a positive way -- ourselves in a

positive way with people who are not going to be weakened by the onslaught of islam. and i would suggest that america will be a more peaceful place and our country will be more secure and the world will be more peaceful and secure if we make -- establish a new relationship in which we are atching out for each other with four countries. the united states, of course. the other one is india. and i will soon be going to india. in fact, i will be going to india tomorrow. and number three, japan. and number four, russia. there's some work that needs to be done to make a coalition like that real. but that -- a coalition of those countries working together, not mandated that we have to do this and we have to sub ju gate ourselves, but instead seeking out cooperation with those countries where there's mutual benefit to do,

we can make this a better world. we can secure our prosperity and secure the peace of our own country and the security of our own country. so with a vision and with a recognition of fundamental things like the right of self-determination and the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that our founding fathers talked about, and limb en-- and limited government where they said government only derives its just powers from the consent of the governmented. let us champion these values and these ideals. let us have a vision for the future, as ronald reagan did, and we can make this a more peaceful world. as we side with people all over the world who want to control their own destiny, by having their own nation, rather than being subjected to someone else. with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. does the gentleman have a motion? mr. rohrabacher: i move that

the house does now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly the house stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on