Speech before the US House of Representatives, 02/12/09 Madame Speaker, I have a few questions for my colleagues. What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is a predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others? What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers both the United States and Israel? What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan – and bombing Pakistan – is directly related to the hatred directed toward us and has nothing to do with being free and prosperous? What if someday it dawns on us that losing over 5000 American military personnel in the Middle East since 9/11 is not a fair trade-off for the loss of nearly 3000 American citizens, no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistani, and Afghan people are killed or displaced? What if we finally decide that torture, even if called enhanced interrogation techniques, is self-destructive and produces no useful information – and that contracting it out to a third world nation is just as evil? What if it is finally realized that war and military spending is always destructive to the economy? What if all wartime spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing? What if we finally see that wartime conditions always undermine personal liberty? What if conservatives, who preach small government, wake up and realize that our interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government? What if …