 to be able to speak today on my concern about the issue of weapons and conflict areas, Ukraine for sure, and other areas of the world. I myself was in the U.S. military for 29 years. I retired as a colonel. I taught the law of land warfare and Geneva Conventions at the JFK Center for Land Warfare, Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. I was in the U.S. Army during the U.S. wars on Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Panama, and the Central American Wars in El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama, Nicaragua. I was also a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. I helped reopen the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan in December of 2001. I was a part of the United Nations operation in Somalia in 1993 and 94. I was the head of the Justice Division for UNISOM for almost six months, where we tried to recreate the Somali police judicial system and prison system. Twenty years ago, I resigned from the federal government in opposition to the war on Iraq. Since then, I've been working with groups around the world to say that war is not the answer, that we've got to use diplomacy, that we've got to stop killing people and work to control weapons. I recounted my history, the unfortunate familiarity and conflict areas in many regions of the world, and our challenge on reliance of many countries, including my own country, the United States, on military action instead of diplomacy to resolve disagreements and conflicts. As a retired colonel and a former diplomat, I speak on my own behalf, but as a concerned citizen who as a taxpayer pays for the weapons my country uses and sells to fuel wars that kill innocent civilians. And I think very much the deputy to the high representative for disarmament affairs for your noting, of course, that it's civilian casualties. That's the need that we have for protecting civilians in these conflict areas. There's no doubt that weapons supplied into conflict areas have, to say generously, a detrimental effect on the prospect for settlement of these conflicts. In fact, the continued supply of weapons will prolong any conflict. So the important question, I think for the Security Council is how do you get the conflicts to end? Well, we know in this institution particularly it is very well known within your halls the process for getting to resolution of conflict is long and many people are killed until there's an agreement for a ceasefire as a first step. Now I'd just like to do a little history of how long these agreements may take us to get to where no more people are killed. The three-year Korean War from 1950 to 1953 it took the discussions for ceasefiring began in 1951 and finally concluded after 575 meetings in 1953. But during that time over 4 million Koreans, 500,000 Chinese, 35,000 U.S. and tens of thousands that were in the U.N. military command were killed. Right now the United States is providing weapons in two conflicts, the Ukraine-Russia conflict and Israel-Gaza. I know much more about, because I'm American citizen, I watch this stuff, how much military equipment is being provided by my country. Just four or five days ago on December 7th in a press conference with the U.K. Foreign Minister David Cameron, Secretary of State Blinken said that in the last two years the U.S. has provided over $70 billion to support Ukraine and European allies have provided over $110 million in weapons. Blinken said, if you look at these investments that we've made in Ukraine's defense to deal with this aggression, 90 percent of the security assistance we've provided has actually been spent here in the United States with our manufacturers, with our production, and that's produced more American jobs, more growth in our own economy. So this has been a win-win that we need to continue. Well, I would say to my Secretary of State, the win-win is not for the civilian in conflict areas. The win-win is for the military industrial complex, really, of all of our countries and the politicians and retired government officials who are offered a senior position immediately after their retirements in these companies. It's certainly not a win-win for the innocent civilians who are killed in these conflicts. I'll just mention that fueling the conflicts with these enormous amounts of weapons that profit politicians and corporations inside and outside the conflicted countries must end. I don't know if you've watched the new Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal that's on the internet now, where U.S. weapon manufacturers, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Atomics are put on trial by a citizen's tribunal for knowingly and producing and selling products that attack and not kill not only combatants but noncombatants as well. So the next session of that is on December 30th and we hope that you will watch that. I'd also like to say on the whole issue of weapons and peace and trying to get the weapons of the world to stop killing innocent civilians that when we do have peace talks, they must not be torpedoed. I mean, the United States of America is allegedly behind the, and I don't think allegedly, I think there's plenty of documentation. I mean, former German Chancellor, the former German counselor has said that his efforts at trying to get peace on Ukraine and Russia were torpedoed by the United States and the Israeli ex-prime minister, Neftali Bennett said the same things. So we must be working for peace and not trying to undo it. I'll just mention at the very end of this please bear with me the whole issue of civilian casualties and you're missing 10,000 in Ukraine and it's horrible, it's horrible everywhere but right now we have over 18,000 people that have been killed in 70 days in Gaza. It is a horrific, horrific thing that the United States is participating in in protecting these acts that the Israeli government knows that are that are killing innocent civilians. This going after Hamas, okay, they're going after them but they're killing over 18,000 people at this point and it's continuing every day. I would certainly urge the United Nations to look very closely at that and continue the work to try to get a ceasefire which my country that on Friday vetoed here in this Security Council which is a shame to all of us Americans. So I would definitely hope that we continue this. I wish the United Nations General Assembly for a vote on this. I'll just end with a short poem. It was written for kids in Gaza but it could be written for kids in Ukraine for anyone else. I write my name on my leg mama. Write my name on my leg mama. Use the black marker, the permanent marker with the ink that doesn't bleed if it gets wet. Write my name on my leg mama and on the legs of my brothers and sisters. This way we will belong together. This way we will be known as your children. Write my name on my leg mama. When the bomb hits our house, when the walls crush our skulls and bones, our legs will tell our story. How there was no place for us to run. On behalf of the people of the world that want to live in peace and safety I say stop the killings ceasefires now and all of these military operations negotiate for disagreements instead of killing people. Thank you.