At a parliamentary meeting in Portugal, after NATO awarded U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi the latest "Women in Peace and Security Award," she laughed about the issue of "world domination" in her "acceptance speech." Pelosi flew to Europe last week to attend a summit of speakers of parliaments of 20 in Italy, visited the Vatican, met with Pope Francis, and then accepted the NATO award from its own family in Lisbon, Portugal.
Pelosi laughed and said, "When people ask me, 'If you ruled the world, what would you do?'" I think of this a lot. Later, she asked herself, "We will give priority to the education of women and girls... Because we firmly believe that as long as women succeed, America will succeed, and any country will succeed. But globally, we've all succeeded. ”
Pelosi added, "Thank you to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, thank you all for giving me this wonderful award, and I will be extremely proud to demonstrate this in the Office of the Speaker of Parliament, as a constant reminder and inspiration to myself about the work you have done, and to remind yourself of the importance of Parliament in the work of security, economics and governance that has brought us here today." ”
Despite the serious fighting between the two parties in the United States, Pelosi said, "I am very excited to discuss the cooperation between the two parties in the US Congress on multilateralism here." I think it's important, parliament is important, bipartisan cooperation is important. ”
In her speech that day, Pelosi also reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to NATO. "The U.S. commitment to the Transatlantic Partnership is proud, as I said, bipartisan but it's also indestructible because we recognize NATO as a pillar of peace and security in the world," she said. As a former member of NATO Parliament, one of my key priorities as Speaker has been to reaffirm and strengthen U.S. commitment to NATO. ”
Pelosi also added that more women and people of color can make the intelligence community stronger, "We talk about our security, our military, it's very important, our diplomacy, it's very important, but our intelligence side is also important." So, I want the face of American security to focus more on women and people of color, in all of those areas. ”
The 81-year-old Democrat from California, who spoke at the 67th NATO parliamentary session as leader of the U.S. delegation, is also the historic first laureate of the newly established Women's Peace and Security Award. The award was established after the Alliance's summit in October 2020 with the formal purpose of recognizing women who "participate equally with men and women in the area of peace and security" or protect women in conflict, or "mainstream women's needs and perspectives" in post-conflict relief and recovery.
Pelosi was elected by a jury of members of NATO Parliament and the Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security, and she received the honour from newly elected Parliamentary President Gerald Connolly. Gerald Connolly is a virginia congressman and a fellow Democrat to Pelosi. In his speech, Pelosi said NATO is not only a security alliance, but also a "cohesive force built around values." What drives world peace is "more than just the security and fairness of our economy." But it's also about values and governance. ”
She also commended NATO's efforts to "mainstream a gender perspective into peacekeeping operations and give priority to increasing the representation of women at all decision-making levels". Pelosi also declared that NATO has played a "very important role" in the 20-year education of Afghan women and girls, "We can't let it pass, let it pass, because it's not just about women." It's what it means for Afghanistan. It's not just about Afghanistan. It's about the security of the world, it's about the security of Afghan women. ”
She also praised NATO's "success and cooperation" in Afghanistan. Six weeks ago, the last NATO soldier left Kabul in a U.S. freighter to hand afghanistan over to the Taliban. Ironically, the NATO-backed Afghan government collapsed two weeks ago after barely fighting.