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| A MUST READ FOR ALL AMERICANS |
ETWolverine |
02/07/07 |
Excerpts from a speech by Joe Leiberman to Congress. This is must-read material for anyone who questions the war in Iraq. THIS is the speech that Bush should have given.
New York Post
A BATTLE OF WILLS
By JOE LIEBERMAN
February 7, 2007 -- EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is adapted from Sen. Joseph Lieberman's remarks to the Senate Monday on the Warner-Levin resolution to condemn the president's new Iraq strategy.
OUR nation has reached a critical crossroad in the war in Iraq. A new course has been chosen; a new commander is in place - and a new strategy has begun to be put into action on the ground by our troops.
It is altogether proper that we debate our policy in Iraq. It should be a debate that is as serious as the situation in Iraq and that reflects the powers the Constitution gives to Congress in matters of war. But that is not the debate this resolution invites.
The resolution before us won't stop the new strategy from going forward. Instead, its sponsors say, it will send a message of rebuke from the Senate to the president, from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other. But there is a world beyond Pennsylvania Avenue that is watching and listening.
What we say here is being heard in Baghdad by Iraqi moderates, trying to decide whether the Americans will stand with them.
We are being heard by our men and women in uniform, who will be interested to know if we support the plan they've begun to carry out.
We are being heard by the leaders of the thuggish regimes in Iran and Syria, and by al Qaeda terrorists, eager for evidence that America's will is breaking.
And we are being heard across America by our constituents, who are wondering if their Congress is capable of serious action, not just hollow posturing.
This resolution is not about taking responsibility. It is the opposite - a resolution of irresolution.
If you believe that Gen. David Petraeus and his new strategy have a reasonable chance of success, then resolve to support him and his troops through the difficult days ahead. If you believe that this new strategy is flawed or that our cause is hopeless, then vote to stop it. Vote to cut off funds. Vote for a binding timeline for U.S. withdrawal. Have the courage of your convictions to accept the consequences of your convictions. That would be a resolution.
The non-binding measure before us, by contrast, is an accumulation of ambiguities and inconsistencies: at once for the war but also against the war; pledging support to the troops in the field but also washing its hands of what they are doing.
Cynics may say this kind of thing happens all of the time in Congress. They're wrong: If it passed, this resolution would be unique in American legislative history.
I contacted the Library of Congress on this question last week; I was told that, never before, when American soldiers have been in harm's way, fighting and dying in a conflict that Congress had voted to authorize, has Congress turned around and passed a resolution like this, disapproving of a particular battlefield strategy.
We heard from Gen. Petraeus during his confirmation hearing that war is a battle of wills. Our enemies believe they're winning in Iraq today. They believe that they can outlast us; that, sooner or later, we'll tire of this grinding conflict and go home.
That's the lesson that Osama bin Laden took from our retreats from Lebanon and Somalia in the ྌs and ྖs. It is a belief at the core of the insurgency in Iraq, and of radical Islam worldwide. And this resolution - by codifying our disunity, by disavowing the mission our troops are about to undertake - confirms our enemies' belief in American weakness.
What does this resolution tell our soldiers? I know that everyone here supports our troops - but actions have consequences, often unintended. When we send a message of irresolution, it doesn't support our troops. When we renounce their mission, it doesn't support our troops.
Everyone here knows that the American people are frustrated about the lack of progress in Iraq. Everyone here shares that frustration. And as elected representatives of the people, everyone here feels pressure to give expression to that frustration.
But this challenge is one that every democracy in every long, difficult war has had to confront. Nearly a century and a half ago, an American president wrestled with just this problem. It was in the midst of a terrible war - a civil war - in which hundreds of thousands of Americans were fighting and dying to secure the freedom of millions long and cruelly denied it.
"We here highly resolve" - that was Lincoln's message at Gettysburg. It was a message of resolution, of conviction against adversity, of hope against despair, and of confidence in the cause of freedom, which is America's cause.
Today, in the depths of a terrible war, on the brink of a decisive battle for Baghdad, let us have a serious debate about where we stand and where we must go in Iraq. That's the debate we should have - but not the debate that this resolution would bring.
------------------------
Why aren't more people in a position to speak out saying this?
Elliot |
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 02/07/07 8:15 pm:
just found this observation by John Batchelor about the Legislative Branch :
There is general sympathy with the opinion that something useful must happen with regard the Iraq theater. It is a puzzle how this yearning could remake Congress into a star chamber.
Congress is designed to hold meetings. Five hundred and thirty-five American citizens with money to spend and attitude to waste can agree on very little. This is not an opinion. It is my reading of the history of Congress -- and all the more so during wartime. Congress is a legislative body, for making laws that may or may not be Constitutional; it is not an executive body for directing battles. It is for pettifoggery and spreading the blame and now and again for representing common sense.
It was deliberately not given the power by the Founders to make war. Yikes. The Founders saw what a serpentine mess Congress made of Washington's encampment at Valley Forge in 1777-78. There were only about 19 members of Congress at the time, and it is easy to lose count how many coups, changes of heart, betrayals, false promises and plain lies those 19 created for the sad shoeless Continental Army.
Sacking Washington and making peace with Parliament was just the top of the schemes. During the Civil War, Congress had notions that would have hanged most of Lee's officer cadre, when captured, and shot most of the New York political class, when elected.
Congress wanted to start a war with Britain, replace Lincoln with either Stanton or Chase, turn Seward into the Prime Minister, and put the Democratic members of Congress in Old Capitol Prison, without a warrant, when they voted against anything less than vengeance.
Congress is a happy stew. Self-satisfied, colorful, now and again droll, and busy with its booster projects and pocket-lining practices. We pay it badly because it spends badly. The best that can be said for Congress, in 1777 or in 2007, is that we have the names of the rascals comes the day for settling up or just moving on.
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