Turning Point In War On Terrorism

Floor Speech

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I thank the gentleman for yielding. Because of its prestige in the history of our Nation, the Presidency and its occupants are often envied. This view is erroneous, because within the Presidency comes the requirement to make painful, agonizing decisions between war and peace, between life and death. Many of its past occupants have said that it is the loneliest of places in the United States to be in that Oval Office when the weight of these demands fall upon your shoulders.

Understanding this and empathizing with our President and fully understanding our role as the servants of the sovereign citizens who sent us here, we have to offer the President honest advice for his consideration in just such circumstances. I do so today.

We have seen the report from the commanding General on the ground, General McChrystal, who was appointed by the President to implement the President's counterinsurgency strategy. I applauded that move. I applauded the President's willingness to go to a counterinsurgency strategy.

We have of late seen tendered to the President the recommendations of General McChrystal as to how we can, yes, still achieve victory in Afghanistan. The report said that we can have a status quo and not achieve victory. We can have 40,000 troops and a full counterinsurgency effort--or we could have more than 40,000 and a full counterinsurgency--to win.

The President is now faced with a momentous decision. The decision is whether we shall have victory or we shall have defeat, a defeat which, however disguised, as a withdrawal or otherwise, will be viewed by our enemies, our allies, and the Afghan people as a defeat.

It is my sincere hope that the President supports and implements the General's request for at least 40,000 additional troops and a full counterinsurgency strategy so that the United States, their allies, and the Afghan people can be free.

You see, within the context of this decision, the President must consider, obviously, the lives of our troops in the field, our allies in the Afghans. The President must weigh the consequences to our Nation and the world of a revanchist Taliban return to power, an emboldened al Qaeda, and the dangers that it imposes not only for the people of Afghanistan and the United States, but to Afghanistan's neighbors, such as Pakistan, and to our allies, who will continue to be the targets of terrorism, as will ourselves.

In weighing this, he will also have to think about the honor of the United States, a Nation which throughout its history has posed a threat to tyrants and terrorists throughout the globe--not because of our actions, but because of our existence.

It is our existence as a free people and a people large enough of heart to expand that liberty to others to defend it here for ourselves, that we have, throughout our history, faced challenges, both martial and ideological.

Within the context of Afghanistan, a decision for a withdrawal that will constitute a defeat means that the United States of America will say to the people of Afghanistan: You will again be returned to the murderous regime of the Taliban. Women will be again treated as second class citizens. Children will again grow up in a culture of violence and hatred directed at other people, and the United States will have broken its word to them.

Today, there are decisions even greater than the one the President faces being made. It is by our men and women in uniform, our allies in the Afghans, who every day wake up fully conscious and devoted to the cause of human freedom in Afghanistan, despite whatever the Taliban and al Qaeda and others may do to them.

It is this type of decision, this type of bravery, this type of commitment to the God-given right to liberty that is possessed by every soul on this Earth that motivates ourselves and our allies in the Afghans. And I would urge the President that, in coming to your decision, you never forget that; that the strength of the United States is our willingness to sacrifice for the expansion of liberty to others to defend freedom for ourselves; that our security is from strength, not surrender; and that throughout our history and throughout the future of this free Republic we will never betray our word to oppressed peoples we have helped to come to emancipate, for in doing so we will betray our own birthright as free citizens and endanger our own security.

Let us pray for our President as he makes this fateful decision and let us hope he comes to the right one--a victory in Afghanistan, a victory for the Afghan people, a victory for the cause of human freedom in our all-too-tortured world.

I yield back to the gentleman from California.

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