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Floor Statements
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CONGRESSMAN LINDER'S FLOOR STATEMENT ON IRAQ RESOLUTION
February 16, 2007
“It has been interesting to listen to this debate over the last many hours. Two speeches would have been enough.”
One side says that this is nothing but politics. This resolution does nothing but insult the troops.
“The other side has retired to opinion polls. The American people want to end this cost of human and financial treasure. They said so in the last election.”
“Thank God John Adams never consulted public opinion polls. There was never a time when more than a third of our nation was in favor of Independence and freedom. Thomas Paine said, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day; that my child may have peace.”
“World War I was not America’s war. No one attacked us. But an attack was made on freedom and we responded. The doubters wondered why we would spend money on a war so far from our shores which didn’t threaten us. The doughboys at Vimmy Ridge knew why they were there.”
“Hitler didn’t attack us. He didn’t even threaten us. He threatened all that freedom meant to the world. And while we were engaged in Southeast Asia, after Pearl Harbor, we still sent troops across the channel on D Day. Many mistakes were made. Troops drowned before getting to the beach. Support aircraft bombed the wrong areas. 9386 Americans died in the battle of Normandy and are buried there.”
“But the Boys of Pointe Du Hoc climbed that ridge under withering machine gun fire. They silenced the machine guns, took out the embankments and walked across Europe and in 11 months Europe was free.”
“We then spent billions of dollars to rebuild a free Europe.”
“After World War II we spent 50 years in a war against an idea. It was the battle of the two great religions. Communism and freedom. When Whittaker Chambers left Communism for Freedom he told his wife that he feared he was moving to the losing side. He knew that Communism could not survive if its people believed in a higher faith. He concluded that freedom could not survive if they did not. He had become a believer. He was unsure if we remained believers.”
“Many of those Cold War years were not pretty. Between 1970 and 1980 the Soviets increased their influence in Cuba, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Nicaragua, Grenada, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, South Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Syria.”
“We watched and were timid. We even had members of this body going to some of those nations’ dictators to apologize for our defense of what we believed. We believed in freedom!”
“When Israel watched its athletes murdered at Munich, we urged caution. When terrorists continued to kill Israeli people we continued to urge caution. For 21 years we urged that great friend not to respond in kind. We were timid.”
“After the attacks against Americans, beginning with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centers, we remained timid. We chose not to engage all of the opportunities we had to be bold. In the face of a declared war against our government and our people – we were timid!”
“And then September 11, 2001. We stood together on the Capitol steps in solidarity that lasted a good week. And then it became politics as usual.”
“I don’t know if this fight for freedom can succeed when about half of our nation doesn’t know we are in it. Nor do I know whether our nation can come to an honest conclusion about what we are engaged in when all they see is the worst side of every thing. When I was last in Iraq a young man told me about going through a city and all of the residents came out to say thank you and throw flowers. He asked the embedded reporter if that was worth a picture. He was told, “That’s not news.” I don’t know how the whole story gets told.”
“I do know this. The president knows that he and his commanders have made some wrong decisions. But he knows, as we must know, that this war has always been about the principle, the virtue, the idea of freedom and to walk away now will have catastrophic consequences for its future.”
“President Bush believes that our nation, more than any other, ought to defend the right of people to live free. That is the only victory we can ever have over an ideology that cannot survive in a free society.”
“President Bush knows why Lincoln said that he often he found himself on his knees because there was nowhere else to go. He also knows, as did Lincoln, that a president must continue to fight for posterity even when it becomes unpopular to do so.”
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