Senator Joe Speaks Truth

“...it is an awful irony of this debate that many
of the same people who consistently and correctly call on the United
States to do more to stop the bloodshed in Darfur now demand we abandon
the Iraqis.”

“We hear that Sunnis and Shia have been fighting for
centuries, and that no matter how tragic, we cannot possibly hope to
resolve this conflict. We have heard these arguments before. We heard
them in the 1990s about Yugoslavia. We heard them about Rwanda. Like
the euphemism of “civil war,” it is another way for us to distance
ourselves, emotionally and morally, from what is actually happening—and
from the people it is happening to. It allows us to think of these
places as a sort of abstract tragedy, in which there are no victims,
just victimizers, whom we can walk away from with impunity… The wanton
slaughter of innocent people that our soldiers are trying to stop in
Baghdad is not the inevitable product of ancient hatreds, but the
consequence of a deliberate, calculated strategy by an identifiable
group of perpetrators—first and foremost, Al Qaeda.”

“I ask my colleagues: consider what it will mean if Congress
orders our troops to pull back from this battle, just at the moment
that they are taking the initiative. Consider the consequences if we
knowingly and willingly withdraw our forces and abandon one of the few
states in the Middle East to have held free, competitive elections to
extremism and violence...”

“We cannot redeploy from our moral responsibility to the
Iraqis. It is contrary to our traditions; it is contrary to our values;
and it is contrary to our interests. And yet that is precisely what this Congress will be calling for, if we order our troops to withdraw.”

- Joseph Lieberman, addressing the United States Senate

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