[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12242]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     STAY THE COURSE? WHAT COURSE?

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 20, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to enter into the record a column by 
Eugene Robinson entitled Stay the Course? What Course? appearing in The 
Washington Post Friday, June 16, 2006.
  Mr. Robinson asks this question more than 3 years after the 
preemptive invasion of Iraq on false pretenses. I too ask this question 
as do many of my fellow Americans and my Democratic colleagues in the 
House of Representatives. The President and House Republican leadership 
have no answer as the so-called ``debate'' on the Global War on Terror 
on June 15th in the House proved.
  For 10 long hours, those who listened to the speeches from the 
Republicans from the floor of the House heard unremitting propaganda 
with 1983 bomb attacks, the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie Scotland, the 
first attack on the World Trade Towers, the bombing of the United 
States embassies in Africa, and over and over again the about the 
terror attacks by al-Qaeda on 9/11.
  Not only was a plan for an end of the Iraq war not mentioned--all 
cited these attacks which were cited had nothing to do with Iraq. They 
had not even a de minimus connection with Iraq or even with the present 
situation in which we find ourselves. These reminders of past acts of 
al-Qaeda were merely a piling on of the non-existent connection between 
al-Qaeda and Iraq. So, instead of a plan for bringing our soldiers home 
from Iraq, the Republicans continued in their unrelenting propaganda 
answering no genuine questions the American people want answered.
  I am tired of hearing about ``free democratic elections'' in Iraq and 
the school houses our troops have painted. We did not go to war to set 
up free elections in Iraq. I am also tired of hearing how grateful our 
gravely wounded troops are to have had their legs blown off for the 
freedom of our country. Republicans should be embarrassed to repeat 
those stories.
  Those are not good stories. I wanted to hear the Republican plan to 
make sure no one else has to lose their legs and their arms and their 
sight for my ``freedom.'' My freedom is threatened by the PATRIOT Act 
and a President who believes he can violate the Fourth Amendment at 
will. My freedom was never threatened by Saddam Hussein.
  I am also hearing from the party of the endless war in Iraq that the 
Democrats have no plan. The Democrats made it clear yesterday in our 
statements last week that the House Democrats' plan is the Murtha 
Resolution. It was also made clear that the Republicans are afraid to 
hear a Democratic plan by the Republican majority voting for a Rule for 
the ``debate'' that did not allow any amendments to the Resolution by 
the Democrats. The Republican Leadership made this the Rule for the 
``debate and pushed it through ignoring the democracy they so applaud 
when the Iraqis show any faint signs of achieving it.
  Eugene Robinson wrote in the Post: ``Fresh from his triumphal visit 
to Baghdad--a place so dangerous he had to sneak in without even 
telling the Iraq prime minister--George W. Bush is full of new resolve 
to stay the course in his open-ended ``war on terror. That leaves the 
rest of us to wonder, in sadness and frustration, just what that course 
might be and where on earth it can possibly lead.''
  Thirty-seven months since the President declared the ``end of major 
combat'' in Iraq he has given the American people platitudes, rhetoric, 
slogans, or worse, fear of an ``evil ideology'' and ``evil doers.'' But 
he has given us no real plan, not even a hint of a plan for the conduct 
of the war, the reconstruction of the Iraq, the plan to begin the 
withdrawal of American troops or the metrics by which we can define 
``victory'' in Iraq.
  George W. Bush wanted to be a ``war president'' and whatever acts and 
whatever lies it took, he became a war president. Now it is apparent he 
will stay a war president no matter what the American people want. He 
plainly said the next president would have to find an exit plan so our 
men and women can finally come home from Iraq.
  But Bush's war and his need to be a war president have serious 
consequences. Some of these are pointed out by Eugene Robinson; ``Three 
desperate suicides at Guantanamo is answered by Rear Adm. Harry 
Harris's all-about-me lament--'' I believe this . . . was an act of 
asymmetrical warfare waged against us.'' He wrote: ``This is a `war' in 
which the United States drops two 500-pound bombs with the express 
intent of assassinating Abu Musab al Zarqawi the leader of al-Qaeda in 
Iraq, a group that wouldn't have existed if Bush hadn't decided to 
invade.'' If Iraqi civilians are killed in a bomb attack such as the 
one on the Zarqawi safe house we did not say we were sorry about those 
civilians. Zarqawi was a ``high value target.'' We said we are sorry 
that a ``few bad apples'' did bad things at Abu Ghraib prison. Or 
pardon us if a few soldiers killed civilians in cold blood, but after 
all we are at war.
  Mr. Robinson wrote that if the Iraqi government does pardon Iraqis 
who have killed Americans we will have taught them well. ``They'll be 
saying `pardon me' just like their American tutors.''
  Mr. Robinson reminds us that the jhadists of today were forged 
fighting Russians in Afghanistan. The next generation are being forged 
today fighting Americans in Iraq. He also reminds us that Iraq is just 
one theater in Bush's war. He writes: ``Afghanistan is once again 
`ablaze' with counterattacks by Taliban.''
  Mr. Robinson is right: ``American's popularity in the world continues 
to fall. But George W. Bush forges ahead, trying vainly to kill a 
poisonous retrograde ideology with bullets and bombs. His `war' is 
self-perpetuating, and no one even knows what victory would look like. 
Long after he's gone, we'll still be looking for a way to end the mess 
he began.''

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