Duncan Hunter - House Floor Speech (details Graphic Violence)- This is Powerful!

Via FR.
This speech is powerful and shows why I support Duncan Hunter and the war in Iraq. The last paragraph speaks volumes. Duncan Hunter understands the stakes in Iraq. I am thankful we have a man like him serving this country!

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Mr. Speaker, in my office I keep a photo of about a dozen Kurdish mothers whose bodies are strewn across the hillside in northern Iraq, holding their babies, killed in mid-stride where they were gassed to death by Saddam Hussein. As I listened to some folks in this debate talk about what they consider to be an immoral war, an illegal war, an occupation that is not consistent with morality, I harken back to that picture and the thousands of people that it represents, and I harken back also to the exhuming of mass graves with, again, mothers shot in the back of the head with a .45-caliber pistol by Saddam Hussein's executioners and with their little babies similarly with holes in the back of their skulls.

Mr. Speaker, this operation in Iraq is indeed a moral operation. It represents the goodness of the American people.

I am also reminded of something that lots of folks and the Vice President talked about, and that is the goodness that we have brought with the 3 million-plus babies who have been vaccinated, with the hundreds of schools and hospitals that have been built, and with all those expectant mothers that were given prenatal care by the Americans so that their children would be born in a healthy fashion.

But, Mr. Speaker, I recall that in 1984 Ronald Reagan very eloquently asked the American people to support him in bringing freedom to the people of El Salvador. I remember his speech; and in his speech, he harkened back to another American who had appealed to us in bringing freedom to another part of the world, which was at that time endangered, and that was Greece in 1947.

The communists were very close to victory in Greece, and Harry Truman appealed to the American people in a joint session of Congress. He said the free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter, we may endanger the peace of the world, and we shall surely endanger the welfare of this Nation.

Now, we have no guarantee of victory in Iraq. There is no battle plan that comes with a guarantee of victory, but I will tell one thing that is very clear: what is happening in Iraq and our efforts in Iraq are connected and are watched by every terrorist in the world, and that connection is established and travels as fast as the speed of electrons in this age of television and technology and high-paced, fast media and the Internet. They see what we are doing.

And that connection, Mr. Speaker, was made when the Beirut bombings occurred against the Marines in the Marine barracks in Beirut. In fact, I think Mr. Skelton was with me. We were over there very shortly before those bombings occurred.

They are connected and the terrorist world watched very closely when there was no response to that. They watched very closely when there was no response in the Khobar Towers, with respect to the Cole and extremely anemic response with respect to the bombings in the embassies in Africa.

Now we are undertaking an important and difficult mission; and, Mr. Speaker, I pointed out before that at least one brigade of the 82nd Airborne is already in place in Baghdad, now engaged in the operation, and we have a brigade of the Big Red One moving now toward the theater. I believe we have right at 4,000 members of the 82nd Airborne now in country in Iraq, and we have Iraqi soldiers and Americans engaged in the nine sectors of the city already undertaking this operation and this plan that has been developed by our war fighting commanders.

The idea that we are here, poised to retroactively condemn an operation that our soldiers are already carrying out, is, to my mind, remarkable. There is not going to be any force in effect with respect to this vote that will take place shortly that will do anything but send the wrong message to America's allies, and I think you have seen comments by some of our allies over the last several weeks with respect to the message that we send out. We are interesting people are we not, Mr. Speaker. We send out messages with all the electronic gadgets in the world to convey the messages to the entire world, and then we say, you know, we really did not mean what you take our statements to mean and we really did not intend to give anybody the wrong message that we still support the troops.

Well, Mr. Speaker, we have got a number of great members of the Armed Services Committee that I want to yield to, and I want to come back later and talk a little bit later about this war against terror and the centerpiece that is Iraq and the centerpiece of that which is as planned.

You know, I was thinking there was a statement once that in a little hut in Central America when we were standing up to the Communists and we were providing a shield for El Salvador, while that fragile democracy stood up, there was a hut in El Salvador which reportedly had the writing on it, Thank God for Ronald Reagan. I am wondering if some trooper in the 82nd Airborne, in the 2nd brigade of the 82nd Airborne may write on a wall in Baghdad, maybe on Friday when we take this vote, This is the day in which the American Congress condemned the mission that we are carrying out today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.