A Quote by John Conyers
Mr. Chairman, the price for continuing this war is too high, not only in budgetary terms, but in American lives, Iraqi civilian casualties blamed on America and in the steady increase in the terrorist ranks that this war is provoking around the globe.
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In America, we're getting too comfortable with our ability to take kinetic strikes around the world without having enough process to avoid consistently the kinds of civilian casualties that can end up actually hurting us in the war against radicalization.
The drug war has been a war where the direct casualties have primarily been America's poor; America's minorities; and often, unfortunately, America's vulnerable, in terms of people with disease and addiction and mental health.
During the Cold War, America undertook serious military cuts only once: after the election of Richard Nixon, during the Vietnam War. The result: Vietnam fell to the Communists, the Russians moved into Afghanistan, and American influence around the globe waned dramatically.
The United States is at war with the al Qaeda terrorist group. Al Qaeda is not a nation-state and it has not signed the Geneva Conventions. It shows no desire to obey the laws of war; if anything it directly violates them by disguising themselves as civilians and attacking purely civilian targets to cause massive casualties.
Our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments.
The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance. Now they are trying to write another war plan. Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces.
It takes a disciplined imagination to acknowledge that the less personal savageries of bombs, missiles, artillery and heavy weapons are, to those blown to smithereens, also barbaric. The main horror of what the coalition is doing is not a matter of the occasional soldier who, in the heat of battle, commits a war crime, but the steady destruction rained on cities, villages, the Iraqi people. This violence is wreaked calmly, from a distance, within the rules of engagement. The war itself is the American war crime.
Unfortunately, in war, there are casualties, including among the civilian population.
I don't know of any army that does more than an Israeli army does to avoid civilian casualties. But incidental and unintended casualties accompany every war.
The casualties in the Civil War amount to more than all other wars - all other American wars combined. More people died in that war than World War II, World War I, Vietnam, etc. And that was a war for white supremacy. It was a war to erect a state in which the basis of it was the enslavement of black people.
In addition to declaring and destroying all of its weapons of mass destruction, Iraq must end its support for terrorism. It must cease the persecution of its civilian population. It must stop all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. And it must release or account for all Gulf War personnel, including an American pilot, whose fate is still unknown. By taking these steps, and only by taking these steps, the Iraqi regime has an opportunity to avoid conflict. These steps would also change the nature of the Iraqi regime itself. America hopes the regime will make that choice.
We are organising our enemies into a formidable force, we are The US public has turned against the war, the Republicans and Democrats have turned against the war. And so when the American public turns against the war and the Congress turns against the war, it suggests that Americans feel we cannot win that war in those conditions. So the Iraqi Commission says, "Well, we can't win this war militarily, we need to reassess potential allies." There's Syria, there's Iran.
I think the level of casualties is secondary... [A]ll the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war... What we hate is not casualties but losing.
Turkish-American relations are based on very strong foundations. Currently, we have a war in the region, which could not be prevented, unfortunately. We hope it is a short war ... with minimum casualties.
Declarations of war have never been a constitutional requirement for military action abroad. The United States has used force abroad more than 130 times, but has only declared war five times - the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, and World Wars I and II.
The United States has used force abroad more than 130 times, but has only declared war five times - the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, and World Wars I and II.
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