Saturday, January 06, 2007

3000 American Deaths in Iraq by Ron Paul

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas. Dr. Paul delivered the following words before the US House of Representatives, 5 January 2007. I agree with him that this war would most likely never have been fought if Americans had demanded that their Congressmen follow the Constitution and declare war before sending troops to Iraq.


The regime in Iraq has been changed. Yet victory will not be declared: not only does the war go on, it’s about to escalate. Obviously the turmoil in Iraq is worse than ever, and most Americans no longer are willing to tolerate the costs, both human and economic, associated with this war.

We have been in Iraq for 45 months. Many more Americans have been killed in Iraq than were killed in the first 45 months of our war in Vietnam...

The election is over and Americans have spoken. Enough is enough! They want the war ended and our troops brought home. But the opposite likely will occur, with bipartisan support...

Three thousand American military personnel are dead, more than 22,000 are wounded, and tens of thousands will be psychologically traumatized by their tours of duty in Iraq. Little concern is given to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed in this war. We’ve spent $400 billion so far, with no end in sight.

This is money we don’t have...

Where the additional U.S. troops in Iraq will come from is anybody’s guess...

Some Members of Congress, intent on equitably distributing the suffering among all Americans, want to bring back the draft...

Instead of testing the efficacy of the Selective Service System and sending more troops off to a war we’re losing, we ought to revive our love of liberty. We should repeal the Selective Service Act. A free society should never depend on compulsory conscription to defend itself.

We get into trouble by not following the precepts of liberty or obeying the rule of law. Preemptive, undeclared wars fought under false pretenses are a road to disaster. If a full declaration of war by Congress had been demanded as the Constitution requires, this war never would have been fought. If we did not create credit out of thin air as the Constitution prohibits, we never would have convinced taxpayers to support this war directly from their pockets...


3000 American Deaths in Iraq by Ron Paul

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