(Washington, DC) - The coalition of the willing no longer is.

 If those who are no longer with us are against us, then we have lost the support and admiration of the entire world.

 Those of us who came of age in the 60's, believing that war is the ultimate breakdown of civilized process, have done the unthinkable: we trusted our leadership when we should have questioned more.

 We gave war a chance.

 We called upon our sons and daughters entering the prime of their young lives to step up as had generations before them, to defend our freedom and our liberty, against an Iraqi nuclear threat that did not exist. Our young people did not disappoint. They answered the call, and have been fighting bravely and ferociously, putting their lives on the line every day for going on four and a half years. They followed the orders of their officers, right up to the Commander-in-Chief. And a grateful nation can indeed ask no more. They did not disappoint

But it is we who let them down. Tragically.

We are reminded that the President is the Commander-in Chief, and indeed he is.  He sent them to fight and die in a war based on a faulty and tortuously shifting premise. That we in our positions of great trust were misled and then misplaced our trust, does not excuse us. 

He sent them to fight in a war without equipping them properly, and as many generals believe, initially in insufficient numbers. 

With an abundance of prayers, but inadequate plans, he sent them to fight international terrorists. But instead, they are mired down, enmeshed and are being slaughtered in someone else’s sectarian and deadly civil war while the real terrorists prepare to retake Afghanistan.

Six years ago I voted with the President. He is our President. I did not want him to fail. His failure is our country's failure. And that is not acceptable.

But here is where we are:

We have lost the support of even those in the region who wanted Saddam’s demise.

We have not found the real terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

We have lost the support of the coalition of the willing.

We have lost the support of our major allies.

We have lost the prestige and admiration of the world.

We have lost our credibility.

We have lost the confidence of the American people.

And we have lost over 3000 precious lives of our bravest, patriotic, and promising young citizens.

I voted with the President and I was wrong. But I know I was wrong. Grown-ups know that not every story has a happy ending. Regardless of good intentions.

 I'm afraid this is one such story. I'm afraid we have been led into a dead end chasm from which there is no easy escape. Under the administration’s leadership, everything has gone wrong.

So what do we do now? Do we compound the disaster?

Perhaps we can learn from the great Iraqi poet, Omar Kyayyam, who in The Rubaiyat wrote:

“The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,

Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a single Word of it.”

Mr. Speaker, sending 20,000 additional troops is not a change of plans. It is merely an escalation.  About one out of every 40 people we send comes home in a casket. As an old math teacher, I can tell you by extrapolation that sending 20,000 more brings home 500 more dead. Little else changes.

This vote is indeed non-binding. It is the little boy in the crowd yelling "The Emperor has no plan."  Mr. Speaker, managing failure is unpleasant, but reinforcing it is criminal.  Vote for the resolution so that we might help the President avoid compounding this disaster. 

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