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11/29/2005:
"Scott Ritter transcript and audio"
...The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, we live in very sad times, and, if you reflect long and hard on the reality of the issue, as I’m sure everyone in this room does, not just sad times but depressing times. I’m not going to say much here tonight that’s going to give you hope because there’s not much to be hopeful about. We are in a war that shows no inclination of ever ending. Yes, there’s a lot of rhetoric in congress now about ‘let’s create new benchmarks that need to be fulfilled in Iraq so that we can have a time table of bringing the troops home.’ But, ladies and gentlemen, that’s just political rhetoric because the benchmarks they talk about putting in place are unrealistic. Therefore, there will never be a time line. And let’s keep in mind that this is a congress that voted for the war, Republican and Democrat alike, and they are trapped by that vote to the extent that they cannot meaningfully interfere with the Bush administration’s plans on Iraq, and the plans of the Bush administration regarding Iraq was most recently articulated by Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, when she told the congress of the United States that we will be in Iraq for at least ten years. All right, this is the reality. See, I told you that it wasn’t going to be very uplifting. This is the reality, and we have to deal with the reality, because if we don’t deal with the reality, if we don’t have a true grasp of what is happening as we speak, there cannot be a solution. Now one of the things that they pounded in my head early on when I joined the Marine Corps was that, before we talk about solving a problem, Lieutenant (because every Lieutenant has a solution to every problem in the world. We were the smartest people on the face of the Earth. I’m sure you businesspeople see that with your young executives. High school teachers see that with every new student that comes in. They’re the smartest, the brightest. They have the answer to everything. ) But the answer to what? What problem are we solving? Don’t talk to me about a solution until you’ve defined the problem, and right now, In Washington, D.C. and right across the country, we’ve got a whole host of people now that suddenly are anti-war. It’s amazing how many anti-war people have come out of the woodwork now that President Bush’s popularity ratings have plummeted down to an all-time low. Where were these people of courage when we needed them? Where were they when they could have made a difference, when they could have stopped the war? Well, they weren’t anti-war back then because it wasn’t convenient to be anti-war.traprockpeace.org
