[Dialogue] Speech by Robert Byrd on national priorities

[Charles or Doris Hahn]

Do people like Byrd not run any more, or do we just
not elect them (not withstanding scripture
references)?

Doris Hahn


Published on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 by
CommonDreams.org  
A Call for Debate on National Priorities  
by US Senator Robert Byrd
Speech delivered on the floor of the US Senate
September 13, 2005
 
  
Chapter 3, Verses 1-8 of the Book of Ecclesiastes in
the Bible begins, "To everything there is a season and
a time for every purpose under heaven." It is time for
a national debate, and its purpose is our country's
future. 

Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to put events into
perspective -- to shake us and sharpen our clarity of
vision. The wrath of Katrina, tragic and devastating
for thousands, must certainly have caused many
thinking Americans to consider anew the proper
priorities for our country. Who among us has not
wondered if the efforts to rescue and evacuate Gulf
Coast residents suffered because too many National
Guardsmen have been detailed and detained in Iraq?
What thinking American has not pondered why we had
such a painfully slow response to a behemoth storm
which we knew for days would likely turn New Orleans
into a cauldron of despair. Is there anyone in our
great country that did not feel the painful outrage of
the citizens of New Orleans and Louisiana and
Mississippi as they waited for days without food and
water or knowledge about loved ones? 

Who among us did not shrink in dread from the specter
of our fellow citizens' bodies floating in the murky
flood waters or stacked in hospital stairwells for
want of anywhere else to house them? Could this be
happening in a major American city? Could we be so
inept at dealing with this tragedy? The events of the
past several days seem to have reduced our much touted
American know-how and technology to little more than
children's toys, strangely impotent in a real crisis.
I know that many Americans cringed, as I did, at the
vision of callous neglect of our poorest and most
vulnerable citizens which flashed around the world,
making the United States appear to be a nation
unmindful of its own, a nation unable to handle a
disaster about which it had ample notice, a country
loudly touting our form of government to the world,
while failing to provide even the most basic
protections to our own citizens. 

If Katrina has any redeeming impact, it must be to
cause us to see ourselves as others must surely see
us. I regret to say that the picture cannot be a
pretty one. That image is certainly not one that
reflects the humanitarian goodness and morality of the
vast majority of the American people. The perception
of the United States in these troubled times should be
a cause of major concern for everyone who holds public
office. Regardless of political party, it is time to
look at where we are, and where we are going. 

Few would now argue that the war in Iraq has improved
the world's view of the United States. It was an
unnecessary and ill-conceived conflict which
distracted us from our proper course of bombing the
terrorist training grounds of Afghanistan. I have
never bought the absurd claim by some that we are
fighting terrorists in Iraq so we will not have to
fight them here at home. That claim is a non sequitur
at best and, at worst, a patent distortion of what has
happened in Iraq. The war in Iraq created a hot bed of
terrorism where none existed before. And it insured
Osama bin Laden an endless supply of recruits, now
even more fanatic in their hatred after scandals at
Abu Ghraib, and the destruction of so many innocent
lives in Iraq as a result of our invasion. 

"For everything there is a season. . ." sayeth the
Bible. The season has come for Americans to look
homeward. Instead of continuing to spend billions in
Iraq, let us husband those our hard-earned tax dollars
and spend them here at home. The Iraqi people must
slowly find their own way now. Further U.S. dictated
deadlines are counter productive. We cannot force-feed
democracy to Iraq. To keep large numbers of American
soldiers in Iraq much longer only earns the United
States more enmity, reinforcing our unfortunate global
image as conqueror not liberator. The Iraqi people
must begin to take it from here. In fact, there is no
longer a "war" in Iraq. We started that conflict and
we met the goals established at its outset. Now there
is a slow, festering, internal political struggle
pitting Shiite against Sunni, against Kurd, which will
play itself out, perhaps for decades, until it either
devolves into outright civil war or resolves into some
sort of compromise which suits those who live in the
country of Iraq. We cannot resolve Iraq's internal
issues. It is time for the United States to begin to
bring our troops home. 

The invasion of Iraq was never supposed to be an
open-ended peacekeeping mission, with our troops mired
amid the chaos of continuing urban warfare. We need to
bring them home, with a hearty, "Job well done." We
should begin with the National Guard. Obviously, they
are needed here. They are an integral part of our
first responder team in the event of a terrorist
attack or if, God forbid, another natural disaster
were to strike. 

It is time to come home, America. Time to look within
our own borders and within our own souls. There are
many questions to be answered and many missions to
accomplish right here on our own soil. We have
neglected too much for too long in our own backyard.
"To every thing there is a season, . . . a time to
break down and a time to build up. . . ." 

If we had spent the money a few years back to rebuild
those levees on the Gulf Coast, thousands would be
alive today. Perhaps we can finally see the value of
that budgetary stepchild called public works. All
across this country there are years of neglect of the
basic infrastructure of the United States that cry out
for attention. We have delayed for decades and the
needs are only growing. There are antiquated sewer and
water systems, built a century ago, in our major
cities. Washington, D.C. has water not always safe to
drink. Rural communities live with black mud coming
out of their faucets. There are unsafe bridges, aging
reservoirs, schools without adequate heat or modern
learning tools all around our land. Homeland Security
needs are underfunded. Yet, we continue to commit
billions to rebuild Iraq, while our own needs go
begging. Is it not now painfully evident to everyone
that we must make basic investments in our own country
a national and urgent priority? 

Imagine a major terrorist attack on the heels of a
catastrophe like Katrina. I have to believe that Osama
or one of his henchmen is taking notes as we struggle
with the devastation left in Katrina's wake. 

Our economic resources are stretched dangerously thin,
and so is our military might. We have taken on too
much, turned our backs on cooperation with the
international community, decided to go it alone and
pursue some grandiose scheme of remaking the world in
our own image. By now it should be clear to all that
grand experiments are very, very costly. It is time
for a national epiphany. The sound of Katrina's bugle
must be heeded. We cannot continue to commit billions
in Iraq when our own people are so much in need, not
only now, in New Orleans, but all across America for
everything from education to health care to homeland
security to securing our own borders. We need to stop
making excuses, stop spinning the facts, and come to
grips with the unpleasant truth. The government of the
United States is failing the American people. 

Where is the national debate about our priorities
which Katrina should prompt? What does it take to wake
us up? It is a debate that must begin, if not on this
Senate Floor, then in the barber shops and grocery
stores of America and in the print and broadcast media
of this great nation. 

It is past time for that debate and high time for all
of us to realize that there is nothing more patriotic
than taking a good, hard, honest look at our national
priorities. We the people always have that right. A
strong republic depends upon just that kind of
periodic soul-searching. Does our moral sense of
ourselves translate into government policies? I
believe that, presently, it does not. We have a
disconnect in government policy in everything from a
tarnished U.S. image abroad to a failure to address
gasoline shortages, and skyrocketing prices that will
certainly slow our economic engine and take their toll
on working people. Instead of asking the public not to
buy more gas than needed, I wish somebody would ask
the giant oil companies to pass up some profits and
help hold down gas prices as a patriotic gesture for
our country. Would that be so outrageous? And why have
we not had the vision to invest in alternative energy
sources on a grand scale to free us from the addiction
to foreign oil? 

For too long our great land has been allowed to drift
toward balkanization - - a separation between the
haves and have nots, with the lower end of the income
scale at risk from a tattered safety net, and a
neglected infrastructure, lacking the jobs and the
housing they need, the health care to stay well, the
insurance to cover hospital stays, or the educational
opportunity to prepare for the future. I remember an
America that used to feel more like one country - - an
America that shared the sacrifice of war, and
tightened its belt so we could pay for it. Now we
borrow to go to war, and cut taxes to spare those in
high brackets from sacrifice. Where is the sense of
shared destiny? It has taken nature's own weapon of
mass destruction, a category 4 hurricane, to remind us
that we are all Americans, and that our government has
a moral obligation to serve us all. 

This country is on the wrong track and the course
needs correcting. Continued denial serves no good
purpose. Further loss of American life in Iraq may
permanently sour the American people on future
military action, and damage recruitment for our
all-volunteer force. "To every thing there is a
season, . . . a time to kill, and a time to heal. . .
." We have seen the fallacy of sending too many
members of the National Guard to the Middle East. As I
speak, we have lost 1,886 sons and daughters in Iraq
and there seems to be no end in sight. We have 137,000
troops still serving in Iraq with 2,000 more scheduled
to go in in October. We are building at least four
semi-permanent bases in Iraq structured to hold 18,000
troops each. That does not sound like "staying not one
day longer than needed" to me. 

In truth, most Americans no longer support a massive
deployment in Iraq. Nor do they understand the mission
of that continued deployment. Despite repeated
directives by the Congress, the "powers that be"
refuse to actually budget for Iraq, so that a total
picture of our fiscal situation is deliberately
obscured. We are driving our country ever deeper into
debt, and stretching every resource we possess to the
breaking point. Prudence demands that we reassess our
posture. Our inept and pathetic response to Katrina
has underlined our vulnerabilities and writ them large
before the world. The American people deserve better
than this. 

I call upon the leaders of this country to come
together and to work together to repair our
storm-ravaged Gulf Coast and help salvage the lives of
its victims, but more than that. I call upon the
Congress to inventory our homeland with an eye to the
future. Let us look around America and target our
deficiencies. Let us work with state and local
communities to shore up our weaknesses. We must react
in a crisis, of course, but, for God's sake, let us
finally understand that we must also anticipate the
future, and be unafraid to commit the resources to
make us strong at home. The lesson of Katrina most
surely is that an ounce of prevention is worth several
tons of cure. And we need to also learn that we cannot
long remain a world power if we continue to let
America crumble from within. The alarm bells are
sounding and we must answer the call. This is no time
to play for partisan advantage. This is certainly not
the season to circle the wagons and hunker down. We
need not stretch our brains to write new talking
points or invent new excuses. And please, oh please,
let us not resort to the trusty bureaucratic ruse of
simply reorganizing government agencies once again. 

It is time for real leadership. It is the season for
true humility. The Bible says, "Pride goeth before
destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." For
years we have been getting it wrong in Washington, but
if we have the will, we can begin to get it right. The
American people deserve leaders with the honesty to
take responsibility for failures, and the wisdom to
change when change is so obviously and urgently
needed. May God grant us the grace. 
 


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