I am not on anyone's payroll, nor do I occupy public office. I am here because I weep for my beloved America. Our nation is in grave peril. The challenge is great, but success is attainable. I want to bestir you to help.
First, a word of introduction. In my 83 years, I have had unique experiences--a veteran of 22 years in Congress and 65 years a champion of civil liberties for all humankind. In World War II, I experienced war close-up. A few weeks after the Japanese surrender, my Seabee battalion was in Japan. I took a side trip to Nagasaki where two months earlier, an atomic bomb incinerated 60,000 human beings.
I deplore anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry. My proudest moments in Congress were voting for civil rights legislation in the 1960s.
I believe deeply in the Rule of Law, not war. In Congress, I offered Rule of Law proposals that would stop the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and later the war in Vietnam. Still later, I urged the Saddam regime in Iraq to place its boundary dispute with Kuwait before the International Court of Justice. Each resolution urged the parties to agree in advance to accept the rulings of the court. No one would listen. The wars went forward--bloody, costly, searing experiences for many people in many lands. Now America is starting its own wars.
We are bogged down in guerilla wars we inflicted on two countries. Did we learn nothing in Vietnam? We forget that guerillas almost always prevail--even against the mightiest, high-tech armies.
Other fundamental questions go unanswered. Why did we invade Iraq? Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat whatever to the United States. Why?
Another why: Why was America the target of terrorists on 9/11? To my knowledge, our government has never tried to find the answer. What brought this holocaust to our shores? Were there deeply-felt grievances we left unattended? Did America do something that provoked fiery retribution?
Foreigners now see us as an imperial nation bent on the military domination of the Middle East and beyond. Our acts of war have torn two nations asunder. In both, our military forces still battle to subdue the insurgents who want us out.
In the name of national security, our government scuttles the doctrine of national sovereignty, the bedrock of the legal rights of nations for more than three centuries. Our government no longer reserves war as an instrument of last resort. We plan more wars. Will Iran be next? Then Syria? Pray to God the answer will be no.
