Kennedy's statement on Iraq - "To be just, a war must have a just cause"

[The Straight Story]

STATEMENT OF SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY ON IRAQ
(As Prepared for Delivery)
July 17, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mr. President, these are very difficult days in our history. The war in Iraq continues to impose an unacceptably heavy toll on our military, their families, our national security, and our ability to lead the world. I intend to vote for the Levin-Reed amendment, and I urge the Senate to approve it.

America is paying an enormous cost for a war we never should have fought, and it’s time to bring it to an end.

The war has divided us here at home, and it has made us more isolated in the world. Never before, even in the Vietnam War, has America taken such massive military action with so little international support.

As the intelligence community confirmed yet again today, the war has become a significant recruitment tool for Al Qaeda. It said, we assess that Al Qaeda’s “association with Al Qaeda Iraq helps Al Qaeda to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks.” This has obviously made the war on terrorism harder – not easier – to win.

Nevertheless, the Administration still continues to turn a deaf ear to all the voices calling for change. It continues to plead for more and more time to pursue its failed course in Iraq.

Republicans in the Senate continue to filibuster any effort to outline a clear timetable for the withdrawal of American troops.

The disastrous consequences of our policy could have been avoided if the President and his advisors had asked the right questions before rushing headlong into an unnecessary and unjust war.

In my church, there are six principles which guide the determination of “just war.” They were first developed by St. Augustine in the Fifth Century and expanded by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Thirteenth Century.

To be just, a war must have a just cause, confronting a danger that is beyond question. It must be declared by legitimate authority acting on behalf of the people. It must be driven by the right intention, not ulterior, self-interested motives. It must be a last resort. It must be proportional, so that the harm inflicted does not outweigh the good achieved. And it must have a reasonable chance of success.

These are the sound criteria by which the President should have judged our war in Iraq. But he failed our men and women in uniform by refusing to seek honest answers to these important questions before recklessly plunging the nation into war.

We now know – with crystal clarity – that the war in Iraq did not meet these criteria.

Saddam did not pose the kind of threat that justified this war. But we went to war anyway, without legitimate support from the international community.

http://kennedy.senate.gov/newsroom/press_release.cfm?id=24735607-90A8-4639-AEBD-4B866372F2CA

[BushOut06]

1. Haven't you heard, this war does have a just cause

We're bringing Christianity and Democracy to those Arab savages! :sarcasm:

[indepat]

2. Besides, it's just what the PNAC agenda called for