Bob Filner: “Yes, Mr. Poe, war is hard. I've got news for you: peace is harder. Talk to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Talk to Nelson…”

“Yes, Mr. Poe, war is hard. I've got news for you: peace is harder. Talk to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Talk to Nelson Mandela. Peace is harder. Peace is really hard. I've heard Mr. Poe's words: Victory is close. What message are we sending to our troops? The Alamo as a metaphor for this? Come on, Mr. Poe. And Mr. Poe started with, 'This is about our troops.' That's exactly right: this is about our troops. I would like to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) for allowing us to have a debate. Here we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars, and we've had no real debate. So I thank him for bringing this resolution and allowing us to debate. We need a debate in this democracy so that everybody understands the costs, the costs of war, the costs of not going to war. The material costs, the human costs. This is about our troops. I agree with Mr. Poe. You know, I have been to Iraq and Afghanistan. I have met these incredible young men and women who are fighting this war. As Mr. Poe suggested, they are incredible. It's the policymakers I am worried about. We report as killed in our two wars almost 1,000 in Afghanistan and a little over 4,000 in Iraq. We report around 40,000 casualties. Let me tell you, I am chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee in this Congress. We have had almost 1 million veterans from these wars show up at the VA for injuries received during the war, service-related injuries, hundreds and hundreds of thousands.…”