On the recordJuly 1, 2010
I speak tonight in support of peace. The hardest thing that we often do as human beings is this, to admit that we are wrong. It's not easy. We all know it. We don't look forward to it. And sometimes we feel bad afterward. But we have to admit we are wrong when we are wrong, because if we don't we keep hurting ourselves. And that's exactly what we see in Iraq and Afghanistan. At this point, we are hurting ourselves. We are hurting ourselves extremely deeply. We have spent over $3 trillion pursuing these wars. That's over $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country. We have put our whole national economy at risk, bringing it to the brink of national bankruptcy. We have killed thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of Afghans, and of Iraqis. We have shed blood all over the Middle East at this point. And in addition to that, we have done lasting damage to ourselves as a country on a moral level, on an economic level, and on a level of the health of the young men and women who serve us. A quarter of a million of them left with permanent brain abnormalities. We are hurting ourselves. We are a strong country. We decide when wars begin and when wars end, and we have to decide to end this one right now.
