Bob Barr: “I support this resolution. I support this legislation. However, we ought to be here this evening debating a declaration…”

“I support this resolution. I support this legislation. However, we ought to be here this evening debating a declaration of war. Somebody once said that if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it looks like a duck, then it is a duck. This is war. The President has said it is war. The Secretary of State has said it is war. The Secretary of Defense has said it is war. Former government officials have said it is war. The American people know it is war. There is one way and one way only, Mr. Speaker, to respond to acts of war, and that is to declare war. Give the President the tools, the absolute flexibility he needs under international law and The Hague Convention to ferret these people out wherever they are, however he finds them, and get it done as quickly as possible. We need a declaration of war. I urge my colleagues to keep that in mind and to support a declaration of war above and beyond this power that we will give the President this evening.”