Thomas Mott Osborne: “I think everyone that I know in this body agonizes over an additional $87 billion supplemental spending bill. No one is…”

“I think everyone that I know in this body agonizes over an additional $87 billion supplemental spending bill. No one is real happy about it. While we may disagree on some of the details, I hope that we can agree on two things. Number one, we are engaged in a conflict that we cannot afford to lose. Whatever it takes to win needs to be done. And, number two, more than ever, we need to display a unity of purpose and a common resolve in this body that we may not have seen since 9/11. Our opponents believe that persistent acts of terrorism will eventually prevail. They saw internal strife that resulted in failure in Vietnam. They saw us leave Beirut after a truck bomb destroyed a Marine barracks. They saw us relocate troops after the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. And, unfortunately, they also see partisanship, and they see discord, and they see finger-pointing on the floor of this House at a time when this country cannot afford that. And so they see us as a Nation which can be divided. If we pull out, if we back down, if we give up, if we fail to see this through, every soldier that has died in Iraq will have died in vain, and we will have sent a clear signal to terrorists everywhere that we are an easy target. We will have shown that the U.S. no longer has the national resolve demonstrated at Valley Forge, at Gettysburg, at The Argonne, and on D-Day.”