Louie Gohmert: “as the right honorable gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), a good friend, former coach, had indicated, there are…”

“as the right honorable gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), a good friend, former coach, had indicated, there are Members of this body who believe the solution in Iraq is to set a date certain by which we will begin removing or have our troops removed from Iraq. When asked recently if such a strategy would not have been devastating if used in World War II and would not have left Hitler in power, one Congressman said, well, World War II is not really an appropriate comparison. He believed the more appropriate model was that of Vietnam, where we set a time and then we got out. I do not question anyone's motive here, but for freedom's sake, what in the world kind of a mission is that? The retreat from Vietnam created a vacuum that was filled by dead and mutilated bodies of those we ran out and deserted, and it is one of our darkest and most heinous hours in American history. It is rivaled, however, for its humiliating nature by the very war in Vietnam itself in which we sent soldiers to fight but tied one arm behind their backs and did not give them the equipment and backing to actually win. They were not authorized to win. They were told to just hold what they had. No war can ever be won unless there is a commitment by the government to win. If we did not learn anything from the wars of the 20th century, it would be obvious here, but in 1979, we had an attack on American soil.…”