Senator Robert Byrd spoke eloquently against invading Iraq as a response to 9/11. He spoke against the war on March 19, 2003. The speech is prescient and wise. In 1991, I published a collection of speeches, essays, and poems called The American Reader. If I had a chance to revise it, I would add this speech. H/T Joe Jersey. When Congress voted to authorize the war in October 2002, there were 50 Democratic Senators the vote was taken on President George W. Bush’s resolution. Senator Byrd was one of 21 Democratic Senators who voted against the resolution. Only one of 49 Republican Senators voted against the war: Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. The Senate’s only independent—Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont—voted against the war.
Robert Byrd: ‘I weep for my country’, Speech against Iraq invasion – 2003
19 March 2003, US Senate, Washington DC, USA
I believe in this beautiful country. I have studied its roots and gloried in the wisdom of its magnificent Constitution. I have marveled at the wisdom of its founders and framers. Generation after generation of Americans has understood the lofty ideals that underlie our great Republic. I have been inspired by the story of their sacrifice and their strength.
But, today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned.
Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein, we seem to have isolated ourselves. We proclaim a new doctrine of preemption which is understood by few and feared by many. We say that the United States has the right to turn its firepower on any corner of the globe which might be suspect in the war on terrorism. We assert that right without the sanction of any international body. As a result, the world has become a much more dangerous place.
We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. We treat U.N. Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet. Valuable alliances are split. After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America’s image around the globe.
The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice.
There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The twin towers fell because a world-wide terrorist group, al-Qaida, with cells in over 60 nations, struck at our wealth and our influence by turning our own planes into missiles, one of which would likely have slammed into the dome of this beautiful Capitol except for the brave sacrifice of the passengers on board.
The brutality seen on September 11th and in other terrorist attacks we have witnessed around the globe are the violent and desperate efforts by extremists to stop the daily encroachment of western values upon their cultures. That is what we fight. It is a force not confined to borders. It is a shadowy entity with many faces, many names, and many addresses.
But, this Administration has directed all of the anger, fear, and grief which emerged from the ashes of the twin towers and the twisted metal of the Pentagon towards a tangible villain, one we can see and hate and attack. And villain he is. But, he is the wrong villain. And this is the wrong war. If we attack Saddam Hussein, we will probably drive him from power. But, the zeal of our friends to assist our global war on terrorism may have already taken flight.
The general unease surrounding this war is not just due to “orange alert.” There is a pervasive sense of rush and risk and too many questions unanswered. How long will we be in Iraq? What will be the cost? What is the ultimate mission? How great is the danger at home? A pall has fallen over the Senate Chamber. We avoid our solemn duty to debate the one topic on the minds of all Americans, even while scores of thousands of our sons and daughters faithfully do their duty in Iraq.
What is happening to this country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy?
Why can this President not seem to see that America’s true power lies not in its will to intimidate, but in its ability to inspire?
War appears inevitable. But, I continue to hope that the cloud will lift. Perhaps Saddam will yet turn tail and run. Perhaps reason will somehow still prevail. I along with millions of Americans will pray for the safety of our troops, for the innocent civilians in Iraq, and for the security of our homeland. May God continue to bless the United States of America in the troubled days ahead, and may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I do not think the United States is going to recapture the Founding Father’s vision.
In fact, it may take a massive effort to stop the apparent bulldozer bearing down on the United States from flattening this country and ushering in a draconian dark age that might lead to WW III when the rest of the world has no choice but to come together to stop a MAGA controlled U.S. from destroying global civilization and maybe even our species.
And, who is the puppet master guiding the driver of that bulldozer?
At this time, it is Traitor Trump who is holding the strings that are tied to too many elected Republicans doing what the traitor wants them to do, to keep spreading his endless lies to cause as much chaos as possible.
If Trump flips and falls on his face letting go of those puppet strings, Republicans like Florida’s DeSantis and Gregg Abbot of Texas are waiting to step in and grab them to keep the pain, suffering, and death spreading until there is no more United States with its Constitutionally guided Republic left to save.
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Robert Byrd is an example of how complicated people are. Byrd supported many policies that are unconscionable to me, and the first half of his life and his association with the Ku Klux Klan was shameful. But he changed. He became a better person.
That’s something that does not happen with today’s Republican Party. It is not filled with people who were once spewing reprehensible ideas but slowly changed as they gained power and did some good things. On the contrary, the Republican Party is filled with people who continue to spew the most hateful rhetoric, with those who question it being shunned from the party. In fact, it almost seems like the longer they are in power, the more reprehensible Republicans get — even worse than they started. Have Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy become better men over the decades or even worse?
Byrd’s many failings should always be part of his biography, but they should not be the only part of the biography. It is important to note that some people can become better people and others who continue only to care about power remain the same or even worse.
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An amazing speech, Byrd proclaimed it with such passion, heart and feeling. He knew what was coming down the road, disaster after disaster, all the bloodletting and for no gain whatsoever, quite the opposite. We learned nothing from Vietnam, we just keep repeating the same “mistakes” over and over. Mistake is too mild a word, apocalyptic catastrophe is probably closer to the mark. I give Joe Biden a lot of credit for getting us out of Afghanistan, about time.
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I believe Biden will think long and hard before he sends our young people off to war. He understands loss and tragedy. He knows how it feels to have a child in the military. I am grateful that he had the guts to stop the never ending conflict in Afghanistan.
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You do recall that Biden voted for the wars in the first place, right?
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You do recall that Bernie Sanders voted for the war in Afghanistan, too, right?
People change. It says a lot about someone like Bernie or Biden when they acknowledge they were wrong. It says a lot about Trump and others that they are unable to ever admit that they made a mistake and try to rectify it.
Robert Byrd made many mistakes and supported the wrong things. But because he had the capacity to become a better person and to learn, he was better than his worst decisions. He was far from perfect. But he was better than he was at his worst.
Some people never have that capacity to learn. To admit mistakes. We all make mistakes. Obama didn’t support the war but did nothing to end it. Biden did support the war and also took the hit that no one else was willing to do to end it.
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Yes, Biden has voted for war like so many others. Barbara Lee said that politicians should not make hasty decisions when emotions are high.
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“When Congress voted to authorize the war in October 2022…”
Have you been looking in your crystal ball?
What war will that be?
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Typo corrected.
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That’s a relief.
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It’s called: Planning for the Future! I trust Diane’s crystal ball. It’s usually correct (but never Right!).
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Wow. I remember this! Outstanding and prescient. And something to learn from for the future!!!!
Thanks for sharing this, Diane, and blessings to you and yours.
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Sadly, on this solemn day of remembrance for all our fellow citizens who had their lives cruelly taken from them on 9/11, Osama bin Laden is winning: He said he would destroy America — and he succeeded because the America that existed before 9/11 is dead, killed off by our anger at each other, by our suspicions of each other, by our infighting, by conspiracy theories, by our racial hatreds, and by the primal fear in us that bin Laden unleashed in us on 9/11. We are no longer the United States, we are the Divided States…and that’s exactly what bin Laden was aiming for. We lost Afghanistan in 2004 when our abuses at Abu Ghraib prison showed the world, especially the people for whom we said we were “nation building”, that we are willing to engage in the same kind of torture that Sadam Hussein did…and then came the years of our drone strikes, killing not only terrorists but also tens of thousands of innocent civilians, including children…we expressed “regret” over the “collateral damage” but the Afghanistan people lived in fear that America might rain down upon them death from the skies just because they were innocently going about their daily business but were in the wrong place at the wrong time…they didn’t want to become a nation like we had become. And in our nation today we are killing each other by means of political “leaders” who cry out against pandemic protections that before 9/11 would have been seen as just plain common sense, like getting vaccinated against a deadly virus…and we are passing laws that pay — actually pay bounties, just like communist countries do — to citizens to rat on other citizens for exercising a constitutional right…Americans walk in fear with a dark “who-do-you-trust-these-days” cloud always hanging over them. Sad…tragic. How do we again become who we were before 9/11?
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I recall these days like all of you recall them. As a person who is a lukewarm pacifist, I was hamstrung intellectually by the decision to invade Afghanistan. Somehow I knew we would, but it felt wrong to me. My students asked me over and over: “What do you think RT?” Sure they wanted to talk about the impending trip their relatives would take overseas. I knew how many of them had military families. I knew these people were trusting in their government, believing the best about our intentions.
I told them the war would be short. We will prevail quickly, I told them. But the peace will be much harder to maintain. I hope we can win the peace. It is harder to win the peace than to win the war. They listened. Many of them ended up on tours in Afghanistan.
Then there came the Iraq war, and once again I watched my country go off in a direction I questioned. My only voice was a vote, now a vote that was forever silenced by the reality of my changing demographic. My state had been the place where its senators had refused to join the Dixiecrats. Where the racial violence of the few had never been celebrated the way it was in the rest of the south. Those of us who had misgivings about Iraq were drowned in a sea of jingoism.
I knew why Bush and Company had invaded Iraq. They had learned the lesson of Vietnam: Americans are not willing to prosecute long wars. Soon they tire of their boys coming home in caskets. They had to rid themselves of the hated Hussien while the Americans were receptive to the idea of war. So they created the war to do what they considered the inevitable, seizing the moment, telling the world that you can create democracy out of the end of a gun barrel. I told the students: We will prevail quickly, but the peace will be much harder to maintain.
While the rest of the country rightly recalls the September attack, I mourn the damage done to the world’s view of political right and wrong. Now terrorist are heartened by the victory of the Taliban, and these terrorists are no doubt unaware that keeping the peace will be harder than rooting out the Americans. Where else will terrorism win the day? Where else will women be forced to cower behind their symbolic covering that hides their powerless place in a society ruled by superstition?
Apparently both the Trumpists and the Democrats agree on the need to be removed from Afghanistan. Biden never flinched from doing exactly what Trump planned. Once we negotiated with the Taliban without other players in the talks, the dramatic end to the war and the lingering issues involving trying to get this person or that one out of harms (the taliban’s) way were as inevitable in 2002 as they were in 2020.
So here’s to the folks who died in the towers. The lines of fire fighters and EMTs who bravely walked up the stairs to their deaths. The innocent civilians who fell victim to the passions of terrorism. The countless relatives and friends who suffer to this day from the trauma of losing loved ones. And here to the thousands of citizens who have lived through the wars overseas, the Afghans who were in the line of fire, Iraqi civillians caught between American desires, Shia and Sunni hostilities, and thier own vulernability. And here’s to a humanity that has so often thought that it was outgrowing its penchant for not knowing the right way to bring itself to peace. May we continue to strive. Peace is a noble thing.
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I also felt we were wrong on Iraq and Afghanistan, but we don’t get a vote, our representatives do. The original mission in Afghanistan was to stop terrorists that were hiding out. When the mission became about fighting the Taliban, we totally lost our way. There is no winning.
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Excellent post. Although Byrd opposed us on many issues, such as his opposition to MLK’s Poor Peoples March on Washington that cost him his life (see William Pepper’s book An Act of State); Byrd or his speech writer had it completely right re: Iraq. About the same time (2003) I penned a lyric that my late wife sang to a Verdi aria expressing the hope that we would not do what we did. Please watch this 5 minute YouTube link to reflect with us on a better way. (480) 911 Prayer for Peace – YouTube
On Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 3:00 PM Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: ” Senator Robert Byrd spoke eloquently against > invading Iraq as a response to 9/11. He spoke against the war on March 19, > 2003. The speech is prescient and wise. In 1991, I published a collection > of speeches, essays, and poems called The American Reader. I” >
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Byrd’s speechwriter—if he had one—would have done what Byrd wanted
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Excellent post. Although Byrd opposed us on many issues, such as his opposition to MLK’s Poor Peoples March on Washington that cost him his life (see William Pepper’s book An Act of State); Byrd or his speech writer had it completely right re: Iraq. About the same time (2003) I penned a lyric that my late wife sang to a Verdi aria expressing the hope that we would not do what we did. Please watch this 5 minute YouTube link to reflect with us on a better way. (480) 911 Prayer for Peace – YouTube
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Senator Byrd was a conservative Democrat. He was wise about opposing the Mideast wars.
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