IRAQ- What my floor speech would look like.

As the House of Representatives debates what to do next in Iraq. I can't help but sit here, being the analytical politician wannabe that I am, without putting my take on it.

So take it as it is, my floor speech, if I were the Gentleman from New York;

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the resolution.

I am not supporting it because I don't like the President. I'm not supporting it because the majority of the populace are, nor am I supporting it because I believe war is bad and we must choose peace.

I am supporting this resolution because the President's plan is not a plan, it's stay the course with a twist. The President has chosen, against the better judgement of General Abizaid, former Secretary of State and American soldier Colin Powell and the Iraq Study Group led by Jim Baker, an experience diplomat and solider and Lee Hamilton, a foreign policy expert right out of the House of Representatives.

Those who support the President say you can't support the troops if you don't support the mission. I say I would support the mission, if there was a mission. This isn't a mission, this is a pipe dream. Democracy does not come at the barrel of a gun, especially in a place that doesn't know democracy.

We wanted Iraq to choose their own destiny. They choose civil war. They may later choose to have an Islamic government...it would be hypocritical of us to turn out and not accept the destiny the Iraqis have chosen for themselves. We cannot say we support the future chosen by the Iraqis, but then we stand in the way of what they want. No, Mr. Speaker, I do not wish for an Islamic dictatorship to take power in Baghdad. No, Mr. Speaker, I do not want to see Iraqis on both sides being slaughtered in a civil war...but this is what they have chosen. We are nothing more than sitting ducks propped in no man's land in the crossfires of a 1400 year old religious war. If this is what the Iraqis have chosen for themselves, so be it I say.

Those will say I am a defeatist. That I am ready to wave the white flag. That if we left Iraq, it would send a message to our allies that we cannot stand the fight and we cannot be trusted. I say to them, our allies already don't trust us. Our allies don't think we're weak for leaving, they think we're stupid for staying. The message we are telling our allies is not that we can be counted on to defend them. It's that we cannot be counted on to fight FOR them. If the message we send to them is that we will not fight your fights, then I'm willing to send that message.

Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, it is also time for us to start being concern about what is going on here at home while the administration is off playing Risk in the Arabian Desert. New Orleans drowns while we concern ourselves with Baghdad. Gang wars erupt in Los Angeles while we try to referee a skirmish in Fallujah. Millions are without health care while we patch up wounded terrorist-to-Be's. We do a better job securing the Iraqi border with Syria than our own border with Mexico. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, we need to shift attention back to the people who should be our real concern...our constituents. The American people voted for us, not the Iraqi people. They should be our first concern.

Those on the other side say if we leave Iraq, the terrorists will see it as a victory. Do they not think just having the Americans referee a civil war and taking our eye off of Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan is a victory as well?

Iraq is a civil war. It is a civil war. On one side are the Sunnis, the Baathists, those who wish to bring Iraq back to Saddam Hussein's era. On the other side are the Shia, backed by Iran, who wish to form an Islamic Republic in Iraq, just as in Iran, that will be a big threat to Israel. One side will win, but which side will win? When the other side says we must achieve victory...which side's victory are we talking about? What is victory? If the Sunnis, backed by the Baathists win? Or is victory a win by the Iran-backed Shia majority? Which side do we think is going to support a democracy? The Baathists or the Islamic fundamentalists?

Sure, I believe there is a minority who may want a free democracy in Iraq, but as in any society, in the end, the majority will win out...the only way it cannot is if the majority is oppressed, just as they were under Saddam Hussein. So if you ask me, it would appear that either Iraq reverts back to the way it was before the war, or, it ends up being worse.

Do we stay there until democracy decides to form? Do we stay there until Islamic fundamentalists decide not to be Islamic fundamentalists anymore? Even if it takes five years, ten years, 100 years? Do we keep spending money and keep sending Americans there for as long as it takes? When does it end? When do we finally tell the Iraqis to take back your own country? When do we want to do that? I want to do that now. I want them to take back their country now!

Now the other side will argue that by supporting this resolution would be the NOT support the troops. Some say even the Civil War was unpopular, but we didn't give up. The Civil War meant the survival of our country. It was a war worth fighting out. It was a war worth the blood spilled, no matter how hopeless it got. This is not a war worth the sacrifice of our young men and women. Victory in Iraq means nothing more than the survival of Iraq. One way or another, Al-Qaeda will still be out there, trying to harm us. This administration is not fighting a war for OUR survival, they're fighting a war for THEIR survival. They are sending 21,500 more brave Americans on a suicide mission to Aladdin's kingdom. That's not supporting the troops, that's screwing the troops. Supporting the troops would be doing what's best for them...and what's best for them is to redeploy them out of a brutal religious civil war and in the pursuit of terrorists like Osama Bin Laden. I believe the best way to support the troops is to tell them they are brave Americans who deserve to be fighting to protect Americans, not to protect this President's giant castle in the sky.

I call on everyone in Congress to support the resolution and tell the President that it is time for Iraq to take responsibility for their own destiny, and with that, I yield back.

Ok, some of the language wouldn't be words I'd use on the House floor, but you get the point.

That's my position