Excerpts From Edwards' MLK Day Antiwar Speech ("Silence is betrayal")

[JohnLocke]

John Edwards is heading for Hillary Clinton's New York turf to give a speech today against the Iraq war -- and we've obtained excerpts of his scheduled remarks. The speech will take place this afternoon at Riverside Church, where Martin Luther King delivered an oration against the Vietnam war 40 years ago. Edwards -- who's seeking to distinguish himself as the most forcefully antiwar Dem candidate -- plans to reach for King's antiwar mantle as he calls for an end to the current conflict. Given the location of the speech, here's a key line that's sure to draw attention as a veiled attack on Clinton: "If you’re in Congress and you know this war is going in the wrong direction, it is no longer enough to study your options and keep your own counsel." More speech excerpts evoking MLK and a YouTube of Edwards previewing the speech after the jump.
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EXCERPTS OF REMARKS AS PREPARED
"Realizing the Dream"
Senator John Edwards
Riverside Church, Harlem, January 14, 2007
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Forty years ago, almost to the month, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood at this pulpit, in this house of God, and with the full force of his conscience, his principles and his love of peace, denounced the war in Vietnam, calling it a tragedy that threatened to drag our nation down to dust.
As he put it then, there comes a time when silence is a betrayal -- not only of one’s personal convictions, or even of one’s country alone, but also of our deeper obligations to one another and to the brotherhood of man.
That’s the thing I find the most important about the sermon Dr. King delivered here that day. He did not direct his demands to the government of the United States, which was escalating the war. He issued a direct appeal to the people of the United States, calling on us to break our own silence, and to take responsibility for bringing about what he called a revolution of values.
A revolution whose starting point is personal responsibility, of course, but whose animating force is the belief that we cannot stand idly by and wait for others to right the wrongs of the world.
And this, in my view, is at the heart of what we should remember and celebrate on this day. This is the dream we must commit ourselves to realizing.
(...)
Escalation is not the answer, and our generals will be the first to tell you so. The answer is for the Iraqi people and others in the region to take responsibility for rebuilding their own country. If we want them to take responsibility, we need to show them that we are serious about leaving – and the best way to do that is actually to start leaving and immediately withdraw 40-50,000 troops.
That is why I have spoken out against the McCain Doctrine of escalation. That's why Congress must step up and stop the president from putting more troops in harm's way.
If you’re in Congress and you know this war is going in the wrong direction, it is no longer enough to study your options and keep your own counsel.
Silence is betrayal. Speak out, and stop this escalation now. You have the power to prohibit the president from spending any money to escalate the war – use it.
And to all of you here today – and the millions like us around the country who know this escalation is wrong – your job is to reject the easy way of apathy and choose instead the hard course of action.
Silence is betrayal. Speak out. Tell your elected leaders to block this misguided plan that is destined to cost more lives and further damage America’s ability to lead. And tell them also, that the reward of courage...is trust.

[blm]

1. There was a vote for Iraq withdrawal last June - I wish Edwards would have been in office to vote

for it......Or at least made this speech back then BEFORE the vote to give his support to to the withdrawal plan. I'm sure his voice would have been a great help.

[chimpymustgo]

2. blm, the point of this is...? Edwards is not in the Senate. Wishing will not make it so.

He is calling for the immediate withdrawal of 40 - 50,000 troops. He is speaking up - loudly, clearly - and unlike many - unambiguously.

[Mass]

3. Happy to see him speak out. Welcome to the party of those who have spoken out

for a while now.

[blm]

5. My point is his voice would've been a welcome support last June when the VOTE

was coming down. All hands on deck to do the right thing WHEN it is going down. I really missed ALOT of strong Dems who could have stepped up then knowing Iraq was already in Civil War. Very few did - it was a tough battle to go through at the time.

[GreenArrow]

4. feh ... doesn't ring true

"If you’re in Congress and you know this war is going in the wrong direction, it is no longer enough to study your options and keep your own counsel."

The problem is, pal, that the war was going in the wrong direction before it even began; the war itself was wrong, in theory and practice, there simply was no justification for it, and frankly sir, you have not the moral weight to be speaking of it now.

"but also of our deeper obligations to one another and to the brotherhood of man".

Amazing how that only occurs to you now, after you helped to consign hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (of whom it can't be said often enough, offered us no threat, and had done nothing to us) to ongoing death, humiliation and displacement, and who you continue to pointedly ignore in your self-serving apologies.

Instead, we get the old "let's wash our hands routine" along with some sour rhetoric about teaching the Iraqis the meaning of responsibility. We might better teach them to be "responsible" by practicing it ourselves. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I'm sure that it doesn't involve going into the country, wrecking it, robbing it, polluting it, destabilizing it, and then, after we've "taken everything from it that we can possibly steal" getting the hell out while wishing our victims a hearty "good luck"! There has to be some pennace, there has to be recompense. It's not enough to simply say, sorry, the war is going badly, we have to get out now, you take care of it yourself; there has to be an understanding that we are the wrongful party, that the war was scripted and fake and entirely a product of choice and expediency and callousness, and that despite the flowery lies used to hypnotize people into believing in it, the war is a sham and the people who plotted it and helped implement it knew that it was a sham.

But we'll never get that. Instead, we get rubbish about how:

"Silence is betrayal. Speak out. Tell your elected leaders to block this misguided plan that is destined to cost more lives and further damage America’s ability to lead. And tell them also, that the reward of courage...is trust."

One has to wonder what your constituents told you, the Cassandras who told you exactly what was going to happen, the ones you so assiduously avoided, and to whose pleas your ears were shut.

If it is true that "the reward of courage is trust", then brother, you have niether shown the former nor earned the latter.

[venable]

7. he hasn't earned your trust

but he's earned the trust of millions of serious, thoughtful, peace-loving people. there is something to be learned in that, by you.

[Skwmom]

9. Not the first time many Americans have bought into political spin

,especially with the media cheer-leading for Edwards (and I'm sure it won't be the last).

Americans - have we become a land of sheep? What has happened to critical thinking?

[venable]

12. critical thinking

which seems to be the catchword of DU, so much so that it is essentially stripped of cogency, is, in my opinion, the very thing that has brought so many to Edwards.

You don't like him. He'll have to go forward without you. Trust me, he will not be alone, and those with him are not sheep, they are...wait for it...critical thinkers.

[beachmom]

6. Senator Webb said he will not back the Kennedy bill

which cuts off funding for the troops surge. I disagree with him on this, and wish he would back this bill; however, he has NOTHING to answer to in Edwards who co-sponsored the IWR while Webb was writing and lobbying the Virginia delegation not to vote for the IWR. I am forgiving to those who voted for the IWR -- some made an honest mistake or believed Powell or wanted to get U.N. weapons inspecters in, but they never should have trusted Bush. Edwards was good a year ago saying he was wrong. And I took him at his word, and will easily forgive him. But this sanctimonious attitude he is presenting here is a major turnoff. When I hear Kerry speak, who also voted for the IWR, he always speaks of his responsibility for the war, and how he "doesn't want to BE a United States Senator who adds one more name to whatever Iraq War memorial is erected". In short, he speaks with humility, and wants to end this war as soon as possible. And he is never judgmental to fellow members of Congress who aren't quite in the place he is for ending the war. In contrast, Edwards is making a big mistake here. His hands aren't clean, so what right does he have telling Congress what to do like he's Mr. Perfect?

[Skwmom]

8. "Tell your elected leader" and the "reward of courage" ...is trust?

That didn't seem to work out so well when people were trying to get Edwards to vote against the IWR he was co-sponsoring. Since he failed to listened, failed to be courageous, why should we reward him with trust?

Edwards can sure mouth a pretty speech but so could Reagan.

[GreenArrow]

10. "why should we reward him with trust?"

Because where his IWR vote and co-sponsorship, etc. are concerned, he desires to create a perception that he has been courageous in admitting it was wrong; therefore, he should be trusted. He understands that most people, desperate for an antidote to eight years of Bush's toxic administration, are not emotionally or psychologically inclined to go back and look at how courageous he actually was when the actual decision had to be made.

Life handed him a lemon. Now, he's making lemonade!

And in answer to an earlier question you posed, yes, we are largely a nation of sheep.

[NCarolinawoman]

11. This is what happened in Raleigh, North Carolina, outside of Edwards's office

I was not there, but I read about it.

---------snip-------

Lenore Yarger reads her anti-war petition, but to a U.S. marshal at
the door, not Sen. John Edwards.

---------snip-------

http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A18330

[venable]

13. good grief

a whole lot a water has flowed under the bridge. please, let's be real. listen to what he says now. Is it at all possible that he truly believed he was doing the right and moral thing, and he discovered, in the INTERVENING 5 YEARS, that he had made a mistake. I personally am much more interested in moving forward toward peace, rather than wallowing in revenge and bitterness.

I care more for peace than I do for gotcha revenge.

Edwards - the peace candidate, whether you like it or not.

[Clarkie1]

14. How did he come up with the 40,000 to 50,000 number? nt