As Congress, supposedly speaking for all Americans, debates resolutions that trash U.S. efforts to secure freedom and security for millions of Middle East peoples, here’s what I, a mere citizen, would like to see in the resolution, but won’t:

Whereas, the people of the United States have endowed its government with the obligation of protecting and promoting certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and

Whereas, the government of the United State affirms that these unalienable rights extend to all human beings, and

Whereas, a democracy is the best political system designed by man for ensuring these rights, while dictatorship, theocracy, monarchy and other forms of autocracy are not, and

Whereas, democracies and the rights of their citizens are best safeguarded when they are allied in a community of free nations, and therefore it is in their own interests not to ignore or withdraw from places where democracy and repression are at war, and

Whereas, withdrawal or retreat from that conflict will amount to a victory of tyranny over freedom, and

Whereas, our fellow nations in freedom have shirked their obligation to support freedom wherever it is found, and

Whereas, the current debate over fleeing Iraq comforts and aids the enemy, emboldening them in acts of intimidation and violence against innocent civilians, and endangering U.S. forces in the region, and

Whereas, the United States is engaged in an historical test of these values in the Middle East,

Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the Congress of the United States:

(1) Reaffirms the fundamental principles and obligations of a free nation, as President George W. Bush so eloquently proclaimed in his Second Inaugural Address, to our resounding applause: “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world;” furthermore, “no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave,” and “as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny—prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder—violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat.”

(2) Recalls that this nation’s finest hours came when our commitment to the principles of freedom, equality and justice were unflagging.

(3) Acknowledges that the wholesale abandonment of our promises to friends and foes undermines our credibility with our allies and calls into question our loyalty.

(4) Recognizes that a return to the enfeebling isolationism of the 1930s—and its tragic consequences manifested in the growth of a fascist and then communist Europe and Asia—ill serves U.S. and citizens of the world in a globalizing world.

(5) Supports the efforts by the President to employ, as best he determines, the military forces of the United States to end the spilling of the blood of innocent Iraqi citizens by rebels and terrorists in their depraved drive to impose their tyranny on the nation, the region and the world.

(6) Promises to end the ceaseless political demagoguery and tedious faultfinding unleashed by this debate, in the recognition that higher goals overshadow the acquisition of political power.

(7) Understands that being blessed as the world’s most powerful nation carries with it certain moral obligations, including the securing of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all mankind. From this end, we will not shirk.

Dennis Byrne is a Chicago newspaper columnist and freelance writer. dennis@dennisbyrne.net

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