John Kerry at the Take Back America 2006 Conference

SPEAKER: U.S. SENATOR JOHN F. KERRY (D-MA)

KERRY: Thank you very much.

Listening to John Powers, I’ve got to tell you, you just are filled with a wonderful sense of the goodness of the folks who are over there.

The troops who are there are incredible, every single one of them. And they’re doing an amazing job under the most difficult circumstances.

(APPLAUSE)

And John Powers is remarkable in even more ways, because this young man is working with the 61 percent of the children in Iraq who are under the age of 25, 50 percent under the age of 18 and 40 percent under the age of 14.

And he knows that if there isn’t some real effort to give them a future, they’re going to go out and learn in madrassas how to hate and strap themselves with explosives. And this will go on and on and on.

(APPLAUSE)

Captain Powers has just recalled that day 35 years ago this spring when I testified before the Foreign Relations Committee and demanded an end to the war that I had returned from fighting not so long before.

Let me state again, clearly: It was right to dissent from a war in 1971 that was wrong and could not be won.

(APPLAUSE)

And now, in 2006, it is both a right and an obligation for Americans to stand up to a president who is wrong today, dissent from policies that are wrong today and end a war in Iraq that weakens the nation each and every day we are in it.

(APPLAUSE)

I believe now, just as I believed then, that the best way to support the troops is to oppose a course that destroys their lives, dishonors their sacrifice and betrays both our interests and our ideals.

I believe now, just as I believed in 1971, that it is profoundly wrong to think that fighting for your country overseas and fighting for your country’s values at home are somehow contradictory or even separate calls to service.