Congressman Cohen on Iraq: There Are "Lives in the Balance"

Mr. Speaker, I wish to quote Jackson Browne's "Lives in the Balance," a song written quite a few years ago but most appropriate for today.
 

I've been waiting for something to happen

For a week or a month or a year

With the blood in the ink of the headlines

And the sound of the crowd in my ear

You might ask what it takes to remember

When you know that you've seen it before

Where a government lies to a people

And a country is drifting to war

And there's a shadow on the faces

Of the men who send the guns

To the wars that are fought in places

Where their business interests runs.

On the radio talk shows and the TV

You hear one thing again and again

How the U.S.A. stands for freedom

And we come to the aid of a friend

But who are the ones that we call our friends

These governments killing their own?

There are lives in the balance

There are people under fire

There are children at the cannons

And there is blood on the wire.

There's a shadow on the faces

Of the men who fan the flames

Of the wars that are fought in places

Where we can't even say the names

I want to know who the men in the shadows are

I want to hear somebody asking them why

They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are

But they're never the ones to fight or die

And there are lives in the balance

There are people under fire

There are children at the cannons

And there is blood on the wire.