No one is going to question my commitment to the defence of our nation. I don't know what it is these Republicans, who didn't serve in any war, have against those of us who are Democrats who did.

Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputation bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.

Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be President.

What Donald Trump is doing is serving the polluters and serving a narrow group of ideological interests. That's not leadership. That's abdication of responsibility, and this step does not make America first. It makes America last.

Glossed over the disastrous war and its multibillion-dollar price tag and implied again that our presence in Iraq is somehow improving the situation in that chaotic and turbulent country. The Congress must stand up against Bush's plan to escalate the war.

The race for the White House should be about leadership, and leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them.

We achieved a deal with the Russians that didn't wind up in two days of strikes that would have sent a, quote, "message," but would not have removed the weapons. We struck a deal to get all of the declared weapons out of Syria. Never before in a conflict has that ever happened, that during the conflict weapons of mass destruction are taken out of the zone of conflict. And thank God we did that, because if we hadn't done that, today ISIL would have those chemical weapons in large parts of the country.