Turnaround: Conservative Dem Salazar Says Cut War Funds

Denver Post:

Congress should look at cutting off funding for the Iraq war if Senate efforts to change the role of U.S. troops in the battlefield fail, Sen. Ken Salazar said today.

Salazar, a Colorado Democrat, previously has not supported Congress using its ability to stop war payments in order to force President Bush to change direction.

While in Iraq over the weekend, Salazar said, some servicemen and women told him that they wanted Congress to cut off funding.

Read the whole story: Denver Post

Comments

[amerdiaspora]

08:57 PM on 09/18/2007

i am ready to accept his vote
now i want his apology and punishment for having a hand in maiming and killing all those people

[Sundialsvc4]

02:32 PM on 09/18/2007

Why must "oil money flow through the Sunnis?"

If the so-called government now entrenched in the Green Zone signs the right paperwork, 85% of the oil in the country will pass through the hands of NONE OF THEM.

The fact cannot be ignored for long that the United States of America, no less, committed war crimes by invading a sovereign country on entirely false pretenses and with the express intention of robbing it.

It is completely and utterly repugnant for me to say this. The words of the preceding paragraph soured in my mouth.

It is also a High Crime.

[Rowland]

01:02 PM on 09/18/2007

Al Gore, speaking of the objective, recently said [about our goal]: “To get our troops out of there as soon as possible while simultaneously observing the moral duty that all of us share — including those of us who opposed this war in the first instance — to remove our troops in a way that doesn’t do further avoidable damage to the people who live there.”

Congress needs to first begin a debate on a resolution on the question of abandoning the goal of forcing the Iraqi Parliament to pass the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law and the expected Production Sharing Agreements that would greatly favor American oil companies. They can easily have a national consensus about that.

Democratic candidates must begin demanding that the United States tilt in favor of the Sunnis to handle the oil revenues of Iraq. They, the Sunni, would then have to work out the sharing arrangements with the Shia and Kurds to get the oil out of the ground.

The matter of reconstruction, reparations and infrastructure building must be in the hands of the Shia and Kurds. Their goal must be to build a true nation there that will homogenize the people and end sectarian tensions.

By bifurcating efforts we can expect a self-interest balance among the warring factions.

The United States must then withdraw to guard the six oil pipelines and the banking in and out of the country so that the oil money flows through the Sunnis. We have seen that the Shia cannot resolve to treat the Sunnis fairly and this will otherwise perpetuate the civil war contrary to the method suggested by Gore.

The United States must then turn over the tasks the new strategy entails to the UN and get out.

[Plowboy]

12:58 PM on 09/18/2007

Hey, maybe this guy is the one we should hope will start some action to prevent Bush-Cheney &c from attacking Iran. Write him! Send him email. Welcome him to sanity and cheer him on into the battle so few Dems are really fighting.

[Captain EdwardGraham]

08:44 AM on 09/18/2007

Key Senators Urge Shifting Responsibility to Iraq Army
New York Times - Sep 17 8:04 PMThree senators who are considered potential swing votes on war policy said that a weekend visit to Iraq left them discouraged about prospects for political reconciliation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/washington/18cong.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1190119352-yhLyucT3ji051UFBiJjl+A&oref=slogin

[Captain EdwardGraham]

08:44 AM on 09/18/2007

Sadr demands ouster of 'criminal' security firms from Iraq
AFP via Yahoo! News - 2 hours, 6 minutes agoPowerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Tuesday demanded the ouster of all "criminal" foreign security companies from Iraq after private contractors gunned down civilians in a Baghdad square.

[Qbear]

08:12 AM on 09/18/2007

Salazar better late than never.
The Repigs are jumping ship to END THIS WAR, so don't make concessions.

America is ending this war, with or without YOU.

[Captain EdwardGraham]

07:38 AM on 09/18/2007

09/17/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Staff Sgt. Michael L. Townes, 29, of Las Vegas, died Sept. 16 in Balad, Iraq, from a non-combat related illness. He was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, Aviation Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

09/17/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Sgt. John Mele, 25, of Bunnell, Fla., died Sept. 14 in Arab Jabour, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit during combat operations. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment...

09/17/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (part 4)
Staff Sgt. Terry D. Wagoner, 28, of Piedmont, S.C...assigned to the 6th Squadron, 9th U.S. Cavalry, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas...died Sept. 14 in Baghdad...of wounds suffered when an IED detonated near their vehicle

09/17/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (part 3)
Spc. Todd A. Motley, 23, of Clare, Mich...assigned to the 6th Squadron, 9th U.S. Cavalry, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas...died Sept. 14 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an IED detonated near their vehicle

09/17/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (part 2)
Spc. Jonathan Rivadeneira, 22, of Jackson Heights, N.Y...assigned to the 6th Squadron, 9th U.S. Cavalry, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas...died Sept. 14 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an IED.

09/17/07 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (part 1)
Pvt. Christopher M. McCloud, 24, of Malakoff, Texas...assigned to the 6th Squadron, 9th U.S. Cavalry, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas...died Sept. 14 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device.

09/17/07 DoD Identifies Marine Casualty
Cpl. Terrence P. Allen, 21, of Pennsauken, N.J., died Sept. 15 from a non-hostile incident in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

[HatingTheGame]

12:24 AM on 09/18/2007

Ooops, another repuke daring to tilt against the war. Now watch this guy get outed for some indiscretion (laced with hypocracy no doubt), and the the mainstream press hound him on and on and on, until he is booted, and they replace him with a repuke that would vote the right way on this war.

If I was just a bit more paranoid, I'd think that it would be done with same efficiency and complicity with the owners/editors of the MSM, that it would be as seamless as when the Mossad brought down Clinton with the Monica the swallow, the wiretaps, coordinated Congressional attacks by Lieberman and Santos, and the media owners relentless repetition of the same story over and over again, and voila, the subsequent derailment of the Palestinian peace process. After all, the war, whether in Gaza or in Iraq (and now onto Iran) must go on.

But naw, our country can't be that fucked up and so influenced by a foreign nation....

Could it?

[CalvinistHobbesian]

08:03 AM on 09/18/2007

Actually, he's a Demotrat HTG. Rather more conservative than we'd like, but I like him a little better today.