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Dems Prepare One More Capitulation on Iraq
Congressional Democrats are talking tough on Iraq but are, instead, preparing one more capitulation to the White House on funding the war. After their proposal to provide $50 billion in war funding linked to a gradual troop withdrawal was blocked by the Senate, the Democrats have vowed they won't approve any more war funding this year.
But this year is over in four more weeks. And soon enough, the Democratic bluff will be called. In response, they will posture, bluster and then - you can bet on it-- they will fold. For a harbinger of this dreary scenario, you need look no further than the briefing held Thursday by the powerful Democratic chief of the House subcommittee on military spending, Pennsylvania Rep. Jack Murtha. "Congress wants to come up with an agreement," he said. "Leadership may be willing to compromise" on the time line for troop withdrawal from Iraq.
May be willing to compromise? Really? Insert your laugh track right here, please.
Compromising and capitulating are the only things the Democrats have been doing on this issue. Murtha's statement implies that some sort of deal can be reached with the Republicans in which a somewhat extended troop withdrawal timetable will be agreed upon. During his press conference, Murtha suggested that might be something like a two year calendar.
This is but a cynical word game by the Dems. There aren't remotely enough congressional Republicans willing to make that sort of compromise in order to strike the sort of deal that Murtha's talking about. At least not in the next few months.
Indeed, compromise - at this juncture--is off the table. Nothing is going to change between now and the next five or six weeks when the Democrats will once again be forced to vote on funding. They already have the power to block further funding by simply not pro-actively approving any further appropriations bill. They just refuse to use it.
In withholding funding would the Dems force some sort of a monumental political crisis? Would it encourage the White House to label the opposition as Defeatocrats? Would charges fly that the Dems are leaving the troops in the lurch? Yes, yes, and yes (Three things already in motion). But such a move would also grind the war down to a halt. It would also demonstrate bold, risk-taking political leadership at a moment when the country most demands it.
Don't count on any of that. The Republican White House continues to blackmail the congress, the media and the public, arguing that a reduction or cut-off of funding would be a betrayal of the troops. And the Democrats also continue to game the grim situation - perfectly happy to pose as resolute opponents of the war while eventually continuing funding of the war and hoping to capitalize politically on the mounting unpopularity of the same.
The only losers here are the fatalities and the families.
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All the Democrats have to do is ask Bush to request a tax increase to pay for the Iraq war. The Democrats mandated that they will pass no bills that cannot be funded. What happened to that mandate? The entire war is being financed by deficit spending. If the Democrats used this tactic, they won't have to worry about being accused of raising taxes. They won't have to worry about ending Iraq either, taxpayers will end the war when they get their new tax bill at the next election.
Marc Cooper,
It's easy to make such a statement isn't it?
Blaming the Democratic elected officials for that which the American voters have chosen...
You see, it is WE the people who have allowed this to happen.
Rather than blame the Democrats, who, incidentally, do no have a veto-proof majority in either chamber of Congress, how about assigning blame to the Republican president, his neoconvict advisers and his political supporters for having caused all this trouble in the first place?
Look in the mirror Marc!
YOU, and I, and the rest of our fellow citizens are responsible for this democratic republic.
Let's DO something about it in the next election rather than whine about the razor-thin majority we gave Democrats in the last one!
Except for Kucinch (a Democrat with principles) a vote for any other Democrat is a vote for bad behavior.
Why reward bad behavior which includes not impeaching the criminals Bush and Cheney, thus allowing them to continue their illegal war in Iraq and their war against liberty.
With what this war has cost monitarily, we could have provided health care and medical insurance to over 285 million children in the U.S., or hired 9 million public school teachers to lower class sizes, or built 5 million housing units for homeless, or funded global hunger programs for nearly 20 years.
This war will cost our nation nearly $3.5 trillion, and we're already in debt $9.2 trillion. We're financing this war on credit, bonds and notes which are owned mostly by foreigners.
The U.S. dollar is in the tank, our infrastructure is crumbling, public education is sorely underfunded ($56 billion, just for the federally-mandated testing of NCLB), the S-CHIP $35 billion would have insured millions of American children and provided them access to healthcare otherwise unattainable, our environment is in peril with global warming and pollution.
Why should the Democrats care any more than the Republicans? Many of them who are Jewish, are in the back pockets of the AIPAC, or other pro-Israeli lobbies. I'm sure the Mossad has dirt on many others, to force their capitulation. The rest have their personal fortunes (like Di-Fi) tied to this war, or are receiving huge donations from PAC's linked to the oil and military-industrial complex. They all get free tax-payer subsidized top-of-the line healthcare.
Can someone please tell me why these Huffpo bloggers - along with the msm - continually say, "dems fail" or "dems capitulate", instead of saying the truth, which is "Repugnicans again block", "once again Repugnicans obstruct"????
Not Murtha too??? Sh*t!!
Are they using the Afghan Herione to subjagate the opposition?
Frankly at this point I think this Admin will do anything, to anyone to get their way.
We need to drug test our Leading Public Servants.
I'd rather have a secretary high on weed, then a legislator high on Oil and profit margins.
Why would the Democrats in Congress give this administration ANYTHING?! Let the Bushies stew & whine & roll out their propaganda machine. This is a president who thinks NOTHING of funding billions for a war that a majority of us oppose and, at the same time, berudges children some health insurance. ATTENTION CONGRESS: I am a Democrat. But if you continue along the same spineless course as you have the past year, I won't be sorry if you lose your slim majority in both houses. Charles Schumer & Diane Feinstein already have left me so angry I could spit tacks. Say, "NO, NO, AND NO!" to this pathetic excuse for leadership we call our president. Why upstage the worst president in U.S. history by being the worst Congress in U.S. History? DO YOU PEOPLE GET IT YET? You CANNOT keep tiptoing around big issues out of fear over how it might play out with Republican propagandists. Acting like invertebrates simply saves them the effort. NO MORE MONEY FOR THIS WAR! NO NEW WARS! BRING THE TROOPS HOME!!!
If you have read his stuff this week; and still don't think Marc Cooper is a Republican tool; I guess he is just going to have to go over to the John Birtch Society and unscrew a light fixture with his nostril.
Cooper was a creme puff Casper Milk Toast in his opposition to the war for years; saving his real distain for the peace movement. When the Dems took back Congress (surpirse!) this signer of the let-Bush-off-the-hook Eustion statement became born again for peace hard, and the fact that the grotesque debacle could not (largely oweing to Bush loyal Republicans) be swept up in an instant filled him with Dem hating Ire.
What a bore. It's like listening to Chris Matthews, (a fellow hack Cooper admires) try to demagoge Clinton's record on war support; while ignoring Karl Rove's absurd fantasties last week on the Rose Show. I mean, how could CLINTON's statements be less important that the people who actually got us in to the war?
And of course, the spittle filled horse hockey about the Clintons only continues on Cooper's blog; leaving some on the left wondering what this journalist, who gave fawning prowar interveiws to Christopher Hitchens; is doing covering the election on a liberal blog.
The only ones benefitting from the continuation of hostilities in Iraq are defense contractors, and the Dems know it, but they'll keep funding the obscenity anyway because defense industry lobbyists are pouring money into the party.
How fucked up does this country have to get before people wake up and demand that things change?
As long as they don't legislate defeat in Iraq, they can capitulate here all they want.
Joe Biden has been making this statement since the debates - but the media isn't giving the airtime - some newsprint. Here is what he said yesterday. Thank God someone running for President is standing up to George W Bush, Dick Cheney, and standing up for America and the rest of the world right to live in peace!
Portsmouth, NH (AHN)-Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden had some harsh words for President George W. Bush over his handling of the war in Iraq and his threats of using military force in Iran.
Speaking at a candidate forum in New Hampshire on Thursday, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden said he would move to impeach President Bush if he engaged in military action against Iran without first gaining congressional approval.
Biden, who did not mince words when discussing what he would do if Bush attacked Iran, told audience members that although he disagrees with Bush's preemptive military strike on Iraq, a case for impeachment over those actions might not be constitutionally sound or even productive.
Explaining why he would move to impeach Bush if he attacked Iran, but not for his preemptive strike or mismanagement of the war in Iraq, Biden said, "If you're going to impeach George Bush, you better impeach (Vice President Dick) Cheney first."
Biden said the best way to stop President Bush from launching another war in Iran is to make sure the President understands that he will face consequences as a result of his actions, even if they are at the end of his term.
"The president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran, and if he does, as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, I will move to impeach," Biden said, adding that, "his legacy will be marred for all time."
The Dem leadership gap has gone from disturbing to disgraceful. Leadership in both houses should pledge to step aside in 2009 and let new blood take the lead. The current entrenched leadership will never rise above recent partisan history and actually attempt to solve the nations problems in a bipartisan way. The Repubs have set the example with Lott and Hasterd. The Dem candidates, the party and the people should demand this.
The Bush Doctrine is to use unilateral military force to achieve full spectrum dominance globally for commercial purposes. As posted below, this permits Bush to use the Marines as garbage men and hacks for the sheiks while cleaning their sewers. A "hack" is a means of common conveyance - a taxi cab driver, as it were. Meanwhile, the big bucks go to the steroid-driven monsters called mercenaries who shoot first and never ask questions. The money being requested from Congress will pay for the wild cat drilling where not even a bumbling fool can mis, so long as there is an enforced "peace."
Our brave fighting men have told me that they resent being used as pawns in Bush's oil-for-blood program. To be used as a human taxi, cleaning sewers for the sheiks, and performing construction work, is demeaning to a rapid strike force. They signed up for finding bin Laden and now are taxis under fire, plumbers, and construction workers at taxpayer's expense.
Now when I fill up my gas tank and someone says, "How much did that cost?" I can honestly say, "An arm and a leg!" Too bad it is the arm and legs of our brave fighting men. They do not want to be there they all tell me. Some are completing third tours of duty.
If the Democrats want to keep funding this fiasco, the progressive wing of the party must break off into a Kuchinich-style party of "no compromise with the fascists." Otherwise, the handwriting is on the wall. Unless we force our representatives to change course, you are seeing the future of the United States being played out in Iraq.
The oil pipeline to Hell is sucking our finest down into a black hole. While reconstruction work is credited with helping cut violence in Iraq, Marines duties go well beyond combat.
The oil in Iraq holds the U.S. hostage. In turn, the Bush administration uses the soldiers as hostages to the continued funding of his wild catting adventure. This one, unlike his previous Texas oil fiascoes, is bound to be a success if the Congress backs down and gives in the the extortion and kidnapping of the military personnel.
About 11,000 troops from Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force are headed for Iraq. In recent months, Marines have sought out insurgents in Iraq's vast Anbar province and have taken on the duties of nation building and political brokering. These unusual roles include using helicopters to ferry Sunni sheiks from certain towns to meetings with sheiks in other towns. The troops also collect garbage, build schools, repair sewage systems and train Iraqi security forces.
According to Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, the commanding general of the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Forces, in his interview recently with Rick Rogers, staff writer for the Union Tribune Newspaper in San Diego, "The day for withdrawing Marines is not soon. It takes 10 years to win a counter-insurgency war. It also takes ten years to lose."
Despite the desire to redeploy to Afghanistan where the Marines feel the real enemy behind the events on 9-11 remain, the Army is saying no so fast, you Marines are not dumping this load on us. The Anbar Awakening, as it is called, has helped the tribal leaders to realize that they must co-operate with the United States. Lt. General Helland states that some of the marines are even overheard talking about the ethics of what is right and wrong in battle. Global Services Director John Pike sees the Marines being there for 10 years, also.
When the dems allowed the debate over the Iraq debacle to be framed as to whether the surge was working or not, it was all over but the fat lady singing. The iraq debacle was and is wrong, surge or not.
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Posted November 30, 2007 | 02:14 AM (EST)