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Audacity of Truth
House passes “short term funding” war supp
Another one sure to be vetoed. Which means more delays for the money our military needs.
Welcome to the Democrats’ “Slow Bleed” strategy for ending the war.
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16 Responses to “House passes “short term funding” war supp”
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I’d be interested in knowing what the posters here feel that the role of Congress actually is in relation to the war.
I guarantee you, it’s a trick. They knew this wasn’t going to pass, but they had to throw the nutroots a bone. They can then move on to this other bill that partially funds the troops and claim a “compromise” was reached.
Geez, I don’t know. How about to help win it? Or is that too radical/right wing??
God, how I hate these weenie minded people, not supporting the war is one thing but to not support the troops is another and they ARE NOT SUPPORTING OUR TROOPS, traitors, all.
But what does that involve, NC Cop? Is there ever a role for the Congress in oversight of warmaking, or should it totally keeps its hands off?
Beyond the “funding or not funding” issue, there is a larger issue of precisely who gets to do what in relation to the war.
Is the role to just keep the money coming?
In one aspect, yes. What we heard from the democrats before the election was that they had a new “strategy”, “direction”, “way”, etc. You never heard one mention of the word withdrawal. Now that they are in office they have no new direction or strategy, just a retreat.
If they would come up with something that didn’t involve abandoning the people of Iraq, I would be all for it. The only thing they continually do is change the date for withdrawal. Everybody knows that a withdrawal would lead to complete disaster.
Congress should work with the Pres. on what the benchmarks should be, how to keep track of them, what will be the consequences if they dont meet them. However, because they keep yelling withdrawal it only encourages enemies to hang on a little more and it frightens the people who want to stand up to the terrorists.
I’m surprised that you seem to be in favor of benchmarks. Depending on what they look like and how they’re applied, they might be a decent compromise in this ugly situation.
If he agrees to benchmarks, the next big question for the President would be something on the order of, “If the Iraqis fail to meet X number of benchmarks in Y period of time, do you agree to call the whole thing off?”
I sometimes wonder whether it’s even possible for the Iraqi political system to stand up tall enough that we can stand down. Too far broken, maybe?
Their strategy was to make sure that Iraq became Vietnam. This is the only way they have a shot at the White House in 2k8. If Iraq goes well, they lose… We lose they win and we really lose when the next big attack hits us. Not a cheerful thought…
Micro-management of a war (ANY war) by congress is a recipe for defeat. God help our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines!
Before anyone gets too enamored of “benchmarks” you should look at where such rushes to benchmark things to prove progress have gotten us so far, more into a mess. In large part due to pressure from Democrats, who were already looking for ways to complain about lack of progress, and the UN and other international, anti-US/pro-Saddam governmental pressures, there was a big push to “legitimize” the Iraqi government and prove that we weren’t there as “conquerors.” This involved a rush to have elections and install an Iraqi government and transfer official power to it way before it was ready. Look at the successful post war occupations, say Japan, and how long we held them in check and controlled the country before we allowed them to become an independent government, and how much we influenced their constitution.
In Iraq, we should have had elections, but avoided handing power back to their government until they proved they were capable of handing it without the internecine sectarian backstabbing that has happened. We were too easy on them. Is this a mistake the Bush administration made, yes, but it was made to try and gain some support from the Democrats and the world at large, a pressure that never should have been yielded to, as no matter what you did nothing would satisfy these groups, and it only hurt the long term prospects of Iraq. Let them have training wheels on a govt longer, force them to, that’s what happens when you lose wars. We now are in an analogous position to having to deal with a 13 year old who we’ve given full adult rights to, they aren’t ready for it, and the “solution” appears to be more benchmarks, an ever more accelerated handover, as that’s marginally better than a complete abandonment.
This is what happens when you “compromise” with leftists, it gets you nothing but grief, makes the situation worse, and they blame you for it just as much as if you’d told them to pound sand, we’ll do it however we want to.
Doc, I have a BIG problem with Democrats like you who authorized the war, but were undermining it from the start. If I hear one more, “Why don’t you sign up and go?” from *ssh*les who don’t believe anything should be defended but their government check, I’m going to go off on them.
NC Cop is recovering from losing his legs in Iraq. He was there on the ground interfacing with the very people you, Doc, pretend to know all about. Mowt people like you DON’T KNOW JACK!!!!
Right now Congress’ job IS TO FUND THE TROOPS. WE started something, and we have to see it through. If Democrats want to cut and run, dammit leave the country now and go to your Communist paradise and don’t come back, you bunch of Good Time Charlies!!!
You bring up an incredibly interesting point, Severian, and one that I’ve never considered before. There must have been insurgents in Germany and Japan who fought against Allied occupation there, but they’re never mentioned in the history books–the impression we’ve been given over the years is that everything ran as smoov as silk. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who knows the details.
Doc,
There are some huge differences between WWII and our current War on Terror. WWII saw millions placed into uniform, not thousands. WWII saw cities completley destroyed and populations uprooted. WWII saw the German population racing to the Western Powers to avoid the brutality of the Russians(note that the Russians were unleashing their rage from the brutality shown them by the Germans). WWII saw the Japanese population find cities destroyed by a single plane. WWII saw a god emporer fall from the heavens. WWII was fought against populations holding alliegence to a central power that surrendered.
With all that said, there continued to be ‘innsurgent’ groups fighting in all theaters. I guess after loosing over 100,000 men in the first hours of a single mission the little firefights went by unnoticed.
The reason we see the insurgents is simply because we are not fighting this war as a war.
Mekan,
Other differences is the vast differences in immediate communications. You had to wait for censored news in WW2. Also, you didn’t have the MSM taking dispatches from stringers that were in the employ of the enemy as they do now.
Also, in the late 60s the authroities were still pulling Japanese soldiers out of the Phillipines and other islands that were still fighting the war. They had never heard of the surrender or of the atomic bombing of their home islands.
Nazi resistors were still active until almost 1950.
Also, we did not get all our interned soldiers returned by the USSR, our Allie, after WW2. I believer some of Doolittle’s flyers were slow in being returned by the USSR. Their planes were never returned. Those were B-25s. The Russians held on to B-29s that went to Vladivostok when they could not return to an American base. The Russians reverse engineered those planes into their Bear bombers.
Now, we see “insurgents” because we don’t recognize the difference between Iraqis and other Al Qaeda Arabs. It is real easy to spot Japanese insurgents, but the German ones weren’t easy to spot, and some of them were supposedly working for us after the war.
In simpler terms, people are not as apt to complain about not having shoes if they are thankful to still have their feet.
AMEN to that brother!!!!!