Sure they have the votes. What they don't have is the votes to override a funding bill that has withdrawl conditions attached.
All the DEMOCRAT controlled CONGRESS has to do is simply refuse to allocate any funds. They can't be forced to allocate funds. The President can't allocate funds himself, so if the DEMOCRAT controlled CONGRESS doesn't hold a vote to allocate funds then no funds are allocated.
I still think you are simplifying. The first imperative of a politican is his political survival, the only exception being those (like Bush and Cheney) who are lame ducks and could care less about political consequences. A politician that moves too far ahead of its voters will lose his or her job. Whatever logic you propose is confounded by the wariness of the politicans to act in contradiction to the mass of the voters. It is also simplistic to expect politicans to show "leadership" when that very same leadership could result in the loss of their job as well as the loss of party nfluence for years to come. As is true with individuals as well as nations, true change doesn't occur until the pain of going in one direction becomes too great. My guess is that the red states in particular have to bury more of their young by a factor of about ten before there is a change in political direction.
How will we know when we have won the war in Iraq?
Some say we need to stay "as long as it takes" - but as long as it takes for what (exactly) to happen?
What will be the definitive indicators of and criteria for "victory"?
Answer: It will all be over when the fat lady sings (at her inaugural).
But your question begs the question that there really is a war, or to use the president's words, a front in the war against terror. It seems that we must, as we are expending lives and treasure on foreign soil. But I question the premise, especially when it is used as a predicate for us to do something or not something. The formulation is, for example, that since we're at war, we need domestic espionage. In the context of the U.S. Constitution, when can war exist?
The last time Congress declared war was World War II. Today's conflict constitutionally speaking is at most an undeclared war.
The founding fathers were united in vesting the legislature with war-making authority. "The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress," George Washington wrote. "Therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure." The authorization for the present conflict is section three of the Congressional Resolution on Iraq:
(a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq;
and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
These fuzzy statements are the legal basis for our involvement in Iraq. It's ironic that an administration that prides itself on recruiting jurists committed to a philosophy of strict constructionism conveniently adopt an interpretation of the constitution so elastic that none of our founding fathers would recognize it.
What the Iraq war really is is politics by other means. The initial goal of this conflict was not WMDs or the defeat of terrorist or the planting of democracy in the Middle East. It is simply the re-election of Bush and the consolidation of state power by terrorising the sheep-like electorate with images and lies.
However, reality-- the facts on the ground-- have a way of dissolving the illusions of war. And the biggest reality on the ground is the prospect that all branches of US power will swing to the Democratic Party in 2008 or shortly after that. Republican congressmen are announcing their retirement in droves-- six senators by my count and perhaps another twelve members of the house. This has the making of a veto-proof Congress and the possibility that as many as six liberal justices will be appointed to the Supreme Court over the next eight years. The only criteria for success is to reconceptualize our involvement as a victory-- regardless of whether the facts support that reconceptualization-- rather than an unending, mismanaged quagmire, as General Sanchez suggested last week. As to the rosy claims of mission accomplished that are now appearing in the press, you may want to consider what is happening outside of Bagdad, especially as regards to Turkey and the Kurds, Iran and their nuclear ambitions, and also the rising power of Parkistan, China, and Russia.
By any rational measure, the decision to go to war in Iraq has caused the United States immense harm, an erosion of respect and influence around the world, and a crippling of America's military establishment and prestige. It will take years for America to recover, and the recovery will have to take place under Democratic administrations.
The same folks-- many of whom never saw a day of combat themselves-- who are shocked-- shocked!-- at such rudeness to Bush's puppet saw fit to cheer the swift-boating of Senator Kerry.
Time magazine's headline for it's last issue: "How much longer?" That is the most stupid question I can imagine. Why doesn't Time magazine go ask the insurgents and terrorists "how much longer"?
Would you put down your gun and "hateful ideology" if a foreign force occupied America?
But they're going to stay there and proudly serve until their job is done. And they will have the support of the majority in this country.
Seem kind of utopian for us to commit our forces until peace and love reigns through the Middle East. The soldiers will continue to have the support of America so long as most Americans don't have to pay a price unlike during WWII. They will still drive their SUVs with their yellow ribbon magnets that claim their support for our troopers. However, as more coffins start coming home to Main Street, USA, it will dampen your kind of bluster.
The general and ambassador gave lots of statistics and facts in their 17 hours before Congress. But the only metric that would convince me is two: the number of daughters that Bush is willing to sacrifice on the altar of liberty in Iraq on behald of the United States. Of course, that will never happen.
By the way, what about you? Have you served or are your children serving in Iraq?
Any member of Congress that thinks they know how to run a war - which, by the way, is NOT their job - from thousands of miles away in a nice comfortable office with his shiny leather shoes and expensive suit is suffering from severe dementia and possibly even brain damage. Congress simply cannot second-guess General Petraeus because Congress isn't there and doesn't know what's going on. They are not military men, they are politicians. They have no basis on which to second-guess Petraeus' proposals other that posturing and grandstanding.
Wrong. Since when do soldiers make military policy? It is yet another constitutional principle that the president has gutted. It looks to me that Petraeus is part of the echo chamber-- his master's voice-- and has the same credability another soldier had a generation ago-- General Westmoreland. There are people like Senator McCain who think we should have stayed in Viet Nam to "finish the job" and that 58,000 American lives were not enough. He doesn't make clear as to what what staying the course in Viet Nam would have accomplished in hindsight. It certainly would not have prevented the Cambodian genocide, and Republicans such as Nixon and Kissinger at that time were adament that their policy had nothing to do with what happned in Cambodia.
But, who cares, right? Leave them alone and let them deal with it. They'll work it out. So what if the Shiites go on a massive ethnic cleansing campaign and al-Quaeda sets up their new world headquarters in Iraq? As long as our soldiers can come home and we can save some money, who cares, right?
That is right. The prevention of ethnic cleansing has never been our goal. If it was, we would be in Dafur. It's not our business to umpire civil wars with hatreds that go back a thousand years and to nation build. We need to get out now.
Tomorrow, the president will announce troop cuts but qualified to "conditions on the ground." I predict that the conditions will be such that the troop levels will be pretty much where they are now.
Who will it hurt? Not the Democrats, who are counting on the president to maintain his policy so that they can get control of all branches of the government. Not the president who wants the vindication of history by ensuring that presidents that follow him are tied to his interventionist neo-con policies. Not his supporters who continue to place support for the president above love for this country. The only people who will be hurt will be the troops and their families. They will continue to bleed. Only about 4,000 American have died thus far in Iraq. My guess is that the numbers have to increase by a factor of ten-- 40,000 or more perhaps due to an expanded war into Iran and Syria-- before America comes to its senses.
If I was an Iraqi with any intelligence, I wouldn't be taking up arms against the force that deposed Saddam Hussein.
But why? They may not be fighting for bin laden but they might be fighting for things that we don't understand-- the temples of their gods and the graves of their fathers.
We're not there trying to shove Christianity down anyone's throat, nor are we trying to take over. We're cleaning up after our ass kicking of Saddam and trying to re-establish a central government. As soon as things are calm, we're outta there.
But do they understand that? I was going to say that I understand that, but as a matter of fact, I'm not sure that's true. I think the model for Bush is permanent occupation along the same lines as we have in South Korea, Germany, and Cuba. It's not for nothing that we are building the biggest embassy in the world and are signing multi-decade contracts. In fact, in Bush's speech, he suggested as much-- that this may be a multi-generation effort in Iraq.
I served in the Army during the first gulf war. I don't have any kids but if I did, I would proudly support their decision to serve the country and go to Iraq to fight. Because it's the RIGHT thing to do.
I salute your service, but not your judgment.
Petraeus has been given a job to go to Iraq and gain success. The stuffed suits give him an objective and he decides how to accomplish it. The suits can't tell him what to do and HOW to do it, period.
Sorry, that isn't how the consitution works, as MacArthur found out.
These are your words. "Only" 4,000. So then if "only" 4,000 have died, then what's the big deal? What's wrong with sticking around awhile and kicking some more insurgent, Islamic jihadi ass?
I'm being ironic. Someone asked Petraeus, to paraphrase, will your actions make us safer? He said in effect "huh, I dunno".
He didn't exactly leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling of confidence. Seems to me that this is a key question. If it cannot be clearly be answered in the affirmative, then what in the heck are we doing there?
Hey butt-face tell us all what and who neo-cons are.....genius!!
I had no idea that my brother posted here. OK, settle down, and I'll clue you in. neo-con has several meanings, all applicable only to Republicans. 1. neo comes from the Latin 'new'. con means convict. So, neo-con is a new Republican convict. There are many of these. Tom Delay is a good example.
2. con also means confidence as in shuster or scam artist, which, essentially is the entire Republican administration.
3. Finally, neo also comes from the Albanian "not" and con means conservative. Thus, neo cons are Republicans that give us non-conservative policies such as unfunded educational mandates, premptive wars and nation building, and the termination of irrelvancies such as Social Security and balanced budgets. Again, the entire Republican administration.
Thanks!
You're welcome.
Why would they think we want anything to do with their temples and graves?
I'm speaking metaphorically. In the war of hearts and minds, we are losing. Most Iraqis want the Americans out of their country for the same reason that most Americans would want foreign troops out of America if we were so occupied. We may see ourselves as acting with nobility to bring Jefferson democracy to Iraq. But the vast majority of those who live in Iraq see us as Christian crusaders, plunderers of their wealth, imperalists in the tradition of Rome and trhe the British, killers of their children, despoilers of their women. The scandals at Abu Garub and Haditha certainly didn't help to dispel that widespread perception, and it is no accident that more people in Iraq and Pakistan revere bin Laden their the current state leaders.
We will always have some kind of presence there at the pleasure of the Iraqi government, which was elected by the Iraqi people.
At the pleasure of the Iraqi government or the pleasure of our government? Some of the distrust in the Middle East comes from our involvement in trying to overthrow governments that we believe have policies contrary to our interests. Iran's hatred to America can in part be traced back to the coup d'etat in 1953 by the CIA and MI6 under Operation AJAX of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, the Prime Minister of Iran. And today Iran's hatred is fueled by a more recent policy of regime change-- a truely idiotic policy as it forces Iran to assume the very worse about America as it views its own existence is at stake reducing any incentive for moderation or diplomacy. Under the circumstances, Iran has considerable motivation in fomenting civil war in Iraq as a way to entrap the US in a quagmire while they build a nuclear arsenal. We ae forcing Iran into radicalism because our own policies are radical.
Congress does not run wars; that is the job of the President. Congress is trying to micro-manage something outside their scope of responsibility. If they don't like what's going on, then they can stop funding it. Why haven't they stopped the funding if this war is so terrible??
They haven't stopped funding it for the simple reason that they don't have the votes to sustain a veto. However, that is slowly changing. Congress will continue to assert itself to the point of micro-managing because it is so distrustful of the administration in its serial lies and also in its incompetence under Rumsfeld and Casey. None of this would have happened during WWII or during the Afghanistan invasion when there was a broad US consensus. Most congressman now believe that the administration's policies do not reflect the will of the people. And so they will seek to constrain its military policies more and more. However, just as a good fisherman will play out the line before snagging the trout, so too will they give the president what he wants as an expedient to achieving what they ultimately want-- Democratic control of government. It's a cynical rope-a-dope policy that is costing our troopers their lives, but it is a plan that accords with both what the president wants and the Democratic leadership want, and so it will continue.
The so-called "majority" of Americans who are against the war is a fallacy. With the help of the Defeatocrat party the Leftist media has propagandized the Iraq War, only reporting the most negative aspects of it.
It was the liberal media, such as Judith Miller of the New York Times, who propaganderized the Iraq war from the start.
Were America truly against the war there would be violence in the streets and massive demonstrations weekly.
Why? With only a few thousand dead and no draft, this war has touched few Americans. Most Americans simply don't care if your kids live or die in Iraq.
Right now all we have are some malcontent anarchists and fringe whackos, numbering in the hundreds, not the thousands meeting every 6 months or so in DC.
I seem to remember this echo from the 60s-- that somehow a bunch of scruffy hippies on the corner of Height and Asbury forced the 101 Airborne to surrender in Viet Nam.
The "majority" is wrong on the war. The right thing to do is continue the surge, defeat the enemy of America, within and without and then we will have peace.
Even General Petreaus states that he isn't sure that this will bring America greater security whereas former Fed Chief Greenspan is sure that this war is all about oil. Yep, it seems the right thing to do and it will definitely bring peace. (snort)
How many of you Defeatocrats have served in the military like I have?
Gee, I don't know how many fools want to fight them over there so they don't have to fight them here. You may want to ask some of your chicken-hawk young Republicans the same question.
Perhaps I’m the one mistaken for assigning too much value to truth. (Truth is overrated) . . . Politics, advertising, business are areas I see as favoring the good liar.
No, I don't think we can assign too much value to truth, and nor do I think that ultimately lies favor the good businessman or politican. This is especially true in politics (or, for that matter, in your neighborhood bar), where misperception of capabilities or intentions can have deadly results. I view our involvement in Viet Nam and Iraq as an epistomological failure, much more so than a failure of arms or will.
What follows "Getting Iraq Wrong" by a one time apologist of American involvement in Iraq, Michael Ignatieff. Trusting that I'm within the bounds of fair use, here are some of its salient paragraphs of this important essay from Sunday's New York Times Magazine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine/05iraq-t.html "The unfolding catastrophe in Iraq has condemned the political judgment of a president. But it has also condemned the judgment of many others, myself included, who as commentators supported the invasion.
"The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once said that the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true. Politicians live by ideas just as much as professional thinkers do, but they can’t afford the luxury of entertaining ideas that are merely interesting. They have to work with the small number of ideas that happen to be true and the even smaller number that happen to be applicable to real life. In academic life, false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with. In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual’s responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician’s responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm.
"A sense of reality is not just a sense of the world as it is, but as it might be. Like great artists, great politicians see possibilities others cannot and then seek to turn them into realities. To bring the new into being, a politician needs a sense of timing, of when to leap and when to remain still. Bismarck famously remarked that political judgment was the ability to hear, before anyone else, the distant hoofbeats of the horse of history.
"Fixed principle matters. There are some goods that cannot be traded, some lines that cannot be crossed, some people who must never be betrayed. But fixed ideas of a dogmatic kind are usually the enemy of good judgment.
"Good judgment in politics, it turns out, depends on being a critical judge of yourself. It was not merely that the president did not take the care to understand Iraq. He also did not take the care to understand himself. The sense of reality that might have saved him from catastrophe would have taken the form of some warning bell sounding inside, alerting him that he did not know what he was doing. But then, it is doubtful that warning bells had ever sounded in him before. He had led a charmed life, and in charmed lives warning bells do not sound. "People with good judgment listen to warning bells within. Prudent leaders force themselves to listen equally to advocates and opponents of the course of action they are thinking of pursuing. They do not suppose that their own good intentions will guarantee good results. They do not suppose they know all they need to know. If power corrupts, it corrupts this sixth sense of personal limitation on which prudence relies."
Michael Ignatieff (Aug. 5) dismisses many of the early (and prescient) critics of the invasion of Iraq for “indulging in ideology” rather than “exercising judgment.”
It takes extraordinary chutzpah for those like Ignatieff, who were so passionately wrong about Iraq, to accuse the opponents of the war of being ideological, when in reality we were challenging the extremely ideological, indeed messianic, views of the war’s proponents. The critics were not only right in predicting the disastrous consequences of the invasion but also in judging that those consequences flowed from the motives behind it, which we correctly said were rooted in the geopolitics of energy in the resource-rich Middle East. Ignatieff offers nothing, other than more ideology, to challenge this view.
Anthony Arnove New York
As a good and friendly neighbor, this Canadian would like to apologize to all those on your side of the border for the lame, windy excuses now emanating from my fellow countrymen who, in light of current tragic realities, are rethinking their support for your president, his incompetent manipulators and their doomed-from-the-start, militaristic foray into Iraq. Please remember in the future that the main reason those like Ignatieff or the “axis of evil” coiner David Frum are down there messing in your affairs is that we long ago stopped listening to their cloistered ramblings up here.
To my mind, a statement like "supporting the war is not a conservative position..." simply doesn't jibe with the history of American conservatism. To me, today's "traditional conservative" draws his genesis from the likes of Russell Kirk and Buckley, through Goldwater (aka, "Mr. Conservative"), to Reagan.
I disagree. William Buckley represents that part of the conservative wing going back to the days of Taft isolationism that has expressed strong skepticism of international unilateralism and interventionism generally and to the Iraq war in particular, in distinction to, say, Norman Podhoretz, who represents the neo-conservative wing and would have us bomb Iran tomorrow.
Literally, a conservative is one who wishes to conserve the resources, ideals, and respect of the nation. These seems to an inherent contradiction to public policies and actions that consumes resources, besmearches our ideals, and erodes the regard of the world towards the United States. Conservatives also understand that countries enter wars, not armies, and that an army without the support of its citizenry will fail. It is these axioms that suggest to me that there is nothing "conservative" about the Iraq war. Given the assumptions of the time (2003), I can easily see "traditional conservatives" supporting this war. In fact, I think most of whom I would identify as true conservatives did. And I am confident that this war, at its outset, would have been applauded and supported by the "plankholders" of the modern conservative movement, were they alive.
I'm not so confident. I suppose you could go back to our founding fathers for a definitive opinion on this subject, who cautioned us in getting involved in foreign entanglements. The assumption that the expenditure of US blood and treasure to conserve our own freedoms may have had warrant, assuming that the "assumptions of the time" had merit. But the did not and do not, and nor were those assumptions the prevailing assumptions. Subsequent investigations have since demonstrated that these assumptions were not just based on the lack of evidence or bad evidence but out-right lies.
The fact that only a limited segment of our population has been asked to bear the burden of this war and that the adminsitration saw fit to disclose the identify of a CIA operative in time of war suggests to me that this was a war that was conducted for political reasons rather than in the defense of our national interests
The conservative metaphysic, as I understand it, is that truth is not releative-- it is rooted in what is real. The ethos of the Bush administration is one of dishonesty that extends not just to foreign affirs, but to science, tax, and other policies-- spin, selective or false evidence, manipulation of public sentiment, and propaganda-- an embrace of passion rather than reality. These are at least to me scarcely conservative ideals, and largely accounts for the erosion of Bush's support from conservatives.
I thought the democrats were ending the war once they took control. Were all those speeches pure rhetoric? Congress controls the purse; no money, no war. That simple.
I wish it were that simple. The fact is that Congress needs much more than a majority to ensure the severance of money for war funding. The Democrats have a paper thin majority, and time will clearly have to pass before a bloc consisting of Republicans and Democrats is in place that can withstand a veto.
The question is do we leave now with Iraq in chaos or do we leave later with Iraq in chaos. I hope the Congress chooses the former course to save more lives and treasure.
I agree. It is interesting to me how the neo-cons are imagining that all kinds of bad things will happen if Americans leave now. They certainly had no similar imagination as to consequences for entering in the first place. I think we should simpily leave and let the internal dynamics of the country work itself out. One of these days we will learn once and for all the folly trying to, in the words of Kipling, hustle the east.
Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the area in brown for the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles and it weareth the Christian down
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased – and the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East!"
Q Is the Iraqi government and the Iraqi parliament taking the month of August off?
MR. SNOW: Probably, yes. Just not --
Q They're taking the entire month of August off, before the September deadline?
MR. SNOW: It looks like they may, yes. Just like the U.S. Congress is.
Q Have you tried to talk them out of that?
MR. SNOW: You know, it's 130 degrees in Baghdad in August, I'll pass on your recommendation.
Q Well, Tony, Tony, I'm sorry, that's -- you know -- I mean, there are a lot of things that happen by September and it's 130 degrees for the U.S. military also on the ground --
MR. SNOW: You know, that's a good point. And it's 130 degrees for the Iraqi military. The Iraqis, you know, I'll let them -- my understanding is that at this juncture they're going to take August off, but, you know, they may change their minds.
Q But have you tried to convince them not to?. Does the U.S. government pressure them not to, because then the September deadline --
MR. SNOW: Again, I'm not going to -- you know, I'm just not -- I'm not getting into the -- the Iraqis understand the importance. It's not a September deadline, it's a September report. I think it's very important, in an age where everybody wants to create a sense of, sort of, finishing up on a deadline -- it's a report, it is not a deadline. It is a report that will, in fact, measure progress --
Q It's a pretty important report --
MR. SNOW: Okay, so what you're saying -- yes --
Q -- 130 degrees for the Iraqi parliament, so they need a month off, even though it's 130 degrees for U.S. soldiers.
MR. SNOW: Well, you know, you're assuming that nothing is going on. As I said, there are any number of things going on in Iraq. Let's see what the parliament does during the course of this month. Let's also see what happens, because quite often when parliaments do not meet, there are also continuing meetings on the side. And there will be progress, I'm sure, on a number of fronts.
I'm just -- I'm not in a position at this point to try to gainsay what the Iraqis are doing.
DAVID MANNING From: Matthew Rycroft Date: 23 July 2002S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY
Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.
This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
Here are reasons that some people still defend this war: 1. Inability to accept defeat, no matter what the economic or human costs. 2. Belief that the war is still winnable or that the goals are sill achievable. 3. Belief that the war in Iraq is part of a war on Terrorists who pose a threat to the US. 4. Predisposition to war as a problem solving technique. 5. Inability to critically evaluate the Bush Administration because of Republican allegiance.
My response:
To your excellent list, let me add this.
7. A belief that the US can act without regard to consequences.
Bush-Cheney are the political equivalent to Paris Hlton. Both appear to act in such a way that they can violate with impunity rules of behavior or laws that govern the behavior of other people or nations. In the case of the Bush administration, violated rules of international nborms include no pre-emptive war; no foreign-based ground troops; no torture; no harm to non-combatants, and others.
It is also becoming clear how small the circle of decisions makers were. By Cheney's own admission, the CIA was excluded from key deliberations.
Who was "the decider"? Was it Bush, who had almost no international expertise or interest? I think it was almost entirely the alpha dog in the White House, the vice president, and everyone else in the administration at least initially fell into line. In other words, the "debate" was almost entirely in Cheney's head.
Finally, in looking at your list, it occurs to me how each of the reasons has its base in beliefs or perceptions. Tenet's argument was that we were not lied into the war and that the facts were not fixed to promote the war. To the contrary, he claims, the war was launched because enough people "believed" that the war should be launched. To put it another war, the US went to war because there was a massive failure in epistomology.
And yet another reason. 8. No reason. They just do.
I’m not sure how many people actually support the war without a reason, but I’ll bet if we combed the streets, we would eventually find one. You actually began a case for that with "To the contrary, he claims, the war was launched because enough people "believed" that the war should be launched." We know that belief requires no justification. It usually does, of course, but justifications are not necessary as a basis for a belief.
So the Coalition should just pack up and leave defenseless people whose lives are in danger in large part to foreign folly? "Es gibt keine patriotische Kunst und keine patriotische Wissenschaft. Beide gehören, wie alles hohe Gute, der ganzen Welt an..." - J. W. von Goethe (1749-1832)
Ja, das Leben gehort den Lebenden an, und wer lebt, muss auf Wechsel gefasst sein.
But I prefer Kantian moral philosophy to Goethe's aphorisms, and our presumed duty to protect "defenseless people" fails the categorial imperative: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." If the defense of the oppressed was a moral law, we would naturally have US troops in Dafur, Tibet, Burma, downtown Detroit, and an infinity of other places.
That people may suffer if the US leaves is firstly an assumption not a fact-- we don't know if that is true. Secondly, it seems apparent that defenseless people are suffering and tens of thousands have died because US troops are in Iraq. If we dismiss Kantian ethics and put the moral basis of our decision on a utiliterian basis, then the higher morality is that which causes either more help or less harm, which may in fact be the US's unilateral departure. Realistically, I think it's likely that if the US left Iraq, the Iraqi myrmidons of the US imperium will suffer. But, equally realistically, such internal blood-lettings have been a part of that world for the last thousand years that venerates the lex talones, and we have no more hope of changing these deep-seated tribalistic passions than we do in sweeping back the ocean.
Today, the House voted 218-212, mostly along part lines, for a binding war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September, 2008.
That narrow margin is scarcely veto-proof. It is political theatre-- but it's necessary theatre. For it's the first meaningful rebuke to the Bush administration by Congress in the use of its budget power. Facts, reason, and counsel from former secretary of states and generals has had no effect on changing policy. What will change policy is raw politics.
To the argument that the Democrats wouldn't cut off funds while Americans troops are under fire, my response is: why not? Every drop of American blood that has been shed in Iraq is due to the president, and he and his party must bear the consequences irrespective of whetheror not there is funding. Giving money to this lost cause is akin to giving a drug addict money to buy drugs. Such an action doesn't address the root cause of the problem, speicifcally, the wrong-headed and vainglorious assumptions that predicated this exercise in futility.
To mark the fourth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Bush will play host to the 2006 NCAA football champions, the University of Florida "Gators''.
This is the text of the president's radio address today and my counterpoint:
"Good morning. In times of war, Congress has no greater obligation than funding our war fighters.
Congress it seems to me has an even a greater obligation-- to grow a back bone so as to provide oversight to the president's failed policy in Iraq.
And next week, the House will begin debate on an emergency war spending bill. The purpose of this legislation should be to give our troops on the front lines the resources, funds, and equipment they need to fight our enemies. Unfortunately, some in Congress are using this bill as an opportunity to micromanage
You are going to see the word micromanage a lot in the run up to the elections. It has the connotation of the meddling of Monday night quarterbacks. The fact is, however, that Congress over the last four years had given the president everthing he has asked for-- but he failed. Perhaps now is the time to start micromanaging.
our military commanders, force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq,
It has never been the position of the Democratic leadeship to withdraw precipitously. This statement is dishonest.
and spend billions on domestic projects that have nothing to do with the war on terror.
First, the "war on terror" is a meaningless phrase. War is conducted against people or countries, not an emotion. Second, since when is the WOT the only priority in America today? Finally, spending billions on porkbarrow schemes would certainly be in keeping with Republican tradition.
Our troops urgently need Congress to approve emergency war funds. Over the past several weeks, our Nation has begun pursuing a new strategy in Iraq. Under the leadership of General David Petraeus, our troops have launched a difficult and dangerous mission to help Iraqis secure their capital. This plan is still in its early stages, yet we're already seeing signs of progress. Iraqi and American troops have rounded up more than 700 people affiliated with Shia extremists.
I see two things. On one hand, I see official reports proving with statistics that progress is getting made. And then I see rarely a day go by with a car bombing or a death squad killing. If there is a choice between words or deeds, I always go with deeds.
They've also launched aggressive operations against Sunni extremists. And they've uncovered large caches of weapons that could have been used to kill our troops. These are hopeful signs. As these operations unfold, they will help the Iraqi government stabilize the country, rebuild the economy, and advance the work of political reconciliation. Yet the bill Congress is considering would undermine General Petraeus and the troops under his command just as these critical security operations are getting under way. First, the bill would impose arbitrary and restrictive conditions on the use of war funds
Such as making sure that the troops are adequately trained and equipped before we send them into harms way.
and require the withdrawal of forces by the end of this year if these conditions are not met.
An appropriate incentive.
These restrictions would handcuff our generals in the field by denying them the flexibility they need to adjust their operations to the changing situation on the ground. And these restrictions would substitute the mandates of Congress for the considered judgment of our military commanders.
The considered judgment of our military leaders has already proved to be deficient. As lap dogs of the neoconservatives, they cannot be trusted to stand up to the president.
Even if every condition required by this bill was met, all American forces -- except for very limited purposes -- would still be required to withdraw next year, regardless of the situation in Iraq. The consequences of imposing such an artificial timetable would be disastrous. Here is what Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently told Congress: Setting a fixed date to withdraw would "essentially tell [the enemy] how long they would have to wait until we're gone." If American forces were to step back from Baghdad before it is more secure, the scale and scope of attacks would increase and intensify. A contagion of violence could spill out across the entire country, and in time, this violence would engulf the region. The enemy would emerge from the chaos emboldened with new safe havens, new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to harm America. Such an outcome would be a nightmare for our country.
All of these are assumptions, not facts. We do not know what will happen if we leave Iraq. It is beyond dispute that things have gotten far worse for us and far better for the terrorists since we invaded.
Second, the bill would cut funding for the Iraqi security forces if Iraqi leaders did not meet rigid conditions set by Congress.
Such as urging the Iraq security forces to get rid of their death squads.
This makes no sense. Members of Congress have often said that the Iraqis must step forward and take more responsibility for their own security -- and I agree. Yet Members of Congress can't have it both ways: They can't say that the Iraqis must do more and then take away the funds that will help them do so.
Money is not what is standing in the way of getting the Iraqis to stand up.
Iraq is a young democracy that is fighting for its survival in a region that is vital to American security. To cut off support for their security forces at this critical moment would put our own security at risk.
Another assumption, beloved by the neocons but unproven by events.
Third, the bill would add billions of dollars in domestic spending that is completely unrelated to the war. For example, the House bill would provide $74 million for peanut storage, $48 million for the Farm Service Agency, and $35 million for NASA.
These figures are peanuts compared to the overall spending. $400 billion have already been spend on this war with another $100 billion in the pipeline. This argument is a red herring.
These programs do not belong in an emergency war spending bill. Congress must not allow debate on domestic spending to delay funds for our troops on the front lines. And Members should not use funding our troops as leverage to pass special interest spending for their districts.
We are a Nation at war,
False. In the constitutional sense, we are not at war. We have Americans fighting, but we are far from being a "Nation at war."
and the heaviest responsibilities fall to our troops in the field.
The first true thing Bush has said, with 3,200 Americans who have died and 30,000 who have suffered injuries.
Yet we in Washington have responsibilities, as well. General Petraeus was confirmed by the Senate without a single vote in opposition, and he and his troops need these resources to succeed in their mission. Many in Congress say they support the troops, and I believe them. Now they have a chance to show that support in deed, as well as in word. Congress needs to approve emergency funding for our troops, without strings and without delay. If they send me a bill that does otherwise, I will veto it.
That would be Bush's second veto. It won't happen.
Hans Morgenthau, the University of Chicago professor of international relations, has been dead for twenty-six years. But his writing remain a bracing antidote to the fuzzy thinking of today's neo-conservatives. The shifting rationales for the Iraq war suggests incoherence in foreign policy as well as a failure in epistomology. Just count, for example, the fallacious statements-- claims that have turned out to be either dishonest or ignorant-- in the president's remarks from four years ago:
"Saddam Hussein is a threat to our nation. September the 11th changed the strategic thinking, at least, as far as I was concerned, for how to protect our country. My job is to protect the American people. It used to be that we could think that you could contain a person like Saddam Hussein, that oceans would protect us from his type of terror. September the 11th should say to the American people that we're now a battlefield, that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist organization could be deployed here at home.
"So, therefore, I think the threat is real. And so do a lot of other people in my government. And since I believe the threat is real, and since my most important job is to protect the security of the American people, that's precisely what we'll do.
"Our demands are that Saddam Hussein disarm. We hope he does. We have worked with the international community to convince him to disarm. If he doesn't disarm, we'll disarm him."
Now contrast that to the lucidity of Dr. Morgenthau, who sought to find action between nation-states in objective laws rooted in rational interests in distinction to sentiment or fear:
"A realist theory of international politics will also avoid the other popular fallacy of equating the foreign policies of a statesman with his philosophic or political sympathies, and of deducing the former from the latter. Statesmen, especially under contemporary conditions, may well make a habit of presenting their foreign policies in terms of their philosophic and political sympathies in order to gain popular support for them. Yet they will distinguish with Lincoln between their "official duty," which is to think and act in terms of the national interest, and their "personal wish," which is to see their own moral values and political principles realized throughout the world. Political realism does not require, nor does it condone, indifference to political ideals and moral principles, but it requires indeed a sharp distinction between the desirable and the possible-between what is desirable everywhere and at all times and what is possible under the concrete circumstances of time and place."
Thus, the interest of a nation isn't what the president or Congress or even what the majority of the people of the United States always desire. It rather is rooted in qualities and also values that transcend that. Perhaps the best way to define interest is by looking at ourselves-- as members of a family, as spouses, as employees or employers. Our self-seeking inclinations are banked by custom, religion, and law. I want to get rich but I also want to enjoy a good life. I want to have a good life but I also want my kids to have a good life. As we go through life, we make all kinds of calculations that will contribute to our personal and collective goals. We don't burn through our pay check at the casino and nor do we punch our neighbor in the face because we think he may someday punch us in the face. This is nothing more than common sense. The constraints that impose appropriate behavior at the individual level seems to have been overtaken at the national level by a kind of psychosis. This condition that seems to appear again and again in American history allowed for the war to make the world safe for democracy, to contain communism, and to bring democracy to a part of the world that has never known democracy.
It's embarassing to compare the U.S. progress against the Wehrmacht and Japanese warlords of World War II to our war in Iraq, as I did in a post in October, 2006. I don't think our lack of on-the-ground progress has anything to do with the courage of the American troops who are dying in Iraq. It has everything to do with our civilian leadership. The lies that surround this war like flies on a dead rabbit are such that it is hard for the average person such as myself to support this war and, by extension, the people who fight this war.
An example of this are the systemic failures at Walter Reed hospital. I couldn't imagine a homeside GI beefing about some mold in Building 18 when his brothers were storming the beaches of Normardy. Why? It's because then national priorities eclipsed such minutia. The press and the majority of Americans suported the goals of the administration.
But that was then.
Now your're seeing the first of many similar Pulitzer-prize making stories, a kind of passive-aggressive attack on the Bush war by highlighting the collateral damage of this war-- recruiting practices, veteran discrimination, accounting irregularities among military vendors, and the like. Such stories would be inconceivable if this were a real war, which, of course, it clearly is not.
