Thursday:
"Our troops have become the enemy. We need to change direction in Iraq," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a Democratic hawk whose call a day earlier for pulling out troops sparked a nasty, personal debate over the war.Friday:
The House on Friday overwhelmingly rejected calls for an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq, a vote engineered by the Republicans that was intended to fail. Democrats derided the vote as a political stunt.
The House voted 403-3 to reject a nonbinding resolution calling for an immediate troop withdrawal."We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will not retreat," Speaker Dennis Hastert, R- Ill., said as the GOP leadership pushed the issue to a vote over the protest of Democrats.
Political stunt? Absolutely. Effective? Completely. This should quiet down much of the inane debate that has been held over this war. Haven't we had enough of the crazy ideas? Do we need to hear another fool say we should pull all our troops out right now? No. Even DovBear would agree that such talk is stupid - let's focus on building up Iraq, both politically and militarily, so our troops can be home as soon as is feasible without endangering the Iraqi infrastructure. It's great for their country - but it's good for ours as well. Let's not forget that.
Instapundit has much more on the subject... This link was excellent.
Withdrawl in 6 months, a year, whatever. It doesn't matter. Democracy cannot be instilled at gunpoint. Iraq is a tribal nation and the moment US forces leave, the country will descend into further chaos and civil war. This war has become Bush's Waterloo, and will sink the republican majority in Congress, who really ought to be concerned with more important business than bastardizing Murtha's resolution into something he never meant it to be. The moment that the Representative from Ohio (Jean Schmitt I believe) got up to speak was the exact nanosecond that historians will look back at when they consider how the republicans lost Congressional control.
ReplyDeleteL'hit
I think it far more likely that Schmitt and Murtha are forgotten completely within 6 months. Nobody is instilling "democracy at gunpoint", and to compare it to Waterloo is a bit strange. I think it far more likely that the Republicans, thanks to this seeming "abandoning" of Bush last week, actually strengthen their majority: They are demanding progress reports on Iraq. When those reports come back with all the details of what is actually going on there, I think the citizens of this country are going to question why they hadn't heard most of this before.
ReplyDeleteHmmm didn't Geroge W. say on October 11, 2000, at the second Gore-Bush Presidential Debate that, "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building. . . . I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have a kind of nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not."
ReplyDeleteAnd now look what he is doing in Iraq.
Is W's "No Nation Building" a little like 41's "No New Taxes?"
Why yes, I think it is.
I don't get it. Don't liberals always complain that Bush is stubborn and never changes his mind? This is a case where did, thanks to 9/11. Why is that a problem?
ReplyDeleteI actually think it's somewhere in the middle. Notice that the Marines are all but out of Iraq; the types of troops still there are definitely serving a more advisory function than they were. The Iraqi troops are leading in and participating in far more missions than they were as well. But until they are fully trained, it would not make much sense to leave.
ReplyDeleteI like Nephtuli's point too: You realize after 9/11 that half-baked jobs are just not good enough.
And the job he is doing in Iraq isn't half baked? Please.
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. What's half-baked about it? It's moving along quite well, the attacks notwithstanding. Do you want to put even more troops in? That's worth consideration...
ReplyDelete