"Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than in providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq."
--President Bush, today (quote via the SFC)
This statement reveals more than intended. The phrase "fighting political battles" is a calculated counterweight to "providing our troops what they need". "Politics" has an intrinsically negative connotation because it is, after all, an unsavory enterprise. It is petty, crude, demoralizing, depraved, and ugly.
It also happens to be the way we reconcile our differences in a civilized society. Because the alternatives--while expedient--are much uglier.
Six years with a rubber-stamp congress on foreign policy (the Democratic contributions to which were by no means trivial--Ms. Clinton, I am looking in your general direction) have left Mr. Bush with the impression that they exist to pay for whatever the hell he wants. That the Democrats are making even the weakest gesture (and it is pretty weak, really) of opposition is heartening, if only a little. Of course, one of them has to go wobbly and say something like this:
"Americans want compromise, not a cowboy-style showdown," said House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C.
For the record, this American doesn't want "compromise", he wants to see a goddamned political bloodbath. I want to see the president forced to veto bill after bill with deadline after deadline attached and for the people in "The People's House" to reflect what "the people" actually, really want. I want to see it unfold week after week like, like--well, like some sort of awful, intractible conflict without any clear force for good involved where the sides are just going to keep killing each other until they run out of bullets or one of them is just not there anymore.
For example.
After all, metaphorical blood running down the white marble steps of Washington beats the hell out of the real stuff pooling in the streets of Baghdad.
4 comments:
my lil brother is serving overseas. been on 3 tours to iraq (82 AB), and is currently in afghanistan til febuary, and was standing only about 50yrds away when the bonb intended for cheney went off last month.
anything, and i mean anything, including a congress reliving its vietnam days, that makes the nation's resolve appear weak, and reflect also upon our forces as easy marks, or encourages the idea that our forces,my brother, are easy marks, inviting further attacks deserves, and recieves, my personal derision.
as does anybody who favors such political actions.
think long and hard about the encouragement we give to opposing forces.
your loved one may be catching the next bomb.
President Bush gives the Congress Gonzales' head on a platter, Congress pushes through the funding. This is how it probably ends up because this is how it works. It isn't about right and wrong, it is about power. Walter Karp explained this, to my satisfaction, years ago.
It is my understanding the "deadline" for the troop withdraw is "non-binding". I'm pretty sure that's what it says. But if that is the case then both sides are guilty of political grand-standing and public posturing to stake out a claim.
I have gone from defending President Bush against his over-rabid bashers (who have shown no sense of proportion or reason) to just wanting this most inept administration in our country's history gone already.
Everybody comes up smelling dirty, in my estimation, including anyone who ever said to me they vote for the lesser of two evils.
This is what you get, and it serves you right.
i didnt vote for bush in 00. i had more pressing concerns:it was deer opener, and some things in life really do matter.
i held the nose in 04, for bush, precisely because my bro was in uniform, and i didnt trust anybody else to give him what he needed to come home alive.
its this political power gamemanship that weakens the image of the paper tiger, encouraging attacks on the troops. if they can only shed a little more of my brother's blood, they win in the US system, and eventually the ground war.
i'm equally angry, mind you, at the politicians who run the war who wont allow the military to use full power to leave the place in a pile of rubble and burning flesh.
those are real americans wearing those uniforms. your brother and mine. you cant 'support the troops' and still use them for political props while encouraging their defeat, or tying their hands.
Gino, the responsibility for any harm befalling US troops, past, present, and future, is on the parties that elected to put them in harm’s way in the first place, not on those attempting to remedy the original wrong through the only realistic and constitutionally permitted means afforded them (whether they are doing so as a matter of principle or as a matter of 'scoring political points' is really beside the point). If I punch you in the face and you end up needing dental work, it isn’t the dentist’s fault that the drill hurts you. It’s mine.
This administration has made it abundantly clear that they will pursue their foreign policy until either they are forced to do otherwise or until they leave office. Congress, for its part, has only the power of the purse as leverage. (This is largely a result of the fact that they have ceded far too much power to the executive to wage war in the first place, but that is another conversation for another time.)
It is not as though a protracted funding dispute is going to leave soldiers in the field running out of food, fuel, and bullets. The DoD’s budget is massive, and things will get moved around to meet short-term needs. The point is to force a realignment of long-term priorities. And that will not happen so long as Congress keeps handing out blank checks.
Your brother has a better chance of coming in home in one piece if he comes home sooner. And I really, really hope that he does.
In any case, the debate we’re having is virtually moot—no one who matters has the balls to actually do what I’m suggesting, because so many people buy into the false dichotomy between "supporting the troops" and "no longer enabling the war".
RW’s scenario, OTOH, is very, very likely.
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