May 10, 2007
Shame on 11 Republicans Who Confront the President But Vote for His Disaster (Brent Budowsky)
The 11 Republicans who confronted President Bush on Tuesday, and promised their continued support for a policy they know is disastrous, have committed an act of indescribable hyprocisy and shame.
On an issue of high honor involving life and death for thousands of American troops, they show the president their poll numbers and promise the president they will again vote for an escalation they know is wrong.
Someday Americans killed in action may reach 4,000 and Americans wounded in action may reach 30,000.
Perhaps the 11 House Republicans will return to the White House and read the president their poll numbers again.
Heroes, they are not. The tragedy in Iraq continues and they vote for it, again.
12 Comments
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This is a freaking war, not "disasterous policy". Disasterous policy is not cutting government spending. Wars are to be won. The moderate Republicans are confused about who will vote for them. If and when they abandon the President they will lose. The Democrats got control of the House by running coservative candidate and then installed the radical left-wing leadership. A left-wing (one foreign policy) Republican has no base. They better figure out the truth instead of reacting to organized MoveOn "voter" phone call campaings.
Comment by Igor R. — May 10, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
One can't help but notice that when people advocate continuation of the Iraq Fiasco, or any war, they never mention the human cost. It simply doesn't occur to them, these people who wouldn't advocate domestic murder, that they are advocates of international murder which is what war consists of. And, to make it worse, the predominant victims of international murder (war), besides the troops, are women and children, while most of the proponents of war are men. Do I detect a biblical trend here? The expression of power of men over women and those less powerful?
Comment by Don Bacon — May 10, 2007 @ 2:29 pm
Don, who is it exactly in Iraq that's killing women and children?
Comment by Igor R. — May 10, 2007 @ 4:40 pm
The behavior of the Reublicans is outrageous and devious and unforgiveable. No doubt about it. Problem is the Democratic party is little better. Voters have no major party on their side. Vote Green.
Comment by selma goldberg — May 10, 2007 @ 4:48 pm
Igor, I have one word for you - Haditha. A US Marine shoots a 2 year-old in the head at point-blank range.
Comment by Peg S — May 10, 2007 @ 5:22 pm
It's not Hypocrisy and it's not shame those politicians have neither. There is something else at work here, like bundles of cash under the table, perhaps. But Selma may be right, there is no major party representing voters—change parties?
No! That's too slow, Change the Party!
No money, no support for any candidate who will not renounce the war and pledge to toss out all the bush legislations signing statements and all.
Comment by Cole Epstein — May 10, 2007 @ 8:05 pm
You were there Peg? You saw, with your own eyes this American boy approach the toddler on a beatiful, peaceful Iraqi day and just tear that little body to pieces? And then you knew, that the oil nazis have come home, didn't you Peg?
Comment by Igor R. — May 11, 2007 @ 12:37 am
Igor, it was only I-gor in Young Frankenstein. I think it was Igor in the old Peter Laurie films.
Having said that it is nice to see a pundit who doesn't pull punches. Keep it up Brent.
Where did Mr Morris go? I was hoping to have the opportunity to nudge him toward the middle, at least. He can't be a neocon can he???
Comment by Gary Anderson — May 11, 2007 @ 1:14 am
Gary, well there is also an opera, and Stravinsky, and all kinds of stuff. Igor was/is quite a popular name back in the (former) USSR.
Comment by Igor R. — May 11, 2007 @ 3:32 pm
The only thing that will save our country and our children is to vote every incumbent out. Good and bad. We need new people who are not owned by PAC money or able to be blackmailed. Then the rest of the world can build a wall around the state of Israel and we can live in peace.
Comment by SandiWilliams — May 11, 2007 @ 10:38 pm
Igor, I take it you are comfortable like the war-hawks who sit in their easy chairs espousing about the neccessity of continuing on with an illegal war. Igor, when a war is condemend by international courts, which the USA above all other Rogue states ignores, that war is not a war. It is terrorism.
Besides this is now an occupation inwhich while US casualties slowly but steadily rise, for every thousand of lives lost of our soldiers their are multiple thousands of lives lost to their side. And though Don's example of the deaths to women and children are true, dramatic and horrorfying (which was very common in vietnam with massacres commonly carried out throughout the villages), it is more useful to think of the tons of US bombs that have pounded Iraq well before and after vietnam that have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. The best that corporate media will provide us with regards to those numbers is "untold numbers" of Iraq deaths. The US government and media don't even bother to count and report those numbers, but Iraqis and other nations do very closely - 69,418 to date, though some suggest its well over twice that.
I know you are not alone in your idealism that "Wars are to be won" as if this is some kind of sporting event. This is common belief among superpatriots - those who unquestioningly go along with what their government tells this is right policy. But true patriots don't hate democracy like this administration as well as all previous ones do, whether democratic or republican. True patriots contemplate through what is right and what is wrong as they evaluate the effects of the certain actions their government. When they learn that their government has lied regarding the pretense of a war, they dissent. They don't support them and follow lock step into the next excuse for launching a war.
For a lie by bie account leading to the war see:http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/
There is a reason that the majority of the worlds nations regards (as all reliable polls show to date) the USA as the most feared nation in the world. It's government/foreign policy exploits other nations repeatedly and resorts to military intervention more than any other nation. It wages "preventive war" while disregarding international resolutions that forbid it. It vetoes resolutions that declare its actions as illegal and requiring an immediate cease of action and the payment of reparations according to the Geneva Conventions as in the case of Nicaragua. It regards itself as above international law while portraying itself as the worlds enlightened nation burdened with the responsibilities of policing the world, and with good intentions intervening in other nations for their sake.
Forget that a National Security Council memo from Feb. 2001 (prior to 911) that directed "the N.S.C. staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force (which included private energy executives) as it considered the 'melding' of operational policies towards rogue states, 'such as Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.'"
Bring democracy to Iraq my ass. But we are suppose to ignore such evidence of scandalousness and regard thoughts about the administrations pre 9-11 Iraq aims as conspiracy lunacy.
You are right Igore, "disastrous policy is not cutting government spending." This government spending on this war needs to be cut so that we can put those monies back into social programs that this administration has decimated.
Comment by andrew — May 12, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
[...] Republicans in Congress have been growing increasingly frustrated with the Bush administration war strategy, realizing that the current President has lost credibility amongst the American people with regard to Iraq, if not entirely. The Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), claimed in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN that if the Iraqi government held a vote that served as a referendum on American troop presence, then he would support withdrawal if they voted for the departure of American forces. After numerous claims that have continued the presence of the United States, including 'we have to fight them there so we don't fight them here' and to preserve American interests in the region, it appears that Republicans are developing an exit strategy that precedes the 2008 election cycle, in which 21 of 33 Senate seats up for election are currently held by Republicans and as the Party hopes to hold on to the White House. This also corresponds with a meeting between President Bush and 11 moderate Republicans from the House of Representatives last week where they told him that the current strategy was not working and that he needed to follow whatever advice was given by General David Petraeus, the American commander of ground forces in Iraq. However, for the time being, they will continue to support the President's policy. [...]
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