FINALLY, they get tough
Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia) threaten to cut aid to the Iraqi government if they do not move forward in political reconciliation that is so badly needed there.
Finally, the GOP has realized sending in troops is pointless unless the Iraqis themselves do some work. Democracy does not come at the barrell of a gun.
I always liked Lindsey Graham, even when he endorsed the neofascist principles of the Republican party.
He's right here, there needs to be political change in Iraq, and if we're going to keep our troops there, then dammit, we're going to push this country's government to get their damn act together.
Apparently we can't draft into the military, but hell, we can draft civilian employees. Said one foreign service officer;
"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment, I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?"
Contuining with theme that this administration is great at putting the cart before the horse, they have just realized their behemouth embassy in Iraq isn't really attracting many it's workers.
Seeing that diplomats do not have any interest in serving in a country as disastrous as Iraq, the state department is FORCING some employees to go and work in the largest bullseye in the Middle East.
Has this ever happened before? Yes;
In 1969, an entire class of entry-level diplomats was sent to serve in Vietnam, and on a smaller scale, diplomats were forcibly assigned to work at embassies in West Africa in the 1970s and 1980s
Dear President Bush,
Please consult your dictionary. You will find this;
gen·o·cide /ˈdʒɛnəˌsaɪd/ [jen-uh-sahyd]
-noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
I personally side with Turkey on the Kurdish issue, but it is time to fess up to what they did to the Armenians 90 years ago. This is in no way a criticism of our Turkish friends. We accept that our German friends and Japanese friends committed brutual war crimes in the past.
On the Kurdish issue, Turkey has every right to send troops into Northern Iraq if their territory is being attacked. We were warned this may happen before we decided to do our G.I. Joe testostorone soaked invasion of Iraq three years ago, but as usual, our government did not listen.
And WE are the ones preaching restraint to the Turkish? US? Well, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?
"Democrats and Liberals are spending your tax dollars like it's water and are planning to tax you to death. We need to limit spending...now give me a $193 billion for Iraq."
So it's bad to spend our tax dollars on Americans, but it's good to spend it on Iraqis and Afghans...I see.
Gates responds to Greenspan's comment about the Iraq war being about oil;
"I know the same allegation was made about the Gulf War in 1991, and I just don't believe it's true."
The House of Representatives overwhelminly voted to oppose funding for permanent bases in Iraq. Vote Results are here
399 members voted yea, inclcuding all Democrats and most Republicans.
24 members, all conservative Republicans, voted nay...here they are, so you can call them and complain;
Spencer Bachus (R-Alabama)
Richard Baker (R-Louisiana)
J. Gresham Barrett (R-South Carolina)
Joe Barton (R-Texas)
Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee)
Kevin Brady (R-Texas)
Michael Burgess (R-Texas)
John Campbell (R-California)
Chris Cannon (R-Utah)
Jeff Flake (R-Arizona)
Trent Franks (R-Arizona)
Phil Gingrey (R-Georgia)
Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois)
Wally Herger (R-California)
Bob Inglis (R-South Carolina)
Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
Steve King (R-Iowa)
John Linder (R-Georgia)
Jeff Miller (R-Florida)
Steve Pearce (R-New Mexico)
Bill Sali (R-Idaho)
John Shadegg (R-Arizona)
Mac Thornberry (R-Texas)
Mike Turner (R-Ohio)
Harry Reid is expected to hold the Senate in session ALL NIGHT tomorrow night to get a consensus on Iraq.
The GOP is expected to filibuster and the Democrats are expected to fail.
But they're going to go down fighting and keeping their opponents sleep deprived.
I'll be blogging it until I pass out at the keyboard.
"My understanding is at this juncture they're going to take August off, but, you know, they may change their minds. You know, it's 130 degrees in Baghdad in August." -Tony Snow
"You know, that's a good point, and it's 130 degrees for the Iraqi military."
was agreeing to join the group in the first place and then not officially quitting until he was forced to.
To Rudy Giuliani, money and loyalty to the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party was more important.
Yep, this is EXACTLY who we need in the White House. (sarcasm)
According to al-Sadr;
"We are now facing a brutal Western assault against Islam,"
Nope, not at all.
An escalation like this is dangerous.
Funny, I thought it was going to be when we pull out that the escalation with other countries would happen, not when we put more troops in.
What are they thinking? Osama Bin Laden has had great luck convincing angry fundamentalist Muslims to join his cause by spinning our presence in the Middle East as one of the West attempting to colonize and westernize the East. He's convinced them that our goal is to take over the entire Middle East, rape them of their oil, give the land to the Jews and take away their Middle Eastern Islamic identity. We know that's ludicrous and isn't at all true, but these frustrated Muslims don't and they're being convinced their culture and way of life is in jeopardy, and we're doing nothing to prove to them that it's not. They very presence of our soldiers, for no apparent reason, except defending the oil fields, gives Osama Bin Laden a platform he doesn't deserve. We should be trying to rid Osama of excuses, not giving them to him. Therefore, I ask, why, why in hell are we building the most expensive, most expansive, most elaborate United States Embassy in a land where one of the reason the terrorists are using to gain support is that we're there to begin with? The United States Embassy to Iraq in Baghdad is to be much larger and grander than any other one in the world. It will be a 21 building complex, sprawling over 104 acres. It's not so much an embassy as a campus, or a neighborhood within a city. According to the Washington Post, the embassy budget is $923 million. By comparison, the US Embassy in Beijing, China, clearly one of the most important countries on earth, has only a $49 million, in our strongest ally Britain, $39 million, and our southern neighbor Mexico, where the immigration debate is centered, $31 million. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why we are putting our biggest, most expensive foreign mission in a land where the people want us out. Is it just to be defiant? Osama Bin Laden can easily spin this embassy plan as an attempt by the West to "take over slowly." Why are we giving Al-Qaeda another battle cry? It's just like this administration to drain our resources away in Iraq. Our military has already been severely strained by the war and now the State Department is straining its diplomatic efforts to put together the super-embassy. Even Lawrence Eagleburger, a Republican former Secretary of State and member of the Iraq Study Group called the State's Department's plans for the embassy "nuts" and "counterproductive." I don't understand it. Do we really think we're going to win the PR wars with the Islamic fundamentalists by forcing ourselves on them? What are people, who have been told all their lives we seek to dominate them, going to think when they see a 104 acre United States Embassy? The assumption to many is going to be "Gee, was Osama right? Are they trying to force themselves on us?" We're not, but they don't know that. They're going to listen to one them before one of us, even if the one of "them" is Bin Laden or some Al-Qaeda publicist. We Americans should be protesting. We should be livid that our government is wasting nearly a billion dollars of our tax money to build an obnoxious behemoth of an embassy in a land where we're not wanted and in the land where all it's going to be is a giant bull's-eye. What are they thinking?
Ron Paul must be steaming.
Is it really that important that we put our largest embassy in the world in Iraq? I would say it should be in London, Beijing, Tokyo or Moscow.
This is the bad policy Paul was talking about. They don't want us there, so what do we do? We built our biggest embassy there. For five seconds, put yourself in the people's shoes. Imagine, if you will, they built the largest mosque in the world in Washington, D.C.
How would we feel?
Just think about it.
To me a top element of fascism;
When the people disagree with you, control what they hear and see until you can shape a story that wlll turn public opinion your way.
"We do not want evidence to be disturbed before the arrival of detectives, the
ministry must respect human rights and does not want to expose victims and does
not want to give terrorists information that they achieved their goals."
``The Iraqi government is a huge disappointment, So far, they've not been able do anything they promised on the political side,It's a growing frustration. I don't know what their problem is but this country has made an enormous investment in giving the Iraqis a chance to have a normal government after all of these years of Saddam Hussein and his atrocities. I want to assure you, if they vote to ask us to leave, we'll be glad to comply with their request,''
