April 3, 2007
In his own words (and more than a few of mine for good measure)
Our Fine President gave a little speech and press conference Tuesday to talk about how unhappy he is with the Democrats in Congress and their plans to muck up his war funding with withdrawal requirements. He spoke on a lot of other topics where he and I don’t come to agreement or even meet in the middle, but it’s his comments on this war in Iraq I found most interesting.
I have some issues with some of the things he said and the way he characterized truths and facts, but we don’t disagree on everything. I’ve decided to present some of his statements from today with comments and reactions as needed. I must say, I was surprised to find that we didn’t disagree on absolutely everything.
At this moment, two of the five additional U.S. Army brigades we are sending for this mission are operating in Baghdad… It will be early June before all U.S. forces dedicated to the operation are in place. So this operation is still in its beginning stages.
The reinforcements we’ve sent to Baghdad are having a impact. They’re making a difference. And as more of those reinforcements arrive in the months ahead, their impact will continue to grow.
He followed this praise of the mission by often repeating that people who criticize his surge plan have no stance to do so since it’s just barely underway. Unfortunately, you can’t have it both ways. If it’s too early in the implementation of this plan to say it wont work, it’s too early to sing its glorious praises.
He then went on to get to his big topic, the way our mean Democratic Congress wont give our troops the money they need for the war. I’ll let him explain:
It has now been 57 days since I requested that Congress pass emergency funds for our troops. Instead of passing clean bills that fund our troops on the front lines, the House and Senate have spent this time debating bills that undercut the troops, by substituting the judgment of politicians in Washington for the judgment of our commanders on the ground, setting an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal from Iraq, and spending billions of dollars on pork barrel projects completely unrelated to the war.
Of course he fails to mention that this emergency spending is necessary because his didn’t include war funding in his budget plan. He’s trying to bring down his record deficits so for the last few years he’s asked for supplemental funding for the way so his budget plans can look a little slimmer. Of course this strategy does tend to highlight the fact that this war is costing quit a bit more than his initial estimates, but Our Fine President made no mention of that either.
He did of course take time out to criticize the extra pork stuck in the bill to win support from some members of Congress. He quoted New York Senator Charles Rangel who criticized this as well, but then Our Fine Vacation Loving President actually tried to tweak the Congress for taking their annual spring recess before completing a war funding bill. Again he failed to mention that he’s off for another vacation, but than again it’d only be news if he was showing up for work that did not involve brush.
Next came the scare tactics. He’s good at these and he dug in to detail exactly what would happen to the military if the funding does not come through. Here’s a taste of what he had to say:
As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Pace, recently stated during his testimony before a House subcommittee, if Congress fails to pass a bill I can sign by mid-April, the Army will be forced to consider cutting back on equipment, equipment repair, and quality of life initiatives for our Guard and reserve forces.
The Army also would be forced to consider curtailing some training for Guard and reserve units here at home. This would reduce their readiness and could delay their availability to mobilize for missions in Afghanistan and Iraq… The Army also would be forced to consider curtailing some training for Guard and reserve units here at home. This would reduce their readiness and could delay their availability to mobilize for missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds. The bottom line is this: Congress’s failure to fund our troops on the front lines will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. And others could see their loved ones headed back to the war sooner than they need to.
Again he chooses not to mention all the pertinent details. First off his qualifier of “forced to consider…” is his wiggle room to escape this statement if the military chooses to make other cutbacks. But even more galling is the way he ignores how his prosecution of this war has already plagued our soldiers with many of the above problems. They do not have the equipment they need in Iraq and soldiers at home are already being sent back too soon without full training and rest.
And, by the way, why does he have to make it sound like the soldiers in Iraq are just standing around waiting to be handed their cash. The troops will not be waiting and if budget shortfalls somehow lead to leaving soldiers in Iraq longer I’m completely wrong in thinking it’s more expensive to keep a soldier in a war than on active duty at home. He continued, explaining just what’s at stake if the funding isn’t provided:
They’re now failing in that responsibility, and if they do not change course in the coming weeks, the price of that failure will be paid by our troops and their loved ones.
Here we have another statement that shades things quite heavily. Our Fine President has not asked the people of this nation to sacrifice to assist with this war. Sure, he’s been frittering away our nation’s international rep, and spreading chaos in the name of freedom, but the real price of his war of choice has always been paid by our troops and their families. In fact he business friends have been making plenty of money out of war related contracts, so he and his crowd have been profiting on the prices paid by our troops and their loved ones.
Numerous polls show a solid majority of the American public are against continuing this war and support removing American troops as soon as possible. Our Fine President has chosen to ignore this desire and challenge its manifestation in the Democratic victory at the November polls.
I’m very aware that there are a group of people that don’t think we should be there in the first place.
As opposed to leaving Baghdad and watching the country go up in flames, I chose a different route, which was to send more troops into Baghdad.
… and watch the country outside of Baghdad go up in flames. Personally I prefer to step back so I can control the fire from outside its perimeter, but he seems to be the type of guy who likes to have others control his fire from a position at the heart of the flames.
But it would not be a press conference with this President without at least a few catch phrases in the mix and he got back to one of my favorites. Our Fine President even expanded on one of his themes to explain to us another one of those catchy “lessons of 9/11”
I firmly believe that if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here. And what makes Iraq different from previous struggles is that September the 11th showed that chaos in another part of the world, and/or safe haven for killers, for radicals, affects the security of the United States.
Of course he turned things back to those stingy mean Democrats every chance he could:
I think the voters in America want Congress to support our troops who are in harm’s way. They want money to the troops. And they don’t want politicians in Washington telling our generals how to fight a war. It’s one thing to object to the policy, but it’s another thing when you have troops in harm’s way not to give them the funds they need.
The voters in America recently spoke to this exact topic and they kind of disagreed with what Our Fine President thinks. He again talks like he’s hoping to put some cold cash right into the soldiers’ hands. When they’re in harm’s way, I’m pretty sure they need supplies, equipment and sound planning much more than just funds. Our Fine President has not proven himself capable of providing those three things.
Of course, then he went and surprised me by saying something I completely agree with:
I think setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal is a significant mistake.
In this case, I have to agree. The timetable for withdrawal should definitely be real. No artificial timetable will do. We should be sure to have a solid plan and withdraw the troops as they’re scheduled to end this fiasco in as orderly a fashion as possible. Artificial might be OK for some things, but when it comes to a withdrawal timetable, the replicas just don’t function as well as the real thing.
You know, what’s interesting is you don’t hear a lot of debate about Washington as to what will happen if there is failure. …. But what people also have got to understand, what will happen if we fail. And the way you fail is to leave before the job is done; in other words, just abandon this young democracy — say we’re tired; we’ll withdraw from Baghdad and hope there’s not chaos.
I also understand that if the country — if the experience were to fail, radicals would be emboldened. People that had been — that can’t stand America would find new ways to recruit. There would be potentially additional resources for them to use at their disposal.
Hey another popular catch phrase in there. He sure knows how to punch up a crowd’s memory. He again ignores the facts that there’s currently plenty of chaos in Baghdad, and our braggadocios run up to this war and the string of incompetencies and bungles throughout is doing a great job of emboldening and recruiting new enemies.
Secondly, the way to defeat the ideology that these people believe is through a competing ideology, one based upon liberty and human rights and human dignity.
I’m not sure if he’s right or wrong in his theory on this, but it’s kind of hard to test it when he prosecutes his war by denying people the three things he says our ideology is based on. Torture of prisoners, endless detentions and other strategies he’s employing seem to be working in opposition to the ideology he wants to spread.
But when your facts don’t add up quite right, there’s always the tried and true talking points to reference. Our Fine President has previously expressed his belief that he just needs to repeat things enough times and everyone will finally agree with him. After all, he’s still busy searching for the real killers
But if they were ever to have safe haven, it would make the efforts much harder. That’s my point. We cannot let them have safe haven again. The lesson of September the 11th is, if these killers are able to find safe haven from which to plot, plan and attack, they will do so.
Gee, a safe haven, does he mean like the mountainous region on the Afghani-Pakistani border where Osama bin Laden and the rest of al Qaida’s leadership’s been hiding out ever since we let them escape five years back?
I’m curious as to how all this will end. If Congress reconciles their two funding bills and sends the product on to the White House with some form or mandatory withdrawal provision, Our Fine President will dig his veto stamp from it’s cobwebby home in some out of the way drawer and throw it back to Congress.
The veto is not likely to be overturned, but because this is an emergency funding bill, there is nothing to say Congress must replace the bill with a version more to the liking of Our Fine Infrequently Vetoing President. If the members of Congress simply sit on their thousand or so hands, the White House will have to make the next move.
Do they reprioritize the military budget to continue pursuing their surge strategy, with major cutbacks in other areas? Do they withdraw the troops they can’t get enough cash to? Do they defy Congress and just spend the money for their war anyway? I don’t want to see American troops deprived of the resources they need to survive and accomplish sensible missions, but me and a majority of Americans are done throwing lives and money at this misbegotten and ill-conceived war. I kind of hope Our Fine President is forced to make a tough decision about what to do when his duplicitous budgeting decision backfires.