Decision ‘08

Want To Lose Iraq? Vote Democratic

Whoa, whoa, that’s way unfair, you may say…but let Charlie Rangel and Lynn Woolsey set you straight on what a Democratic House will mean for the war:

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) will chair the powerful Ways and Means Committee if Democrats win control of the House next year, but his main goal in 2007 does not fall within his panel’s jurisdiction.

“I can’t stop this war,” a frustrated Rangel said in a recent interview, reiterating his vow to retire from Congress if Democrats fall short of a majority in the House.

But when pressed on how he could stop the war even if Democrats control the House during the last years of President Bush’s second term, Rangel paused before saying, “You’ve got to be able to pay for the war, don’t you?”

Rangel’s views on funding the war are shared by many of his colleagues – especially within the 73-member Out of Iraq Caucus.

Some Democratic legislators want to halt funding for the war immediately, while others say they would allocate money for activities such as reconstruction, setting up international security forces, and the ultimate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“Personally, I wouldn’t spend another dime [on the war,]” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.).

Woolsey is among the Democrats in Congress who are hoping to control the power of the purse in 2007 to force an end to the war. Woolsey and some of her colleagues note that Congress helped force the end of Vietnam War by refusing to pay for it.

Democrats in the House and Senate are united in their effort to conduct more oversight of the Bush administration’s management of the Iraq war, but are not on the same page on how to fund it.

While the Senate could switch hands, political analysts say the House is more likely to flip.

Having lost the last two elections in part because of national security issues, Democratic leaders have been reluctant to spell out their exact Iraq war funding strategy.

“I don’t think the Democratic leadership should put that out at the moment,” Woolsey said.

So, Woolsey is advocating a strategy of hiding Democratic intent until after the November elections, at which point he would pull the plug on funding and, as a consequence, force the troops to leave, regardless of conditions on the ground.

I believe that strategy is (quite properly, in this case) known as ‘cut and run’.

If my logic has a hole in it, please point it out…and stick to the facts as stated by Rangel and Woolsey. It’s their assertion, not mine…

22 Responses to “Want To Lose Iraq? Vote Democratic”

1 Eric Says:
September 26th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
conservatives have done a good job of dodging the immorailty of the iraq invasion and painting the issue as a simple “you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists” debate. the term “cut and run” has no meaning when the reality is that the war was unnecessary, harmful to our security interests, sold to the voters with lies, and then, to top it off, incompetently handled.

the hole in your logic is to equate admitting our mistake and trying to fix it with “cutting and running”. the war was wrong. millions of americans knew it before we ever went in there, and now millions more get it too. that leaves precious little high ground left for the rest. calls of “cut and run” are the dying cries of a failed and immoral policy.
2 Mark Says:
September 26th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Ah…so, the fact that 140,000 troops are on the ground, right now, and that their funding will be cut off by Charlie Rangel if he has his way is just a matter of semantics?

Thanks for clearing that up…
3 Aaron Says:
September 26th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
There was nothing at all immoral about the liberation of Iraq. You may have disagreed with it on the grounds that it Saddam played no role in September 11th, but then that would mean opposition to every one of Clinton’s interventions, especially those where there was nothing resembling an American interest — namely the Balkans. No one could deny that the aims of the US — to bring liberal democracy to Iraq and removing a brutal dictator — were moral.

The mistakes that have been made in Iraq have been exclusively tactical — sweeping through the country too quickly at the outset, rather than stopping to mop up the Fedayin(sp?), mishandling the postwar occupation, etc.

Going into Iraq in the first place, however, was neither a mistake nor immoral.
4 Mark Says:
September 26th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Well said, Aaron…I would add one more item to your mistakes, however, and that was the collossal intelligence failures beforehand regarding WMDs, and I think we must admit that this has given people such as Eric here legitimate grounds to criticize the decision to invade.

Inevitably, though, Eric and his kindred progressives cede the moral high ground they so briefly occupy by equating worldwide intelligence failures to ‘Bush lied’, and completely ignoring the moral calculus in favor of removing the brutal sadist who so long oppressed the people of Iraq with his tyranny…
5 Eric Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 12:03 am
two things:

- while i will concede that the point is up for debate, suggesting that bush lied is hardly a stretch. the political pressure put on the intelligence community in the run-up to iraq is well documented, and if it didn’t come from the top, then the implication is that bush is not in control of his own house.

- i assume that everyone who was kept up nights by their righteous and moral indignation at hussein (who was - and this should pretty much go without saying - an awful, awful man) is currently on their way down to the local army recruiting office to sign up for the overthrow of the dozen or so other dictators that fit the same bill. let’s just hope the liberal media doesn’t find any inconvenient photos of rumsfeld glad-handing them.

and yes, some of clinton’s adventures were questionable. but at least i don’t recall hearing anything about endless wars and the accompanying “modifications” to our civil liberties.
6 mtl Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 12:15 am
“suggesting that bush lied is hardly a stretch. the political pressure put on the intelligence community in the run-up to iraq is well documented, and if it didn’t come from the top, then the implication is that bush is not in control of his own house.”

The closest thing to a whistleblower is Joe Wilson. That has gone real well. Barring an actual person with crediblity coming foward, you are basing the assumption that the intel was fabricated, and bush lied, upon insufficient evidence. If you are capable of drawing your conclusions from scant evidence, is it any wonder that the same transpired with the Iraqi intel?

Unless of course you are a liar…
7 Eric Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 12:21 am
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/view/

if you’ve got an hour or so to spare, check it out. i’d be interested to get a conservative’s viewpoint on it (other than “it’s all a crock”).
8 mtl Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 1:52 am
In my examination of whether ‘Bush lied’, there are three avenues where, were it true, a case could have been made.

To my knowledge, no govt has stated that they believed that Iraq had no wmds, prior to invasion. That includes France and Germany. It appears there was a global consensus on the issue.

22 Democratic Senators voted for the Iraq resolution. All that would be needed is the 22 to submit a letter in which they state what fabricated evidence they believed they were shown that led them to vote in error. They have been masterful at getting classifed intel out there, what’s the hold up on this? The problem is that there are moderates among them, who have no wish to make a very weak case.

Valerie Plame. If David Corn is to be believed, she was a senior member of WINPAC. She would be in a position to make the claim that the evidence was falsifed, and establish her credentials as a whistleblower. she would be invulnerable, and help her lame hubby. She hasn’t even tried to make the case that her husband did.

Some other clues that the whole ‘Bush lied’ theory is gone the way of the dodo-

Take a look at the poll questions that are being asked. They don’t even ask if the intel was fabricated or if Bush lied…they just ask if it was a mistake. When the pollsters don’t bother to feed the Bush lied meme, it is probably a reasonable conclusion that even they haven’t found a reason to justify asking the question.

Bush defeated Kerry. If the bush as liar didn’t help in 04, it will have littel success for the dems in 06. It did help Bush garner 20% more support than 2000, which is unheard of for an incumbent.

It’s September 2006. More than three years since the debate over the intel began, and there is no support for pursuing the matter, outside the democraticly manic.

I’ll give the vid a chance…
9 Dennis Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 7:13 am
Eric, given your chickenhawk argument, I assume you’ve already joined the police force to fight crime. You’re not one of those people who claim to be against crime but then expect other people to do the dirty work of going after dangerous criminals, are you?
10 Eric Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 10:51 am
dennis, i didn’t mean to say literally that one cannot support war without being a soldier. rather, my point was that the argument that the iraq war is an absolute good because sadam represented absolute evil is a bit revisionist and disingenuous, given that (a) that was not the primary reason given for the invasion before it happened, and (b) if sadam is the measuring stick for evil, then there are plenty of other situations around the world that would seem to merit an equivalent level of attention from us.

our invasion of iraq was about terrorism, plain and simple. that’s how it was sold to us. now that we look back and realize that there were never any significant or credible links between the two, many people are understandably upset. i attended a wedding last weekend and had an interesting conversation with the bride’s father, a conservative ex-marine who described himself as “quite hawkish”. he is absolutely infuriated with the current administration and their actions.

reasonable people can disagree about the iraq invasion. i’m a believer in the idea that political ideologies are generally based on deep-seated personal feelings that have little to do with politics. if, for example, you believe that aggressiveness and conflict are the way to solve problems, then you may be more likely to support the current administration and their policies. that’s a generalization, but that’s just how it appears to me.
11 Mark Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Eric, I appreciate your comments, but I don’t buy your last assertion. No one would like to see the people of the world join hands and sing that old Coca-Cola song than me. However, when 3,000 people die on American shores in a terrorist act, the fight has come to us, and pacifism is suicide.

You’re right that terrorism was a (the?) primary reason to go after Saddam - but the fact remains that, if the WMD stockpiles were not there, much to my bitter disappointment (not because I wanted the stockpiles to exist, mind you, but because our intelligence assured us they did), Saddam was clearly not opposed to WMDs, would have eventually got back in the business, and would have loved to export terror (as he did, against Israel, by making substantial cash payments to the families of suicide bombers).

I agree with some of your points, disagree with others…
12 Dmac Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 11:12 am
“conservatives have done a good job of dodging the immorailty of the iraq invasion…”

Beware the person who claims to have the higher ground on morality - people who throw rocks, you know.
13 Eric Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 11:19 am
mark, as i said, that last comment was a generalization. i try to avoid making them, but occassionally they slip out.

i read a lot of political blogs. i see people at each other’s throats over this and other issues, and i find it incredibly frustrating and disheartening, particularly when it comes from me. i suppose it’s to be expected, given the times we live in.

there is little debate that sadam was a bad guy. the reasons for and wisdom of taking him out, and the repercussions of doing so, seem to be very much up for debate, however. which is fine. the nice part about democracy is that we all have a say, and what we say matters. again, reasonable people can disagree. ultimately, i think most of us still share the same general goals and hopes for our country. when we finally get to join hands for that sing-along, i’ll be sure to seek you out.
14 mtl Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 11:20 am
I’ll buy into the idea that the ‘neo-cons’ were strong advocates of invasion. They made sure every whisper or rumor of wmd made it up the pipeline, but I doubt that even they ascertained the existence of wmds, or more importantly, their non-existence.

and since it was the ‘neocons’ who were the lead prosecutors on the war, I look to their motives. Their number one motive? Do something about or Iraq or wait…their motives, which I agree with, were less about WMDs, and more about affecting the region.

We waited on UBL, and look where that got us.
15 Mark Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 11:25 am
I think mtl is generally right…there was a feeling that the “Saddam problem” had been festering for far too long, and the will was finally present to do something about it. Unfortunately, the WMD angle received the most play, and subsequent events have (forever?) harmed our credibility as a result.

I’ll repeat: I’m a big-time supporter of the war (still), but the WMD thing was a huge, huge setback…
16 Eric Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
i’m trying to figure out what the root questions are here, and this is what i’m coming up with:

1. to what extent does the US have the ability to accurately identify the world’s problems? (or, perhaps more accurately, problems beyond our borders that become problems for us).

2. to what extent does the US have the ability to fix these problems, either alone or acting in concert with other nations/groups?

3. to what extent does the US have the right to “fix” these problems, when they involve treading on the sovereignty of other nations/groups?

applying these questions to iraq, i think we can say that the problems we identified were (a) iraq had WMDs, (b) there was reason to believe that iraq might indirectly involve itself in plots to wage terrorist acts against the US, and ( c ) sadam was a bad guy. it appears now that (a) and (b) were incorrect, or at least that’s what i believe based on everything i’ve seen and heard. as i’ve stated, i believe the bush administration knew these things were incorrect, but i won’t rehash that argument because i don’t think i’ll win many converts.

moving on to the second question, our ability to remake iraq as a democracy in our image (irony intended) is, at best, looking a bit suspect at the moment. while i’m all for taking a long view on things, there are plenty of credible people who believe that the practice of nation building, at least as we’ve gone about it in iraq, is a foolhardy venture. again, that’s up for debate.

the third question is perhaps more ideological and less logistical than the first two, although it is inextricably linked with the first one. that is to say, our right to cross borders, kick ass, and take names is directly related to our ability to properly identify threats. for that matter, it relates also to how you define threats. was iraq a threat - either directly or indirectly - to the US? i and millions of other americans felt they were not, even before the invasion. was sadam a threat to his own people? undoubtedly. did that give us the right to go in? and if so, what is stopping us from taking out all the other sadams?

there may be a fourth question here, which is the trade-off between removing “evil”, and dealing with the vacuum left in it’s place. i and millions of other americans felt that there were non-violent options for neutralizing sadam, at least to an extent, with the added benefit of not inviting the instability that now reigns in iraq. would we have been better off not going in? while we all undoubtedly have strong opinions on that topic, i would likely be highly suspicious of anyone who claimed to truly know the answer.
17 Dmac Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Eric, the US is expected to be the de facto world - wide police force from just about every Democratic country, and have been for many years at this point. Witness the fact than any appreciable military or economic force can only be welded by our country (NATO being just one example). But, like spoiled teen - agers who resent being beholden to another’s auspices, those same countries always put us on the defensive for whatever action (or inaction) we take in foreign affairs. It’s always going to be our fault, no matter the outcome, because it’s much easier to point fingers at the lumbering giant than to actually look inward at your own country’s failings.
18 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » Do You Care About Iraq’s Fate More Than Your Party? Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
[…] The question I ask in the title of this post is aimed at Republicans as well as Democrats. I can only answer for me, but the answer is, yes. Yes, I do. So much so that if the Democrats took Iraq seriously and presented a plausible victory strategy, I would consider holding my nose and voting for them. I hear the exact opposite, though; Charles Rangel, who would be Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in a Democratic House, openly says that killing funding for the war and pulling out the troops is his #1 priority. […]
19 Mark Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
Eric, taking your questions in order:

#1. To what extent we accurately identify the problems is a function of how well our intelligence agencies (and those of our allies) are functioning. I think the WMD fiasco showed that we have major, major problems in this area, some of which have since been addressed, one would hope. The United States, however, no doubt has a greater ability to identify these problems than other nations due to our large economy and correspondingly large government expenditures (and our large proportion of GDP devoted to defense and intelligence).

#2. To what extent do we have the ability to address these problems? Well, as we’ve seen, America nearly always has to take the lead, as Dmac says, and it looks like we’ll increasingly have to do so unilaterally. When the United Nations inserts itself into Israel’s war with Hezbollah, with the condition that the Israeli soldiers be returned and Hezbollah withdraw from southern Lebanon, then DOES NOTHING as the ceasefire is willfully ignored by the terrorists, and when said United Nations sets 4 deadlines for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, and all 4 deadlines pass with no consequences whatsoever, we’re on safe ground in concluding that the United Nations has lost what little credibility it ever had, and can, in essence, be written off entirely…

As long as France is in NATO, and it always will be, that pretty much takes care of that institution, too…

We need new multilateral solutions and institutions, because the old ones aren’t working.

#3. Sovereignty is always an issue, but Saddam invaded Kuwait, and after losing the first Gulf War, had a number of UN Resolutions imposed upon him that he was in regular violation of (though I’ve just stated my opinion of the worth of that). In addition, he regularly fired on our planes patrolling the No-Fly Zone, he provided a safe harbor for terrorists (whether he actively collaborated with them or not) and he plotted to assassinate George H. W. Bush. Any of those items would be a sufficient casus belli.

So yes, I think there does have to be a great deal of respect for sovereignty, but when sufficient aggression is shown, we must be more forward in dealing with it…
20 Eric Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
dmac, i would suggest that you’re painting a pretty bleak picture of the rest of the world. i would further suggest that the implication behind your statements is that we are the only nation capable of seeing the world in a clear-headed, even-handed fashion, and that we as a nation share no culpability for the current tenuous state of our relationship to most of the rest of the world. regardless of whether or not that’s actually what you were saying, i can’t accept that idea.

while it goes without saying that i’m no expert, global relations strike me as a fantastically complicated thing. they require, at varying times, things like patience, understanding, toughness, flexibility, foresight, decisiveness, and a variety of other touchy-feely stuff that commonly gets lumped under the heading of “diplomacy”. the world is in a state of flux. nations are tied more closely to each other than at any other time in human history. there is no turning back the clock. there will be no great wall built around our borders. like it or not, the global community is here, and we as a nation are in the process of deciding how we will engage with it. our decisions will have repercussions that will extend further beyond our borders than ever before.

i agree that full and immediate withdrawl from iraq may not be the best approach, and may only serve to increase the instability in iraq, and in the middle east as a whole. it galls me that our current administration got us into what i feel is a real mess that we now have to clean up. it galls me that they created what i feel is essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy of instability in iraq. nonetheless, i believe that there is a way to pull our troops out reasonable quickly, and have a reasonably orderly transferrence of control to the iraqi government, while not making untenable sacrifices in security. it will likely not be perfect, but given the circumstances under which we got into this situation, i feel that we have already asked too much of the men and women in our armed forces.
21 Mark Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Well, Eric, as you stated elsewhere, good people can disagree, and you’ve honorably stated your position. I think that we can still make Iraq work, while agreeing completely with your frustration that it got to this point (though my area of frustration is not with the decision to invade, but with what I see as an almost criminally negligent initial occupational policy - but hindsight, again, rears its ugly head).

I would just like to point out again that some of us, myself included, are all in favor of multilateralism, but it’s got to be outside of the framework of the UN; on this note, I am immovable. It would be impossible to exaggerate my disgust with that particular institution, and I don’t think that’s a personal quirk, but is quite well-earned based on recent events…
22 Dmac Says:
September 27th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
I don’t think it’s a pessimistic view at all, Eric - just a reflection of reality at this point. Quick, name one major conflict over the past 45 years that a 3rd party (other than the US) has stepped in and ended on its own. Maybe Korea, which was ended by the UN? No, the vast majority of troops and arms were from the US (not to mention leadership). Bosnia? No again; the conflict was ended by US air forces and arms, with little to no support from any European country. Our presence is still required there, of course. Not to mention the endless humanitarian relief operations we’re constantly providing around the world - witness the massive Indonesian Tsunami relief efforts, as well as the relief efforts after the earthquakes in Pakistan and Turkey. Not to mention the 24/7 patrolling of the world’s sea lanes by our strike carrier forces, our vast troop presence in areas of possible conflict (South Korea, for example) - all of these operations are paid for by the US taxpayer, and no one else is ever asked to pay or give tribute for these invaluable services.

The list is indeed endless of the many conflicts we’ve been called on to help end hostilities around the world - true, we sometimes have gone into conflicts on our own accord, but the total ledger indicates that we’re often expected to enter into frays in which we have no vested National interest, with resultant sacrifices in blood and treasure.