Posted by
on Thursday, February 15, 2007 12:42:08 PM
Yesterday I posted a story from Hot Air regarding John Murtha's "slow bleed" strategy to deny the troops necessary funds for the surge. Today, the Examiner focuses on the Democrats attack on the troops, as a whole and the focus of Hugh Hewitt's TownHall column focuses on the weak-kneed Republicans in the House. First, from the Examiner:
The resolution is nonbinding, but Democrats already are turning to the more consequential debate next month over Bush's request for nearly $100 billion more for the war, a request that promises to become a new battleground over his Iraq policy.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the Democratic resolution was the first step in a longer campaign to end U.S. participation in the nearly four-year-old conflict.
In a letter to the president on Wednesday, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, "thousands of the new troops" being sent into Iraq "will apparently not have the armor and equipment they need to perform the mission and reduce the likelihood of casualties."
Demanding that troops meet certain requirements before being sent into harms' way was an idea initiated by Rep. Jack Murtha, the top Democrat on the House committee that oversees military spending.
Murtha, a war veteran who advocates pulling troops out of Iraq, has said he wants to forbid the Pentagon from sending additional troops "unless they have adequate training and unless they have adequate equipment."
Murtha, D-Pa., said he believes the Army may have no units that can meet those standards, meaning Bush's attempt to send more troops to Iraq would be checked. Congress also could try to slow the deployment of additional troops by curtailing the Pentagon's practice of extending the duty tours of personnel who have reached the end of their scheduled time in the war zone.
Our troops do have the training and equipment they need, but if the Democrats get their way, they'll be denied the latter. And John Murtha is doing his best to put an end to the president's strategy. This is the first step in slowly killing the ability of the president to finished this phase of the war. I was upo early this morning making phone calls to House offices--both Republican and Democrat--demanding that they end this malrakey, and support the troops. I personally called John Boehner's and Steny Hoyer's offices and demanded action against John Murtha. He is doing this one purpose, and as I said yesterday, if he succeeds his actiuons will lead to more troops getting killed.
As for the GOP sideof things, I'll let Mr. Hewitt make the point:
Congressman Tom Cole has the unenviable job of trying to put the GOP majority back together again. What he is hearing tonight after an appearance on my program yesterday is that his NRCC isn’t going to be getting any help from thousands of Republicans and independents who simply will not send money to an organization that will support the re-election of Republicans in the House who vote for the Democrats’ resolution. Whether Congressman Cole is genuinely unaware of the sentiment in the grassroots, indifferent to it, or simply unsure of how to respond doesn’t really matter. The NRCC is going to wake up on Saturday with a resentment against the House Republicans that is set in concrete.
The anger with the GOP leadership isn’t over the fact that the GOP is going to lose the vote.
It is very much a result of the fact that the GOP didn’t fight.
The tone-deafness among the Congressional leadership is astonishing. And it goes much deeper than just this vote, though this vote is a neon sign flashing incompetence the size of the Goodyear blimp. In my interview with Cole (transcript here), the Congressman stated that the NRCC wasn’t ready to roll out a list of targeted districts, that it didn’t want to “bless” candidates in primaries even if those candidates were veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan, and that generally, he understood the dilemma of Republicans voting for the Democrats’ resolution.
The kids have stated this over and over again, and no one seems to be listening. So, allow me to shout this from the cheap seats ...
WE DIDN'T LOSE THE MAJORITY IN CONGRESS OVER THE WAR, you dolts. We lost it because of the antics going on right now--a lack of leadership from the Congressional GOP when it comes to the war, when it comes to spending, when it comes to fiscal responsibility, etc., etc. People saw this same fickle behavior that went on for two years, and said enough is enough. Let's give the Democrats a try. That was a dumb move on the partof the GOP's base. It would have been much better if the base had gone after a set of targeted seats, and removed the Republicans that were the cause of problems in Congress. No, instead the base sat out the last election like a groups of petulant brats.
Just because you're ticked at the whole party doesn't mean you abandon it. You're supposed to help bring the light back to Congress, not leave it in darkness. Thomas is fond of saying "you reap what you sow," and the GOP base has sown discontent in Congress. Now, if they want to do something about the mess that's building in Congress, it's time for them to get up off of their butts, and move against the Democrats.
The Democrats can't be allowed to toy with the funding for the war. And we can't allow the Republicans to do an about-face on the war, and side with the Democrats. There are times where I wish a terrorist attack on the Capitol building would happen because then maybe these yutzes in Congress would get the memo again. Our enemy wants to kill us, and they're not going to stop if we withdraw from Iraq. They'll continue attacking our interests abroad. They'll keep targeting civilians abroad. Have our elected representatives forgotten about the bombings in London? The attempted airline attack thwarted in London? How about the attack planned in Canada that was foiled? The Madrid bombings? Hello, is anyone home? Our enemy has deemed the world to be their battlefield, and turning tail isn't the answer.
They'll follow us. Becoming an isolationist nation isn't going to stop them. It'll allow them to rally the world to their cause. The kids have done a superb job of keeping an eye on Europe and it's slow morph into "Eurabia," to quote Mark Steyn. The Islamicist assault in Africa is more than evident even a month after the Ethiopians defeated the Islamic fighters that seized control of Somalia. Yes, they were defeated, but in their retreat, they did what all terrorists do: They went into hiding, and are slowly coming out against the forces that defeated them in the Horn of Africa.
We will only win this war one way--defeating our enemy. For some, that's an idea they can't stomach. Feminized and PC-ized, these people are still believing in a peaceful utopis that'll never happen. There are bad people in this world that want to destroy freedom and democracy. There are people in our government that want to bring this nation to it's knees. That can't be allowed to happen, and I'll be damned if those in Congress are going to get away with it without a fight from their contituency. Follow my lead and call your Congressional members. The kids would ask no less.
Sabrina McKinney