The Republicans Don't Even Want to Win This War

by Cenk Uygur | May 3 2007 - 9:11am |

If you really wanted to win this war (whatever the hell that means), you could put some real effort behind it. Twenty to thirty-thousand more troops? Who are the Republicans kidding? If you really thought we absolutely, positively had to win this war, you'd start a draft and put a million guys smack dab in the middle of Iraq.

Were we having questions about surges or drafts in World War II? No, we put on our boots and went to kick some Nazi ass. Why aren't we doing that here?

Because the Republicans are full of shit. They don't really think this is an "existential" war. What a laughable thought. What, if we don't win in Ramadi, we're going to cease to exist here? Why aren't these guys laughed out of the room already?

Here we are negotiating with contemptible fools. How much of a surge would you like? How long would you like to stay? Oh really, you think the Iraqis might take over Cleveland if we leave?

"They are going to follow us home." John McCain says this. God, remember when John McCain was a man. He was a damn hero, a patriot and as honest a guy as you could find in politics. Where have all the heroes gone?

If John McCain and Bush and the whole Republican Party thought they were actually going to follow us home - that the Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis would get on a boat, come here and fight us in San Antonio and Detroit and Boca - they'd start a draft in a second. And so would I.

If we had a real existential war and we would be taken over if we lost, who wouldn't fight? Really, Iraq is going to take us over? Come on, who but a contemptible fool would say something like that?

This war has always been optional. And at this point, winning and losing (when someone figures out what those mean by the way, please let me know) is completely optional. How would your life change in Minnesota if we "lost" the Iraq War? Not one bit. Not even one percent of one percent difference. You couldn't tell the war was over on a bet.

This is not to argue that what happens in Iraq is irrelevant or that "losing" is equal to "winning." (What the hell would a win look like? How would we know if we won? Doesn't it drive anyone else crazy that Bush doesn't even provide an explanation of what victory is, let alone an exit strategy?) It is to argue that the war was a leisure sport for the Republicans. They thought they'd just go hunting for a little bit, then come home and sip some brandy. They never thought it would make a difference.

Existential? Please! If you thought it was that important, you would do everything in your power to win, not just half measures. My God man, Sacramento is in jeopardy, get some troops to Iraq.

They started a war for shits and giggles. So, Bush could have Saddam's head on his wall. They treated this like it was a game all along. Now Bush is sore that he lost. He's like a kid that loses a game to 11 and insists that you play up to 15 instead.

So, are you going to cowboy up and start the draft? Of course, not. You know that if we all had to send our kids to fight in this completely optional war, it would be over in about five seconds flat. (God, doesn't that make them lose sleep at night, knowing for a fact that they wouldn't send their kids over, and yet they send other people's kids to die for their intellectual adventures and political romps. Have they no conscience at all?)

Bush won't even raise taxes to collect the money he needs to fight his lousy war. He doesn't even care enough about this "existential" war to trouble his friends to chip in a couple of extra percentage points off their investment portfolios.

We should all be embarrassed at what we have done. The intelligentsia in this country blithely lobbied for this war because they thought it might an interesting thought exercise. And now they criticize it comfortably from their dens as if they never supported it in the first place. I fought against it tooth and nail from the first day - and I know a lot of you did. But we should have done more. We let them soil the earth in our name. Now, we sit and have academic debates about how the politics is going to play out.

All those dead and dying, while we fiddle.

The Young Turks http://www.theyoungturks.com/
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Democratic senator: Impeachment 'sucks all of the oxygen out of the air'

05/02/2007 @ 1:45 pm

Filed by Miriam Raftery



Gravel: Impeachment 'will come, in due course'

At last week’s debate, Democratic Presidential candidates were asked to raise their hands if they would support impeachment. Other than Rep. Dennis Kucinich (who has introduced impeachment papers against Cheney), not a single candidate raised their hand. So RAW STORY decided to find out why.

At the California Democratic Convention in San Diego over the weekend, RAW STORY obtained responses directly from Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CONN), and 2008 candidates New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel, then elicited help from a blogger present to pose the question to Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) did not host a press conference and was not available to the media. The question was posed slightly differently for various candidates, depending on availability.

The most detailed response came from Gravel during a press conference. RAW STORY listed several potential grounds for impeachment, including starting a war on apparently false premises, issuing signing statements that ignore the will of Congress, abolishing habeus corpus, and declaring the "right" to spy on Americans’ e-mails even as the White House itself "loses" thousands of e-mails now requested by Congress.

“Don’t worry about impeachment,” Gravel said in a reassuring tone, adding that he has held discussions with House Judiciary Chair John Conyers (D-MI). “That will come, in due course.”

Gravel plan could land Bush "behind bars"

Gravel criticized the President as a “lousy and immoral” commander in chief, but also levied criticism at Democrats for only passing a non-binding resolution to end the war. Nor does the former senator believe simply cutting off funds would work. “I filibustered to end funding in the Vietnam War, but it was not successful,” he recalled.

Instead, Gravel revealed a novel plan to bring about an end to the Iraq War, impeachment, or possibly both—and perhaps even land the President "behind bars."

“I have drafted a law that says we must get troops out of Iraq in 60 days,” he said. “Leave all the equipment behind…The President must certify that he took troops out. If he violates this law he should go to jail for five years with no parole, and pay a $1 million fine. It says so right in the law.”

He believes he could muster enough support in the House to pass the bill. If the Senate filibusters, he would urge Reid to call for a cloture vote daily. “The media will feed on this like maggots,” said Gravel, who predicts the measure would pass and that a veto could ultimately be overridden. If the President and Vice President then refuse to enact the law, he concluded, “once you have them breaking the law, now you impeach.”

Dodd: "I've been down that road"

RAW STORY caught up with Dodd at a dinner honoring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We asked what kind of example it sets for kids across America if Congress fails to impeach the President and Vice President for lying about the justification for war, violating the Constitution, and issuing signing statements declaring the right to ignore laws passed by Congress.

“I’ve been down that road,” said Dodd, who shook his head and recalled the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton as he hastened away. “It sucks all of the oxygen out of the air.”

In a hallway after a press conference, we asked Richardson what message it sends to kids regarding accountability if Congress fails to hold the President and Vice President accountable for their actions.

“We should enforce our laws,” said Richardson, but stopped short of supporting impeachment. “This is why I’m for the deauthorization,” he added in an apparent reference to deauthorizing the President’s use of military force in Iraq.

Our blogger ally prodded a delegate at a packed meet-and-greet with supporters to pose the question to John Edwards. The blogger phrased the question this way: “If Congress can’t get votes to override the President’s veto, is impeachment a viable alternative to ending this war?”

According to the blogger, Edwards replied, “No, just keep sending him the bill.”

No candidate understands the ramifications of impeachment more fully than former First Lady Hillary Clinton. The New York senator's husband was impeached for "obstruction of justice" and "perjury" after denying to a grand jury that he had "sexual relations" with a White House intern, but the Senate acquitted him in 1999. Asked by a bystander to support impeachment of Bush, the former first lady replied, “I understand the sentiment,” then jested, “We will impeach him in November 2008,” according to our blogger source.