Iraq: Dem measure defeated

Posted: Thursday, September 20, 2007 8:47 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: Security

The Washington Post: “Senate Republicans yesterday rejected a bipartisan proposal to lengthen the home leaves of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, derailing a measure that war opponents viewed as one of the best chances to force President Bush to accelerate a redeployment of forces. The proposal, sponsored by Sens. James Webb (D-Va.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), failed on a 56 to 44 vote, with 60 votes needed for passage -- a tally that was virtually identical to a previous vote in July.”

All the Dem senators running for president (Biden, Clinton, Dodd, and Obama) voted for the measure; the GOPers (Brownback and McCain) voted against it.

The New York Times: “Supporters of Mr. Bush’s war strategy declared victory, saying they had firmly beaten back legislative efforts to change course. ‘It means that Congress will not intervene in the foreseeable future,’ said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the Independent who has voted with the Republicans on war issues. ‘The fact that it didn’t get enough votes says that Congress doesn’t have the votes to stop this strategy of success from going forward.’”

More: “The outcome showed that the strong opposition to the war plan by Democrats and a few Republicans remained insufficient to overcome a powerful Republican minority in the Senate that has succeeded all year in staving off challenges to the war policy.”

NBC’s Mike Viqueira notes that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is on Capitol Hill this morning with House GOP moderates, in a meeting organized by Minority Whip Roy Blunt. Remember, Viq points out, Republican leaders have been keeping their people in line in war vote after war vote. But another round is coming up, and some GOP moderates are in league with Dem moderates to find a “third way” on Iraq.

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Comments

Until the GOP are convinced in this country nothing will change. I say about 2/3 more years before they wise up. It's been 4 yrs of stagnation in Iraq and confusion from the Bush/Pentagon(remember..he's the commander in chief, not Patraeus) and a loss of congress already, guess that wasn't proof enough. Or it points to how profoundly incompetent the GOP have become.

CJ (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:23 PM)

Man, the knucklehead lefties sure turned on Joe L. quick. One year, VP candidate darling, a few years later, he's a jerk.

Maybe Turbin Durbin will be the next great VP candidate of the Democrats. He certainly fits the profile.

Marty RuBose, Chicago IL (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:30 PM)

Joe as always you assume too much. I have 2 nephews that served one now on perm dis. It has not changed his support for what we are doing nor mine. In our upside down world some how you equate support with failure. The milatary can finish this if we let them. I do fear however that our enemies are correct. We do not have the strength of our for fathers. In our instant gratification society we will fail, we will lose, we will suffer. We will have 4 years of another Carter. We will be the laughing stock of the world again, inflation will skyrocket, unemployment will boom, the govt will take controll of all business, which in turn will falter. Then some one like Reagan will apear and have the balls to say it is ok to be proud that you are an American.That some things are worth fighting and risking your life for. Once again we will succeed until the next time. Thus is the plight of America. We do it to ourselves every time. Bin Laden is a better student of our history than we are.....

lets think (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:35 PM)

Jeffersonian Don [[Steve I don't know where you come up with " these families were once solid GOP voters", but the fact is that is untrue. ]]

What makes you think that American soldiers and their families enjoy being treated like garbage by Bush and his Stepford Republicans in Congress? What you and your family think is not representative of what US troops in Iraq think. Scientific polls of US combat troops in Iraq show that the majority believe the war was a waste of time and that they want it to end.

Houston (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:41 PM)

Lee Holmes [[Congress has no constitutional right whatever in setting troop timetables. ]]

Please cite the Article and paragraph in the Constitution that denies Congress this power. Bet you can't, can you? It's just another tortured (pun intended) White House "interpretation" like the ones that Gonzo made before he left his job as Attorney General in well-earned disgrace.

Houston (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:45 PM)

Hey, Lee, the constitution also calls for an actual declaration of war. Gloss over that one, did we?

Joe Einloth (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:46 PM)

lets think, instantaneous gratification my hindquarters! Roosevelt took 3 1/2 years to beat Japan and Germany. It's taken the Chickenhawk Cheerleader in Chief longer than that to get us this far, which ain't very far at all!

Joe Einloth (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:30 PM)

lets think--"the military can finish this if we let them"...Explain. What is finish?
They are able to root out the last of the bad guys in one last fire fight? An unearthly silence falls over all of Iraq as families tentatively crawl from the wreckage of their houses and towns to greet the valiant US troops that have defeated, once and for all, the Bad Guys? This is how you think this will go down?
Rather you know it or not or will admit it or not, victory for this administration is having troops in Iraq for the next 50 years dieing at what they now consider an acceptable rate. The equation for them is that cold blooded and simple.
Permanent Presence for an acceptable cost.
There will be no cessation of hostilities. It will simmer on and on.
If it were my country that were occupied by foreign men with guns who do not speak my language I would devote my life and the lives of my children to making them hurt and bleed and finally leave, no matter how long it takes. I am sure you would do the same and your nephews would be by your side if we were, God forbid, invaded and occupied by a foreign power. Any patriotic American would. Why are you surprised at this resistance to our occupation and why do you think it can be so easily put down? We watched the Viet Minh and the Viet Cong fight for 70 years to rid their country of the French, the Japanese, the French again and finally us. For god sake learn from history!

Gary Schear, bozeman Montana (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:35 PM)

"We will be the laughing stock of the world again"

America has never been held in such low regard as it has under Bush's leadership.

"That some things are worth fighting and risking your life for."

And somethings, like having a base in Iraq to protect our oil, are not.

"We will have 4 years of another Carter" A President who was secure enough in his manhood not to start a war over hostages? A guy with the vision to urge America to conserve oil and address its energy crisis?

"The military can finish this if we let them." The Iraq Study group, a nonpartisan board, and General Petraeus himself have said there can be no military solution to the civil war in Iraq, What is required is a political solution, as Sunnis, Kurds and Shittes agreeing how to live ogether. NO MILITARY SOLUTION. How is the military supposed to "finish this thing?" What does "finish this thing" look like?

Amy B Portland, ME (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:47 PM)

I agree with you Houston ...we have a problem!

Jeffersonian Don (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 3:17 PM)

Lee Holmes wrote, First,you cry crocodile tears over the ''dismantling''of the Constitution when it comes to granting foreign enemy combatants Habeas Corpus rights which appears nowhere in the Document."

Read Article 1, Section 9, Lee.

Peter, Pittsburgh, PA (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 3:35 PM)

Jerry CC - is your economy so bad in TX that you need a new military base and town to pep things up for you? Guess Rick is not as great as you all thought he would be?

Union Baby, Tennessee (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 3:40 PM)

Take the check and burn it.
Don`t give the bush anymore money to fund the war.
Just say we lost and leave it at that.
Too mant sons and daughters have already paid a hefty price for the oil that we are not going to get.
The war was a loss from the beganning with no goal/goals but the lies that have been told to us.
Just don`t give the money needed to found the war.
Show them that they can also play this game that their playing.
No FUNDS.

End This War, Dallas, Tx. (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 3:47 PM)

For those of you who think our troops were deployed the same way as in View Nam:
"Extended tours of duty in the combat zone — some as long as 18 months — also are a departure from the past. In Vietnam, the standard tour of duty was 12 months. If a soldier was to be redeployed to the combat zone, Army policy mandated a 24-month period of recuperation or retraining between tours, said Larry Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank.
So, in View Nam it was a maximum of 12 months, with 24 months at home.
To all you neo-cons - in another few years it won't matter because you will have destroyed our armed forces because as more than one general has said, they are at the breaking point now.

Jamie, Elmwood Park (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 3:58 PM)

Houston: Art.II,Sec.II. Congress is not granted this power. Only the president is. The judiciary would move to instantly seize the Democrats unconstitutional move even with passage and the expected presidential veto,with a veto override by Congress,and place it back into the hands of the president where it belongs.

Joe: You forget that the Congress has the power to ''make laws'',and did so,with the passage of the War Powers Act in 1973.

Peter: I saw that coming down the pike and was ready for it. You forget that exception[as was made by Lincoln],is granted in national emergency or to ''protect public safety'' as interpreted by the Executive,as decided by the Judicial. Not the legislative. Those who seek to invade the US for the purposes of damaging the safety of the Republic,or wherever its citizens stand [on a foreign battle ground,embassy,ship,base or other],are viewed as an ''invasion''entity,which is an area that Art.1 Sec.9 specifically addresses.

Lee Holmes (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 4:31 PM)

Jamie:What was it in WWII when we actually were able to win wars? You forget we had a draft in Vietnam. Our military is in no sense whatever of being ''destroyed''.

Lee Holmes (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 4:34 PM)

Joe Einloth I agree Count Down is the best news show, but I do wish he'd skip the Brittany, Lindsey crap.

Dem, Rocky MTNs (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 4:44 PM)

Lee Holmes--This is not WWII. This is an undeclared aggression of choice based on goofy policy from a crackpot think tank. Stop comparing the two. That is intellectually ingenuous of someone like you who obviously knows the difference but spouts the talking points anyway.
You are correct, though, that our military is in no sense destroyed. It is in no sense defeated. It is unnecessarily stressed, and it is unnecessarily over extended due to poor civilian leadership and muddled strategic policy. If we end this now it will not be a defeat for the military or this nation. It will be a political defeat for the miss-managers and a victory for the ability of our system to correct for gross aberrations like the Bush Administration.

Gary Schear, Bozeman Montana (Sent Thursday, September 20, 2007 7:48 PM)

Lee Holmes wrote,
"Peter: I saw that coming down the pike and was ready for it. You forget that exception[as was made by Lincoln],is granted in national emergency or to ''protect public safety'' as interpreted by the Executive,as decided by the Judicial. Not the legislative."

You saw that coming down the pike and was ready for it? Then why did you write, "Habeas Corpus rights which appears nowhere in the Document?" Do you normally lie on purpose? Did you think you'd slip one by on everybody? Are you that desparate for a "gotcha" that you would lie to set it up?

Peter, Pittsburgh, PA (Sent Friday, September 21, 2007 8:50 AM)

Gary: But the means used to legally try enemy combatants ARE the SAME as ''in WWII''. Stick to the point man.Do not evade it. Both the Tokyo and Nuremburg WCTs did not use juries as the constituional definition of Habeas Corpus demands.Tokyo was a military tribunal solely[Nuremburg also used military judges,Americas was not one of these], and was adjudged by a military general.

Peter: Dumb and ignorant is no way to go through life. Your forget that the USSC in the HAMDI and HAMDAN decisions did not reach for the Document with regards to these enemy combatants but to the Geneva Accords[Second.1949] which is NOT the Constitution of the United States! The legal remedy for these non-citizens and combatants found on battlefields is not adressed by the Document.Thus the high court instead turned to a treaty that we had already entered in to which IS adressed by the Constitution.[Sec.II ''power to make treaties'']. Think before you so arrogantly act. And use my remarks IN context,if you please. Then we can dispense with this circular folderol.

Also see: HAMDI vs.RUMSFELD[USSC]
HAMDAN vs. RUMSFELD[USSC]

Lee Holmes (Sent Friday, September 21, 2007 6:36 PM)

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