Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The politics of parsing

I disagree with the decision to include timelines in this legislation; I feel it is up to the Generals on the ground to make the decisions about when to leave Iraq in a responsible way.

The last time time I checked the Generals were subject to civilian rule especially when the CINC has made so many bad decisions like putting our people into the middle of this mess in the first place. The Congress can end this if they only have the balls to stand up to this madman. Sorry Chris, you can't have it both ways.

CARNEY VOTES TO FUND THE TROOPS

“The time has come to start bringing our troops home responsibly”

Washington, D.C.—Keeping to his promise to fund the troops in Iraq, Congressman Carney voted in favor of the bipartisan Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment Appropriations Act, which passed last week in the House of Representatives.

Congressman Carney said, “Unfortunately, troop funding has been stalled in the U.S. Senate. I hope the Senate will take this opportunity to continue to do what is best for our troops. I disagree with the decision to include timelines in this legislation; I feel it is up to the Generals on the ground to make the decisions about when to leave Iraq in a responsible way. I supported the Motion to Recommit that stripped the timelines from this legislation, as I did with the previous Iraq funding resolution.”

“I will always vote to fund our troops,” said Congressman Carney. “But now it is time for us to start bringing our troops home. The Department of Defense says nearly 50,000 Iraqis can be considered ready. This means we can bring home that same number of American troops. For every Iraqi battalion trained, we need to send an American battalion home.”
“Now is time to start bringing our troops home responsibly. I was proud to vote for legislation to give our troops the resources they need, but we need to be able to take the President at his word. If 50,000 Iraqis are trained and ready, then 50,000 American troops need to be returning to their loved ones,” concluded Carney.


The bipartisan Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment Appropriations Act passed by a vote of 218 – 203 in the House of Representatives on Thursday, November 15, 2007.

"We need to be able to take the President at his word."

Wake up Chris, most of us are well past believing this liar.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

carney appears to be more conservative the mueser and hackett put together.

Anonymous said...

Carney could have saved us billions of dollars if his research to send the troops INTO Iraq was accurate.

He was before the war before he was against it...sounds an awful lot like John Kerry to me.

More waffles please!

Anonymous said...

I think you're being far too critical. Why should we criticize him for funding our troops to ready Iraqi soldiers which will inevitably lead to the pull-out of our soldiers? Would you rather our politicians disagree with every piece of legislation backed by our President for the sake of not supporting our President? If that's the case, nothing will be accomplished and we'll be in more of a mess than we were before. You used to plead to cons how more bipartisanship needs to take place in Congress, and yet you criticize politicians of your party for doing just that. There shouldn't be a double standard here. The whole basis of your criticism is an ad hominem -- you're criticizing the President rather than the actual bill itself. He's not saying we need to always trust the President; Carney is speaking in terms of the matter at in. That is, it is best to have faith in the President that our troops will be pulled out if Iraqi soldiers are successfully trained.

Normally I agree with your blog, but in this case, you make no sensical argument whatsoever. One of the worst posts ever for this blog.

Anonymous said...

Jay,

Our faith in the President will ensure a blowout loss for anyone who supports his policy at this point. Our President was never a conservative. We've been taken for a ride. At some point, we can either back a sure loser, or show real leadership.

Hackett and Meuser support a losing proposition. The area must settle for more than being a photo opportunity for bad policy for Seniors. The area must push for real opportunity. The area must promote a vision for the future. The area must reverse the brain drain that has destroyed the return on investment for our local schools.

2011 is just a hop away. The baby boomers will be fully eligible for Social Security. Where are the politicians going to focus when the over 65 crowd is wealthier and far away from this district?

Gort said...

First of all I'm happy Carney voted for the bill. I think it's the first time he has voted to mandate troop withdrawals but he did it after trying to strip the timelines out. I have no faith in Bush to start pulling troops out unless he is forced to do it. He has said that's the next guys problem.

As to training the Iraqi Army, how long have they been trying to do that? The US trains combat infantry in about 6 months but after 3 years there are very few combat ready Iraqi units.

I usually don't weigh in on national issues but I don't ever remember advocating bipartisanship when it comes to Iraq. The Republicans made it a partisan issue in the 2002 and 2004 elections. In fact every time the Republicans talk of bipartisanship the Democrats get their hats handed to them.

Thanks for the critique Jay but sometimes my anger at Bush and his Democratic enablers that got our country into this mess overwhelms me.

Anonymous said...

The only reason why Chris Carney voted for troop withdrawal is because he feels guilty for lying by coming up with the Feith memo. For those of you who missed my rantings on this last time the Feith memo was drafted after a handshake deal between Feith and Cheney to produce fabrications about Sadaam's involvement with Al Quaeda. This was carney's big break as an intelligence official. He was hired by the Pentagon as a professor to conduct research to find a link between Al Quaeda and Sadaam. When he got there he was told to make up false statements to convince the President of the United States to go to war. The finished product had 50 "points of evidence" (i.e. lies) linking Al Quaeda to Hussein. There are dozens of quality articles from credible sources documenting this truth. Carney admits to coming up with these lies in the memo: "When asked whether there was a relationship between Sadaam Hussein and Al Qaida, here's what Carney said in his own words: “On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 was no connection and 10 was operational control, I would say it’s about a 2½.” It's strange how the truth is out there but the two leading candidates fail to touch on it. Only one candidate has the balls to tell people the truth but apparently he's too busy playing Mr. mom right now with his new baby...