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Posted on 01/10/2007 5:09:18 PM PST by Obilisk18
WASHINGTON - Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback came out against President Bush's expected call tonight for a surge of 22,000 more troops into Iraq.
"I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer," Brownback said while traveling in Iraq. "Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution."
Brownback had previously supported a short-term surge of troops if it could help achieve long-term political stability, which the Bush Administration has said it hopes a troop surge will help achieve.
But Brownback rejected that argument after meeting this week with several Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and U.S. military commanders.
"I came away from these meetings convinced that the United States should not increase its involvement until Sunnis and Shi'a are more willing to cooperate with each other instead of shooting at each other," Brownback said.
"The best way to reach a democratic Iraq is to empower the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own nation building," Brownback concluded, saying it is not in U.S. interest to get deeply involved in sectarian strife.
Brownback, a conservative who is running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, is among a handful of Republican senators to publicly break with Bush on the president's plans to escalate U.S. military involvement.
Brownback has supported the war, but in recent weeks has moved away from the Bush Administration's positions.
He has called for dividing Iraq into three relatively autonomous zones - Kurdish, Shi'a and Sunni - within a federated country. And he also said he generally supported the findings of the Iraq Study Group last month, which Brownback said provided the U.S. the opportunity to "reset the table."
The Bush Administration has rejected calls to split Iraq and was noncommittal toward the Iraq Study Group's recommendations.
Looks like The Senator From La Raza is looking to get votes from some of
our military.
I suspect he'll be shocked to find a lot of his target demographic
in the US Military would disagree with him on the surge.
If anything, many of them would tell him we need a MEGA-Surge to
finish off the terrorists in Iraq.
Read more about Brownback and no one on here will be supporting him IMHO!
So, Senator Brownback has decided he doesn't want the White House as a Republican.
Too bad, I was almost in support of him, too.
I think you vastly overestimate the popularity of the war at this point, even among Republicans. It's still popular on Freerepublic. But if it were popular outside of Freerepublic, the GOP would still be in charge of Congress. I have too many Republican relatives who are starting to sound like Brownback to share your optimism.
He did, for the remainder of Dole's term. Brownback was reelected in 1998 and again in 2004.
It's not a question of popularity or unpopularity of the war. It's a question of a) undercutting the President on the very day he is giving a speech advocating more troops; b) offending his conservative base, which was surely the only base he had; and c) proving that he is politically stupid.
He had another, obvious choice, which was to keep his mouth shut.
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Everybody wave to DU RadiDem.
I am from Kansas. Voted for Brownback, even. Brownback is turning into the John Kerry of the Republican party.
Anyone who opposes the President's plan should step forward with a detailed plan of his/her own.
Just disagreeing - ain't gonna do it.
We've been fighting a PC war over there. No wonder we can't win. We always needed to be fighting a REAL fight, not a seven step approach to fighting, as was related on FOX tonight. Good grief, let our soldiers fight.
I voted for him as well, and will do so again if he runs for reelection as Senator. But, President ... give me a break.
He has assumed candidate room temperature without realizing he has outsmarted himself.
This is good news. Conservatives can only run one candidate. It seems that Hunter is that man unless he does something stupid.
He's "politically stupid" only if most GOP primary voters support the Iraq war with the loyalty and intensity that most Freepers do. I'm not at all sure that's the case - and I base my concern on what I'm increasingly hearing in my own business, family and community circles. People I know to be Republicans are talking negatively about the Iraq war - in a way that they weren't doing six months ago and certainly not a year ago. Maybe my experience is not representative, but it's all I have to go on. On Freerepublic, we're kind of in a cocoon where people understand the war's importance and generally give Bush the benefit of the doubt (even though many of us think he has made mistakes in the way he's waged the war). Outside of Freerepublic, perspectives are different, even among Republicans.
Hey COEX,
Just because you start a thread doesn't mean you control what's on it...
I had:
Hunter
Brownback
Gilmore
I'm down to Hunter and Gilmore but we'll see who turn up...
I disagree with you: the problem in Iraq is more political than anything else. It is because for centuries the Sunnis and the Shia’s have treated each other as enemies that we have this big mess today. As long as Sunnis and Shia’s will not become more reasonable and agree to make a serious effort to live in peace with each other, adding more troops is useless. It is like a doctor putting a band-aid on the body of a patient who is terminally ill. On this point Senator Sam Brownback is right. Just adding more troops will not do the trick.
However, I listened carefully to what President George Bush said in his speech. George Bush is not advocating that we only send more troops … and that’s all, folks! If that was the only strategy, it surely would fail. George Bush is also demanding that other things must change on the ground with the Iraqis. And I think that Sam Brownback fully agrees with these changes (crackdown by the Iraqi goverment on sectarian violence, American troops embedded with the Iraqi troops, definite improvement of the situation by November, etc.).
It seems to me that Sam Brownback and George Bush are actually on the same page: “just sending more troops is not the solution because the problem is more political than anything else” (this is what Sam Brownback says). “More troops will be sent, but serious changes will take place on the ground” (this is what George Bush says). And here, I believe that Sam Brownback will agree with George Bush if actually serious political changes on the ground occur, while more troops are sent.
I don't think we disagree all that much....what I meant is that up until now we have fought this battle in more political terms than militarily...it's time to take the gloves off...stop this pc crap and fight this war...let our GI's do their job and come home. Brownback and all the other Repubs should stand with their President so we can get this job done once and for all.
This guy wants the Republican nomination. What are his chances?
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