Posted on 12/22/2007 11:08:18 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Congress' approval of $70 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan last week as part of a $555 billion federal budget bill effectively marks the quiet end of the Democratic majority's effort to bring an end to the war in Iraq. The great promise of a year ago following the 2006 elections in which the Democrats tossed the Republicans out of the congressional leadership gradually drained away, in part because of procedural realities but also because of a disappointing lack of fire among Democrats in Washington.
Congress will revisit the issue in spring, but major policy changes are unlikely to take place that close to another election. Representative James McGovern, one of the eight Massachusetts congressmen, including John Olver of the First District, who voted against the bill, noted sadly that it "represents an endorsement of George Bush's policy of endless war."
When the Democrats took over in Congress in January they tried without success to cut funding for the war or tie funding to a firm withdrawal date. Lacking the 60 Senate votes needed to force bills to the floor, they were regularly stymied in that body, and they were not close to the two-thirds vote needed to override a presidential veto. Democrats, however, never took Iraq War policy to the American people who put them in office in large part because voters wanted an end to the war. Intimidated by General Petraeus' appearance before them and the bogus claims by Republicans that they don't "support the troops," timid Democrats remain paralyzed by the scare tactics that American voters grew wise to long ago.
Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson, appalled by the vote approving the war funds, says he will devote his campaign solely to the Iraq War. Mr. Richardson is a long shot for the nomination, but if he can focus his party's candidates on the war he will be doing the nation a service. Hillary Clinton, most notably, continues to triangulate a position that comes down on all sides of the Iraq War.
The relative calm in Iraq makes it easy for candidates to dodge the issue, but the calm in Iraq is the quiet of the grave. While the persistent effort of American troops has contributed to a decline in violence, the death toll has dropped primarily because there are fewer Iraqis left to kill. Neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed of minority Shiites or Sunnis, depending on the section of the city in question. The U.S. has for the most part looked the other way while this has gone on in the unspoken knowledge that violence will not stop until the country is essentially partitioned.
Iraq is evolving into Afghanistan, the site of the Bush administration's other failed war. The so-called democratic leaders of both nations rule only their capital cities, or more accurately, portions of those cities. Warlords, tribal chieftains and militia groups have divided the majority of both countries into personal fiefdoms. Billions of our tax dollars continue to flow into both countries, much of it squandered or stolen.
The dream of democracy is dead in Iraq, along with nearly 4,000 American soldiers. The money, however, is still being dumped into the desert, with no end in sight.
Hopefully people like these morons will decide to either not vote or to vote third party. Hillary committed the unforgivable sin of agreeing with President Bush on anything.
This article is peppered with a bunch of misguided or deliberate falsification of facts.
That’s why I posted it....just for us to see the.... slop they are feeding the sheeple!
They got the swill buckets lined up in vast arrays Ernie, as you can well surmise.
Congress' approval of $70 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan last week as part of a $555 billion federal budget bill effectively marks the quiet end of the Democratic majority's effort to bring an end to the war in Iraq.Oh. The Democrats made an effort to end the war? Must have missed that story in the flurry of news on how they said one thing and voted another.
btt
Hope Hillary keeps listening to the choir. She’ll be mauled by reality.
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