Cheney: House Is Undermining the Troops
Dick Cheney continues to undermine democracy
Bush trashes House Dems. for representing the will of the people
Four years in Iraq and blooder by the minute
MANALAPAN, Fla. — Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday accused the Democrat-led House of not supporting troops in Iraq and of sending a message to terrorists that America will retreat in the face danger….”They’re not supporting the troops. They’re undermining them,” Cheney told a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition at the oceanside Ritz-Carlton hotel in Manalapan, Fla., about 60 miles north of Miami. On Friday, the House voted to clamp a cutoff deadline on the Iraq war, agreeing by a thin margin to pull combat troops out by next year. The $124 billion House legislation would pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year but would require that combat troops come home from Iraq before September 2008 - or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements.
I’m sick to death of the attitude prevalent among Right-wing Chickenhawks that any attempt to change the status quo or introduce some accountability into the conduct of the war in Iraq is tantamount to undermining the troops. Right; unless we reflexively and unquestioningly accept Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s © inept and murderous conduct of the war, we are somehow guilty of borderline treason. Unless we willingly allow our sons and daughters to be sacrificed for no discernable reason, we’re undermining our sons and daughters. WTF???
I find it difficult to imagine, much less understand, the overriding arrogance and self-righteousness of so many neoConservative Chickenhawks. The idea is that there’s only one way to fight this war- their way is absurd. The idea that any dissent from this immutable truth is not only unpatriotic, not only un-American, but, even worse, undermining our troops is frankly insulting. We’ve stood by for four years now, watching Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © and his band of neoCon thugs turn the war into Iraq into this generation’s Vietnam, a clusterf—k of epic proportions. This clusterf—k is sending more and more of our sons and daughters home in bags…and they frankly don’t deserve having their lives treated in such an off-handed, cavalier manner. Our men and women in uniform are NOT disposable commodities.
Our military is willing to fight, and if necessary die, for their country. That’s part and parcel of the job, and any of us who’ve ever warn a uniform understand this. What we should not be expected to understand- or condone- is a war in Iraq that is being conducted with an astonishing degree of incompetence and ineptitude. If someone is to lay down their lives for their country, there should be a valid and defendable reason- a clear and present danger to Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s © legacy our national security.
Cheney called it a myth that “one can support the troops without giving them the tools and reinforcements they need to carry out their mission.”
Perhaps in Cheney’s mind that’s true, but it’s also a myth that we can simply keep feeding our sons and daughters into the meat grinder that is Iraq indefinitely and without question. At some point, we MUST look at what’s happening and have the courage to admit that THIS JUST ISN’T WORKING. To ignore that reality in an effort to “stay the course” or avoid “cutting and running” is to sentence an ever-increasing number of our sons and daughters to horrible, pointless, senseless deaths. It does a disservice to those who willingly serve their country and to those who’ve raised them.
If our children were dying to protect us from a clear and present danger, it would be a very different, and very grave, situation. The reality, though, is that the “terrorist threat” we face in Iraq didn’t even exist before the American invasion. The terrorist threat that Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © is insisting is so vital to combat and defeat WAS CREATED BY HIS (&^%$#@ WAR. Our country is now embroiled in a pointless, senseless, seemingly unwinnable war that continues to consume resources, our innocence, and- most importantly- young American lives. It’s time that we begin to demand that Iraq stand up and be counted, instead of allowing the status quo to continue unabated. The lives of American soldiers simply cannot continue to be used as the currency which props up and inept and ineffective regime.
President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation. Cheney said Bush will not withdraw troops before there is stability in Iraq.
At this rate, and using that criteria, our sons and daughters will be in Iraq until you and I have long since departed this Earth. Something has got to change. Good and decent Americans need to demand that the change begins here and now. Going on four years after “Mission Accomplished” and “the end of major combat operations”…and we’re spinning our wheels. Ever more of our sons and daughters come home in bags, and yet the situation on the ground in Iraq remains unchanged.
I don’t know if the House resolution is the solution to the problem, but maintaining the status quo clearly isn’t…and the past four years have amply demonstrated that. Until and unless we place concrete expectations upon the Iraqi government, there’s really no incentive to create a workable, governable alternative. There may at this point no longer be any possibility of doing that, but our continued presence hardly seems to be a positive influence.
It’s time for a change, and it’s time for Dick Cheney and Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © to remove their anteriors from their posteriors. If they cannot, or if they refuse to do so, then Democrats will have no choice but to attempt and do it for them.
WE DESERVE BETTER. And so do our sons and daughters in uniform. It’s time for a change.
