Attn Congresscritters: If you vote can be bought for any price, please contact N. Pelosi, or Rahm. The treasury is OPEN for business, please have your proposal ready.

Boxturtle (Reality check: even if we kill it this time, it’ll be back)

Not so much backpeddling as backpedaling. (You can delete this note.)

What exactly happens if the supplemental fails? If the money that’s “needed” to run the wars goes away, will withdrawal be sped up? Or will the Pentagon shift money from their weapons contractor projects into running the war?

Either way it seems to me passing money for war just means sustaining war, so if people really want all of this to end the money needs to be cut off.

I dunno….I took the word peddling to be an intentional freudian slip.

Boxturtle (Vote for the bill and I’ll whip for your earmark!)

Those who are lobbying to defeat the supplemental are in my opinion politically naive at best and suicidal at worst. Do you really think that if the supplemental doesn’t pass, the troops will come home from Afghanistan? Of course not. What will be achieved though is a guaranty you will see this slogan a million times in 2010.

“Democrats vote to abandon our troops overseas”.

Another example of certain elements in the Democratic party playing circular firing squad. It’s like Joan of Arc asking for a match.

what do you think will happen to the troops in Afghanistan if the supplemental is defeated?

Of course not. That requires legislation. The goal here is to have a withdrawl plan attached to the supplemental, not something from Holy Joe.

This is accomplished by showing that a bill WITHOUT the plan cannot pass. This is what we’re doing now.

How would YOU suggest we proceed with getting our troops out? If you’ve got a better idea, lets hear it.

Boxturtle (Am wondering if I should have pinged Freep rather than responding)

They will get the money from the Pentagon budget, add it to another bill, introduce a new bill or come up with some other way. But it won’t matter. A year from now in campaign 2010, all the details will be forgotten and all that will be left is the bullet point . . .

“Democrats vote not to support our brave fighting men and women”.

There is a clearly defined withdrawal plan for Iraq. There is none for Afghanistan because the President and his military commanders have determined that that is not in our best interest to do so. Iraq is not Afghanistan.

There is no way that congress is going to shove a bill with a timeline down President Obama throat. He will not sign such a bill, it’s preposterous and naive to even consider that as feasible.

I am glad you feel comfortable with Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink setting US policy. I and millions of other Democrats do not. They were not elected, Barack Obama was. He has presented a clear plan and strategy for Afghanistan; why are we there and what we hope to achieve. I suggest you read it.

What does the Common Purpose group have to say about the supplemental?

TROOPS
HOME
NOW

Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.

President Obama in Cairo

That’s the mission and the line in the sand before an exit could be considered.

Insane and immoral on so many levels.

Bring them home now!

I guess it’s ok with you then to allow violent extremists a safe haven in Afghanistan to plan further attacks against the United States.

Imagine that your wife went to work on a beautiful September morning and was sitting at her desk answering her e-mails or thinking about what she was going to do for lunch — and then 15 minutes later she was jumping to her death from the 102nd floor of the WTC with her skin melting off her bones . . .

. . . I suggest you try your best to imagine that. Afghanistan is not Iraq — some wars are just.

There are violent extremists throughout these United States, but we don’t have war or would it mean another country should invade and occupy us in perpetuity.

Unless you want to just kill every single person over there.. that line/mission is far beyond a ghoulish fools errand.

Oh, you like killing Afghani civilians with armed drones?

I don’t.
If we’d done what we should have done in 2001/2002, and gone after al Qaeda in Afghanistan, when we knew they were there, and reportedly knew where, instead of throwing lives and money down the rathole of invading Iraq, we could have stopped terrorist attacks elsewhere, saved a lot of lives, and gotten our military out of there by now. (And spent money rebuilding Afghanistan, as we promised them.)

Boy, you sure have a hard on for those code pinksters.

Boy, I’m confused. Wasn’t just a couple years ago that Republicans all voted to spend money for wars and Democrats demanded an exit strategy? This is change?

Not really I think their heart is in the right place. I just eleiveb they are a representative pneumonic device for the extreme left in this country who seems willing to relinquish our hard fought ascension to power for some misguided and futile pursuit of moral purity.

sp-believe

The extremists we have here are few in number and don’t go to other countries and fly planes into buildings.

I suggest you read Barack Obamas widely publicized Afghanistan policy statements. Killing every terrorist is not the objective, it is quite the opposite. There has been a paradigm shift in Afghan policy under Obama that has just gotten underway. Give it a chance to work.

I could not agree with you more about Iraq. That was an unecessary immoral war, invasion and and occupation and diverted attention and resources from Afghanistan. That is what Obama is trying to correct right now.

As to the drone killings. Those are horrific and accidental deaths that occur as we try to hunt down and kill senior Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders who hide amongst villagers. It is a terrible byproduct of war — Obama knows this and he is taking steps to change this. That’s why military commanders were changed recently – primarily for that purpose.

Oh crap, that know-it-all/let-me-educate-the-little-people poster redfish is here, hijacking the thread as usual.

Can we get an “ignore” feature? Please.

Now, as to substance: Friday I wormed my way through Paul Hodes’ “contact me” web site to send him an e-mail. The site requires a NH zip code before it will “allow” you to post. Nevermind all of us without NH zip codes who donated to his campaign.

Anyway, I urged him to get his self out of the “uncommitted” column and into the “against” one.

Hope it helps somewhat.

The Obama administration has committed to a five years, 3 billion dollar a year plan to provide economic opportunity for the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is committed to economic and infrastructure development and the military presence is to try and provide some semblance of safety for these programs to go forward and take effect. In addition to killing terrorists.

Mauimom – I’m truly sorry you are so intolerant of differing points of view. I am as passionate in my beliefs as you are in yours – the difference is I welcome your voice and don’t think you are high jacking anything. What are you afraid of?

I am here because I think when I presnt my positions I might possible make people think or even change a mind or two. If not, that’s ok as well.

So if you choose to censor me or have an ignore feature — please go right ahead. I think Bill O’Reilly has a “turn of their mike” button as well, you would be in good company.

It’s definitely not going to speed up withdrawal since next year’s allocation is already in the budget…the Pentagon will find the money through other means

Exactly! So what is the point except to give the GOP reactionaries a slogan for 2010 about how Democrats don’t support the troops — voted to cut off funding, etc.

Moral victories of this kind are so hollow and naive.

What was it Richard Pryor said about running down the street on fire, people will stop you and ask for a light? Dems can oppose the IMF and photos provisions, but if they oppose the military funding then they need to talk to Obama’s people about the strategy and how this vote might be used against them in their next political campaign.

No, they do not. All they need, and all they have demanded, is a TIMELINE.
Everybody got that?
Let’s not forget that Democrats won a huge mandate in 2006 because of our war postures, and it is well past time to deliver.
Are we now done curtsying to this attempt at making praise of Obama a religion, and opposition to bad strategy as apostasy?

“Imagine that your wife went to work on a beautiful September morning”

Translation: “OOGA BOOGA!”

I think they call that “noun, verb, 9/11″

Rudy Giuliani was the supposed master of that.

Fortunately, the last election gave us a president and not a corrupt mayor.

Ah, redfish there’s a not so fine line between presenting your point of view and being a pain in the ass. Let’s just say you’ve presented your point of view (with which I do not agree) a lot.

What is it you think we will accomplish in Afghanistan? Do you think we’ll eliminate the Taliban, war lords and turn the place into a liberal capitalist country (we don’t even have that here) Instead we’ve recognized a really corrupt government and are forced, like you, to excuse killing civilians with a “war is hell”. How much time must pass and blood must flow before you realize your expectations won’t happen? That’s always a tough one. I don’t have a statute of limitations on my expectations.

You say it’s about the next election. What if Obama’s strategy (assuming he has one) doesn’t work and Afghanistan turns into the same quagmire as Iraq. BTW were you against the Iraq war from the beginning? Can something wrong ab initio, as lawyers are wont to say, turn into something necessary? (i.e. we made the mess and we can’t leave until we clean it up?) If not now, when?

There is no honor in any of this. Murtha is the most corrupt of the senior House democrats. His hands have been caught in the cookie jar many times over the past 25+ years, from Abscam in 1980 to FBI investigations into his voluminous ties to defence contractors today. Pelosi’s attempt to hoist him into the #2 position, in place of Hoyer, after the November ‘06 elections, was a stain on her already tattered reputation.

In Afghanistan, surely we can learn something from history? The USSR invaded on Christmas Day 1979 but despite taking over the country quickly & installing a puppet government with overwhelming ground and air control it was unable to subdue the fiercely independent tribal peoples. Finally it was forced to withdraw almsot 10 years later in February ‘89. Ironically it was this failure – together a collapsing economy and imploding political ideology – at led to its total disintegration. We cannot ‘win’ on the ground any more than the soviets could, but are we really doomed to repeat their cycle of failure? Surely we learned enough of these lessons from McNamara and Rumsfeld between 1964 and 2006?

Obama appears to be a captive of the domestic political situation every bit as much as LBJ was during his presidency. He has no coherent strategy that has not been defeated by the reality on the ground either in the 1960’s in Vietnam or in Iraq between 2003 & 2008. Unfortunately Obama is shaping up was a far less formidable politican than LBJ, so this lack of vision may well have mst unfortunate consequences for all ‘change you can believe in’ on our key progressive reforms!

So if you choose to censor me or have an ignore feature

You wish!! In post after post you explicitly beg to be banned or censored.

Your form of “education” is to lecture and “convince” everyone that your point of view is the only right one.

FDL is a forum for an exchange of ideas, not a video game to see who “wins” and who “loses.”

This is how adults work, unlike late night dorm room debates.