This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Politics

  • Lisping sissy advises Democrats: “make it about Bush”

    EJ Dionne, columnist for the Washington Post, gives advice to the anti-war crowd in Congress;

    The challenge to critics of the war is to make the debate about Bush, not about themselves, and to make clear that the president has rebuffed all efforts to pursue a bipartisan path out of Iraq, beginning with his rejection of the core recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, headed by James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton.

    UM, EJ, where have you been the last six years? If you hadn’t noticed, everything has always been about the President. And it’s always been clear that the “core recommendations” of the ISG were pie-in-the-sky, fruity recommendations anyway.

    I know little EJ wants us to negotiate with Iran (which underlies his idiot statement about the ISG recommendations) but how are we supposed to sit down with a government whose lead politician says things like this and this. Hardly seems like a rational person that we can trust to keep his word, does it?

    And, EJ, my boy, tell me what good a “bi-partisan solution” to the war in Iraq would do our troops? There’s a way to win that war, and there’s a way to lose that war, but there is no way to compromise between winning and losing that’ll make everyone happy.

    We’ve been compromising up to this point (despite the rantings of the Left) and that’s why we’ve been there so long, taken so many casualties, and spent so much money on this war – because we’ve been trying to asuage the guilt of the Left for making them vote for the war in the first place. We need another Sherman, Patton or Grant, that’s what we need, not bi-partisan compromises.

    Of course Dionne endorses the Murtha proposal;

    For now, the war’s opponents are focused on three strategies. One would be to cut off funds for the war, but there is currently no majority in either house for this. A second approach, expected to come from Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), would propose restrictions on troop deployments — for example, forbidding the redeployment of units that have been home for less than a year and imposing substantial training requirements on the troops who are sent.

    The Murtha measure would at least force a much-needed debate on the damage this war has done to our armed forces and the extraordinary burdens being borne by the brave minority of Americans who serve. It would also sidestep the political damage of doing anything that could be construed by Bush’s supporters as “failing to support our troops.”

    Yeah, we need more debate. Oswego, NY needs more snow, too. And the damage to our troops has already been done, EJ, in case you haven’t been paying attention. There’s already been a recorded incident of your side spitting at a wounded soldier – what more do you need. Murtha cloaks his disdain for the soldiers in pretty phrases about readiness and rest, but he still hates the fact that they might win.

    A third path, offered by Sens. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), would have Congress revisit its original 2002 Iraq resolution to make clear that the war authorized then (against Saddam Hussein and what turned out to be nonexistent weapons of mass destruction) had nothing to do with putting American troops in the midst of a Muslim civil war now.

    This is a setup to begin impeachment proceedings against the President by changing the rules at the end of the third quarter. I know the Left thinks Biden is a fricken rocket surgeon, but anyone who had to use other people’s research for a college paper probably shouldn’t be held in such high esteem by people who think college education is the answer to all of the world’s problems.

    And Dionne ends his piece with a quote from my very own Congressman – in all of his whining glory, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD);

    “The refusal of the administration to try to work with others to resolve this in a responsible manner has created a very polarized atmosphere,” Van Hollen said. “They’ve refused to listen to anyone else.”

    Maybe, Chris, that’s because you haven’t had a strategy. All you have is “we hate Bush” and “we hate Rumsfeld”. Have you bothered to read the ISG’s recommendations, Chris? It’s fantasy land nonsense written by politicians. Even Sandra Day O’Connor wondered what she even doing in the Group. So did the rest of us.

    Besides, why should the President pay you any notice? You’re not the commander-in-chief, according to the Constitution. You can declare war and fund it and that’s it. Period. The fact that Democrats can’t produce a coherent policy on Iraq is proof of the genious of our founding fathers. There is no compromise to victory – unless of course, victory is what you’re trying to avoid.

    So, I guess the whole point of today’s post is that EJ Dionne, John Murtha, Joe Biden and Chris Von Hollen are not generals – they’re political creatures looking for a political solution to a complex problem – none of them have had to lead troops in combat, none of them understand how their idiot ramblings affect the war and our enemies, so all of them should sit down and stfu. Especially, Little EJ Dionne.

  • Carl Levin’s idea of success

    I’m watching Carl Levin on Fox News Sunday describe limiting troop deployments to Iraq as “increasing the chance of success in Iraq”. How can fewer troops in a war zone enhance success? More trigger-pullers on the ground means more bullets the islamo-facists have to dodge while engaging in their particuar nefarious endeavors. 

    He described the Republican block of the Democrats’ non-binding resolution in the Senate as political gamesmanship. What, then, is the Democrat strategy of even introducing a non-binding rebuke of the President’s strategy, if not political gamesmanship? It’s not law, so why do they think it’s even necessary – unless they just want to satisfy their knee-jerk anti-war base for the time being.

    Did the Republican Congress pass any non-binding resolutions against the Clinton Administration’s foreign follies in Haiti, Bosnia or Kosovo. The, answer of course, is ‘no’. That would have been political gamesmanship. They gave him and the troops their full and complete support.

    No, Mr. Levin, putting more combat troops in Iraq doesn’t hinder our chance for success. I think on a weekend when even the Washington Post publishes an editorial (h/t Captain’s Quarters) condemning Democrats for flexing imaginary political muscles writing “[s]ome of the speeches [in the House] were little more than partisan rhetoric….” ya’all’d be a little more careful what you say. It seems that the fog is lifting a bit on ya’ll’s honeymoon with the press.

    The Post also asks, rightly;

    So why not straightforwardly strip the money out of the appropriations bill — an action Congress is clearly empowered to take — rather than try to micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional?

    The answer, of course, is that Murtha, Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, Levin and the rest are just playing politics with the lives of our armed forces. The Post can’t ask that without knowing the answer.

    The Post went on to say that John Murtha, specifically, and Democrats, generally  are ignorant of the situation the situation in Iraq. But I think it’s worse than that. They know what’s going on in Iraq, they know the troops are winning, they know that the troops know they’re winning (like this troop’s email via Flopping Aces) and they’re ignoring it and intentionally mischaracterizing the war in front of the cameras. Murtha and Pelosi have seen for themselves, how can they be that ignorant without it being a purely poitical gambit designed to kill more American soldiers for political gain?

    Perhaps Mitch McConnell said it best in this morning’s Washington Times;

    “There is no place for chicanery at a time of war,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican. “Even some of the president’s most strident opponents know that. They know that the only vote that truly matters is a vote on whether to fund the troops.”

    See Sister Toldya for the video of Sam Johnson’s speech to the House last week. Then tell me Democrats support the troops.

    In the meantime, the “surge” continues. Read the Milblogs at Mudvile Gazette to keep up with the latest. 

  • That flag they’re waving…it’s white

    Fox News reports that House Democrats are ready to vote on their surrender bill. They even sound like they’re surrendering to the Administration while they’re surrendering to the islamists;

    “The bipartisan resolution today may be nonbinding, but it will send a strong message to the president: we here in Congress are committed and supporting our troops,” Pelosi said. “The passage of this legislation will signal change in direction in Iraq that will end the fighting and bring our troops home safely and soon.”

    So broken down for the less literate, Pelosi is saying that even though this a pointless drill that means absolutely nothing, made by gutless cowards who are afraid to say what they really mean and vote on something that might actually say something, is not an actual law that the Executive Branch has to execute, the President had better do what they say anyway.

    And the supreme girlie-man Henry Waxman, proving that he supports the troops, declares that Iraq is a defeat;

    “What we now have in Iraq is a defeat. We cannot achieve the illusions of the Bush administration that we will be able to create a stable unified liberal democracy in Iraq that is pro-American,” Waxman said on the House floor. “Instead, we have sectarian fighting, death squads and a disabled Middle East that threatens to be engulfed by the nightmare that we have unleashed.”

    Sounds like a bipartisan statement aimed at cooperation with the Administration, doesn’t it?

    And ya gotta love those guys from Massachusetts;

    The American troops are over there fighting so that we can exercise our constitutional rights and obligation to debate these issues and have an opinion on them,” [Rep. John] Tierney [D-MA] said. “If you listen to the troops when they come home or read their letters or the letters of their parents, they don’t understand what the mission is anymore, the goal is undefined.”

    I guess they don’t get TV, radio or newspaper in Massachusetts. Everyone on the planet knows that the goal is a democratic Iraq. Unless they’re from Massachusetts. No one told the troops from Massachusetts what the goal is. It’s a conspiracy to keep Massachusetts ignorant.

    About the vote in the Senate, Dingy Harry Reid says;

    “It’s a vote on whether or not Republicans support the surge,” Reid said.

    That’s right, Senate Republicans, let’s see your gonads. Or the lack thereof.

  • General Murtha pretends to care about the troops

    According to Fox News‘ Greg Simmons, Murtha used an internet-broadcast interview with MoveCongress.org, a far-Left, anti-war website, to try to get his message out. His message? Screw the troops who are currently engaged in Iraq.

    According to his interview, Murtha claims;

    The Bush administration “won’t be able to continue. They won’t be able to do the deployment. They won’t have the equipment. They don’t have the training and they won’t be able to do the work,” Murtha said in the post on the Democrat-friendly Web site MoveCongress.org. “This vote will limit the options of the president and should stop this surge.”

    So with Sadr on the run, US troops in theater shifted around and pressing the enemy, Murtha wants to stop reinforcments and supplies from reaching those under fire at the moment.

    Murtha said the legislation would not necessarily deprive the administration of money but would redirect it, and it would be crafted to protect the troops, not harm them.

    “We need to make sure that everybody understands we’re going to support the troops. We’re going to give the troops everything they need. We’re not going to .. make any of them vulnerable,” Murtha said. “But we’re going to make darn sure that they have what they need before they go over.”

    By crafting legislation with those goals in mind, Murtha said, “that stops the surge for all intents and purposes.”

    What a juvenile, half-assed approach to war. How many more of our troops will be spilling their blood to feed John Murtha’s gagantuan ego while he hides behind troops yet to be deployed while sniping at the folks in theater?

    Murtha tones down the insane, threatening rhetoric for the mainstream media (more specifically the Washington Times’ Jon Ward);

    “This legislation will force the administration to consider alternatives rather than escalating,” said Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, describing limitations he intends to place on an appropriations bill next month.

    Of course, Dennis Kuscinich, the Emporer of Peace is a little more extreme;

     “The American people want us to get out of Iraq,” Mr. Kucinich said. “They expect Democrats to move quickly to end our involvement in Iraq. If Congress approves the supplemental appropriation, President Bush will have the money he needs to keep the war going through the end of his term.”

    Not only does Kuscinich not understand how to fight wars, he also doesn’t understand what the American people want. But then, which Democrat does. They constantly invoke the “American people” in their insane blather, but when was the last time they really listened to the American people?

    In the Senate, Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports that Dingy Harry Reid has called for a Saturday vote on the Iraq War resolution;

    “Time is of the essence,” Reid told a rapt audience in the Senate television studio yesterday afternoon. “That’s why the Senate will have another Iraq vote on Saturday.”

    I guess he thinks that pressuring the Senators to work a full week will frighten them into submission. Little Chuckie Schumer pipes in;

    The “vote on Saturday is a crucial vote not just for the moment or for the week, but for the history of America,” added an overwrought Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “We’re calling their bluff. We’re staying here. Now vote yes or no.”

    The Post also points out that he’s caused more of a distraction to Democrat presidential hopefuls than to Republicans, though. So who cares. I guess it’s too hopeful to wish that they’d drown in a river of their tears.

    And, according to the Washington Post, Joe Biden has a time machine;

    Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he will seek to repeal the 2002 congressional authorization for Bush to wage war in Iraq and substitute legislation that would narrow the mission of troops there and begin to bring some home.

    Haven’t the American people already been heard on that 2002 authorization? How does Biden think he can unfire that revolver? The only thing he can possible do is give aid and comfort to our enemies. But, I guess that’s Joe Biden’s way. Between Biden and Murtha, our enemies must pleased as pigs in clover. 

    And the President gets in his licks;

    But Bush, who has challenged lawmakers not to cut off funds for the troops, took a swipe at his critics during the day.

    “This may become the first time in the history of the United States Congress that it has voted to send a new commander into battle and then voted to oppose his plan that is necessary to succeed in that battle,” the president said.

    And at least some Republicans have something valuable to contribute;

    “The enemy wants our men and women in uniform to think their Congress doesn’t care about them,” said Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, who was a prisoner of war during Vietnam. “We must learn from our mistakes. We cannot leave a job undone like we left in Korea, like we left in Vietnam, like we left in Somalia,” Johnson said.

    Added Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Ky., a West Point graduate who was a flight commander with the Army’s 82nd Airborne: “This nonbinding resolution serves no purpose other than pacifying the Democrats’ political base and lowering morale in our military.”

    Unlike some others.

  • Democrats want to cut taxes?

    According to Sarah Lueck at the Wall Street Journal, Democrats are seeking to give middle class tax payers a tax cut;

    The new Democratic-controlled Congress is looking to rein in looming tax increases on the middle class, possibly covering the cost by raising taxes on upper-income households. And the Bush administration may not stand in the way.

    Of course, Democrats couldn’t just give the American middle class a tax cut without looking for someone else to increase taxes upon, could they? And they’d never think to balance the tax cut with a spending cut, could they?

  • Iranians supply insurgents

    Both the Washington Times and Washington Post lead their news with stories about Iranians supplying insurgents in Iraq with their most deadly weapons against our troops. the difference in the stories is the degree to which the authors belive the information;

    From Bill Gertz’ Washington Times story;

    Iran is supplying deadly shoulder-fired missiles and armor-piercing bombs to Iraqi insurgents, along with TNT, triggering devices, rockets and other weapons that are killing and injuring hundreds of U.S. and allied troops, a U.S. military intelligence report made public yesterday says.
        The detailed briefing report, titled “Iranian Support for Lethal Activity in Iraq,” stated that Iranian Misagh-1 portable anti-aircraft missiles were found after a failed attempt to shoot down a plane at Baghdad’s airport in 2004.  

    From Joshua Partlow’s Washington Post story;

    Senior U.S. military officials in Iraq sought Sunday to link Iran to deadly armor-piercing explosives and other weapons that they said are being used to kill U.S. and Iraqi troops with increasing regularity.

    See the difference? Gertz says “is supplying” and “the report stated”, while Partlow uses the weak “military officials sought to link”. So I guess Partlow wants this to be a legal case not a military operation. Careful not to make the Iranians look guilty before it’s proven in some as-yet-to-be decided court case, I guess.

    And the Associated Press rushes Iran’s denial to the web;

    In a rare interview with the US media given amid mounting tensions with the Islamic republic’s arch-enemy in Washington, Ahmadinejad told ABC television that that he did not fear a US attack.

    “Fear? Why should we be afraid? First, the possibility is very low,” he said the day after the United States accused Iranian agents of smuggling armour-piercing bombs into war-torn Iraq.

    “Our nation has made it clear that anyone who wants to attack our country will be severely punished,” Ahmadinejad added Monday.

    While the Iranian leader sidestepped US accusations that Iran is supplying potent weapons to Iraq insurgents, foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini categorically rejected the charge.

    From Milblogs we read the Iranian threats to our Navy with their “suicide drones”. And Putin denies he gave missile technology to Iran despite evidence to the contrary.

    The Washington Post also warns us that the Shi’ite/Sunni “civil war” is spreading to Egypt;

    Fought in speeches, newspaper columns, rumors swirling through cafes and the Internet, and occasional bursts of strife, the conflict is predominantly shaped by politics: a disintegrating Iraq, an ascendant Iran, a sense of Arab powerlessness and a persistent suspicion of American intentions.

    Of course it’s the US fault. Did you think the WaPo could write one story that didn’t decribe us as “suspicious”?

    No one fears us anymore because the Left has made it clear that we’re ready to surrender. The Iranians will continue to fight us in this proxy war because we’ve lost our stomach to rid the world of evil. And the reason we’ve lost our stomach is the weasel words of Murtha, Kerry, Webb, the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, etcetera, ad nauseum.

    The Left is preempting any effective attempt to blunt Iranian power in the region by making this ideological fight about politics.

    “Every leader in the region and every observer, every expert here in our country, tells us that Iran does not want a complete and total implosion in Iraq,” Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said Sunday.

    And no leader in the Arab World has ever lied to us have they, Kerry?

    But Democratic Sen. Jack Reed wondered whether the influx of Iranian armaments was a plan by the Islamic regime in Tehran or just “rogue elements” within it.

    Rogue elements, Mr Reed? Have you been paying attention the last few months? The government of Iran is rogue.  Sometimes I wonder if they’ve been on the same planet as the rest of us for the last few centuries.

    The Iranians know we’ve become gutless because of Democrats – why would they be using the Democrats’s same weasel words? The Democrats know that they are causing our decline in world stature, too, but they hide behind their false-patriotism. While American blood is spilled by the barrels-full at the alter of Leftism.

  • General Murtha speaks;

    All this yammering about Pelosi’s plane really didn’t interest me until I read this line from John Murtha;

    Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the Pelosi ally who chairs the House military appropriations subcommittee, said he has spoken to Pentagon officials about the need to provide Pelosi with a bigger plane that can fly passengers coast to coast in comfort.

    But he denied pressuring the Pentagon. “I don’t need to pressure them. I just tell them what they need to do,” Murtha said.

    I wonder if Big Shot Murtha ever read the Constitution  – the part where the President is the commander-in-chief of the military. No where does it say that some pickle-brained, pasty-faced, fat-assed, cut-and-run coward committee chairman gets to tell the military what they should do – especially by threatening to withold funding for REAL COMBAT SOLDIERS deployed in combat over something so petty as a non-stop flight for the Speaker.

    I’ll grant that she needs a plane and I’ll grant that the military should provide one, but I’ll not concede that Murtha has the right to denigrate the military by declaring that they need to follow his directions. Especially the way he’s treated combat troops in the near and distant past.

    This is just indicative of Murtha’s total disregard for this nation’s security – that he’s willing to sacrifice soldiers’ lives so he can suck up at lightspeed to Blinky the Botox Queen. As if we needed something else to point out his disregard.

     

  • This is the End of American culture

    I read about those idiot college students who made the fake beheading video out there on Long Island and, yeah, I thought it was tasteless and insensitive to the families of beheading victims. Until I saw the usual “outrage” statements of the Muslim community;  

    “I think it’s not a prank,” said Ghazi Khankan of Long Beach, a member of the board of the American Muslim Alliance, which he described as a regional and national group that advocates for Muslim participation in the political process. “Campuses are for enlightenment and for teaching us to get along, to respect each other, to know how to live together.”

    Funny, I thought college was a place where we learned. I didn’t realize that it’s a big social laboratory. Guess I was wrong. I always figured that college students were accustomed to blowing off steam in unusual ways – like swallowing goldfish and packing phone booths.

    Maybe the outraged Muslims can teach those folks who behead and set fire to buses a little about respecting each other instead of focusing on a college prank, for pete’s sake.

    Habeeb Ahmed, president of the Islamic Center of Long Island in Westbury, who said he was a C.W. Post alumnus, agreed. “People are testing the waters again and again, and the Muslim community is always at the receiving end.”

    Always? Since when? Maybe if Muslims would stop testing the waters, I’d feel for ’em a bit more. The only ones on the receiving end are those of us who hear and read endless lectures about tolerance from an entire race of intolerant people.

    I wonder if they were this outraged over the news of actual beheadings.

    These five students are only guilty of putting the video on YouTube where they’d get busted for being rambunctous youngsters. If people are going to start losing jobs for being funny, I think it’s the end of our civilization.

    Afterall, who can forget the other comedy team who dared to poke fun at our enemies (it is only our enemies who threaten to behead us, right?);