By Jim Spencer
SpencerSpeaks.com
July 18, 2007
You wonder how much more indecision the American public will take. The Senate’s all-night Iraq War discussion that lasted from Tuesday into Wednesday was, as Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar pointed out, a “robust debate.â€
Whether all the talk should make service men and women “happy,†as Salazar said in a Wednesday press conference, is a huge stretch.
The Senate’s marathon session ended with no change of course in Iraq. A vote to end a filibuster that blocked a vote on an amendment to force the withdrawal of American troops failed. All that was left after more than a dozen hours of “robust debate†were puffy-eyed politicians and ever-mounting frustration among a public that wants something done about a war that can’t be won in any traditional sense of the term.
I asked Salazar how Americans might react to the Congressional gridlock on Iraq.
“The American people are smart,†he replied. “They will look at this and see who stopped us from moving forward. It was the majority of Republicans who acted for the president to stop (the withdrawal amendment). The American people will recognize what happened.â€
Interesting theory. The problem is that before the people get to speak in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections, another 1,000 U.S. troops will have died and thousands more will have been maimed.
Leaders lead. Politically, no one is leading on Iraq.
Congress’ approval ratings are almost as lousy as George W. Bush’s. The bad will stems in part from the inability of the House and Senate to act in concert on Iraq, not just from the president’s veto of an earlier bill that set deadlines for troop withdrawal.
Not even Tuesday’s devastating National Intelligence Estimate about this country’s inability to stymie terrorism moved the Senate to action. The U.S. is no safer from a terrorist attack for all the lives and money invested in Iraq, the NIE pointed out.
“The National Intelligence Estimate was very troublesome,†Salazar acknowledged. “The report raises significant questions if we’re being effective in Iraq. The real enemy is al-Quaeda. We need a global response to terror. We can’t do it alone.â€
We sure can’t do it focusing mainly on Baghdad.
And yet that’s where we’re stuck.
The withdrawal deadline was not the only casualty of the vote not to end the filibuster. Salazar’s would-be amendment to implement recommendations of the Iraq Study Group went down the tubes, too. What’s left is a so-called “surge†that has put more Americans in harm’s way with little, if anything, to show.
Salazar laid out the numbers: We’re in our third month in a row with over 100 U.S. casualties, he said. The number of U.S. wounded has increased. Yet the level of violence in Iraq is up. And the flow of oil into Baghdad is barely a trickle because pipelines coming into the city have been blown up.
In other words, the situation in Iraq is not much different than what the Iraq Study Group said it was seven months ago:
Grave and deteriorating.
This is what staying the course has wrought. Yet the Congress and the White House can’t find the resolve to change.
Asked by a reporter what he would say to the troops on the ground in Iraq, Salazar answered:
“I would say to the service men and women that they need to have a policy worthy of their bravery.â€
What they had after an all-night debate in the Senate didn’t come close.
Copyright 2007 by Jim Spencer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
7 users commented in " Senate’s Cowardice On Iraq Policy Undermines Troops’ Bravery "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI don’t think it’s right to blame the Congress as a whole. With a solid block of Republican ditto-heads lip-locked to Bush’s tush, the anti-war people are stymied. The votes aren’t there to end debate or override a veto. Reid, Pelosi, and the Dems (mostly) are doing as much as they can. The war is a travesty and a disaster, but all we can do is look forward to an unprecedented and well-deserved bashing of Republicans in November 2008. I don’t think the Democrats can mess that up, though I’ve been surprised before (see 2004).
How goes the war? Two more people killed in the streets of Colorado Springs with another killed in the capital in Denver. Should we close down the town and capital? I was once a great fan of Senator Salazar–but not anymore. He is just another Democrate whimp taking his orders from Senator Reid.
If our politicians only had a shred of the integrity of our troops…….
Once again the Republican Bush-puppets have gone against the will of the American people and stymied the bill to bring our soldiers home. But WHOA, not so fast Democrats. The American people voted overwhelming democratic in the last election to stop this senseless slaughter of our young men and women. But you got giddy with power and scattered in a thousand different directions instead of keeping to the task at hand, ending the war.I don’t know if the American people will remember that the Republicans stymied the bill. But I guarantee they will remember that the Democrats didn’t stick to the task at hand.and deliver as promised.
In the meantime the Representatives and Senators will take the month of August off to play, while our soldiers continue to be killed and maimed. More little children won’t be seeing their daddy again.
The recent debacle in the Senate over the amendment to withdraw the troops from Iraq demonstrates once again that our Senate has no ability or desire to provide the wisdom and guidance that is their designated role.
Like many Americans I am increasingly concerned about the outcome of our “war on terror.” Clearly we are losing the battles. The question is: How we will ever know when we have won the war? Is there an enemy that will surrender, or will we accept as “winning” a certain percentage decrease in the number of worldwide terrorist attacks? Or,and most likely, will we simply give up when we have relinquished all of our rights, wasted the lives of our young people, and spent all of our money on this futile approach to controlling terroism?
This may annoy some Democrats, but I knew better than to support Ken Salazar for the Democratic nomination for Senator in 2004. Before Salazar joined the race, there were three Colorado Democrats running for the Senate seat. The Denver Post and other Colorado newspapers did not cover their campaigns. One of those candidates was Mike Miles from Colorado Springs, whom I supported in the caucuses. He won the vote at the Democratic Assembly that year, but after that the mainstream (right wing) Democrats and most Colorado newspapers downplayed his candidacy, although he had the integrity that Salazar lacks and showed that he lacked during his tenure as Attorney General. Salazar is a member of the Democratic Leadership Council, once headed by his favorite Senator, Joe Lieberman, who is no longer a Democrat. Other members of the DLC voted to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq, in defiance of the requirements of the United States Constitution, which they had sworn an oath to uphold. DLC members Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and John Edwards all lacked the courage and leadership to insist on a Constitutional declaration of war, and most of the American voters seemed oblivious to this fact. The American public’s ignorance, apathy, and complacency is greatly responsible for this disastrous war. The American people need to wake up, start acting like true patriots, and take back the democracy that most of them seem to have rejected.
Or we can continue to let the wealthiest 1% run this nation as an oligarchy for their own benefit and no one else’s.
It makes very sad to see both Parties playing poltics with this war. The Republicians what to keep the stats quo and are afraid that if we pull out they will look like losers.
The Dems. are not in any hurry to end the war because the longer it goes on the worse the Reps. look hince the better they will do in 2008. And both are happy to keep feeding the war machine that in turn feeds their campains.
Mean while back in Iraq we our killing both Iraqi and American people, and breeding hate that will foster for years.
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