| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Bill Rood" |
| Date: |
10 May 2007 10:47:23 PM |
| Object: |
Roll-call vote on Iraq withdrawal |
Here's the roll-call result on HR2237, "To provide for the redeployment
of United States Armed Forces and defense contractors from Iraq". This
bill would have called for withdrawal from Iraq. Since it specifically
calls for withdrawal of contractors, I presume it also called for
withdrawal of all government troops and did not include loopholes for
"targeted anti-terrorist forces", "training" or "force protection". I
don't know whether or not it would have been binding if passed, but I
think it's a pretty good indication of the true beliefs of our
Representatives and where they'd like to take us. I note two
Republicans voted for withdrawal, Ron Paul and somebody named Duncan.
They deserve our wholehearted support. 59 Democrats voted to continue
the slaughter of Iraqis and US service people.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll330.xml
Thanks to http://antiwar.com/ for providing a link to such important
information.
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| User: "A Veteran" |
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| Title: Re: Roll-call vote on Iraq withdrawal |
10 May 2007 11:15:04 PM |
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In article <4643E74B.7060005@magnaspeed.net>,
Bill Rood <wjrood@magnaspeed.net> wrote:
Here's the roll-call result on HR2237, "To provide for the redeployment
of United States Armed Forces and defense contractors from Iraq". This
bill would have called for withdrawal from Iraq. Since it specifically
calls for withdrawal of contractors, I presume it also called for
withdrawal of all government troops and did not include loopholes for
"targeted anti-terrorist forces", "training" or "force protection". I
don't know whether or not it would have been binding if passed, but I
think it's a pretty good indication of the true beliefs of our
Representatives and where they'd like to take us. I note two
Republicans voted for withdrawal, Ron Paul and somebody named Duncan.
They deserve our wholehearted support. 59 Democrats voted to continue
the slaughter of Iraqis and US service people.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll330.xml
Thanks to http://antiwar.com/ for providing a link to such important
information.
and; Truth Out.
Bush's Farewell Tantrum
By Paul Campos
The Rocky Mountain News thanks to Truthout.org
Tuesday 01 May 2007
A story in The New York Times makes it clear White House officials
are giving off-the-record interviews designed to dampen expectations
regarding Iraq. These officials are saying that the administration will
make no interim reports on the situation until September, and that in
any event people shouldn't expect much in the way of military or
political progress by then.
This is a welcome dose of realism after months of optimistic
statements from the Bush administration, claiming we would know by the
end of the summer if the latest troop escalation was "working." As Lt.
Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of the American military in Iraq has
emphasized, the kind of counterinsurgency campaign his troops are now
fighting takes years to "work" in any meaningful sense, assuming it ever
does.
Of course the purpose of this ratcheting down of expectations is to
try to forestall the political firestorm over Iraq that gets closer with
every passing month. That effort is almost certainly doomed to fail: Six
months from now things in Iraq are likely to look very much as they do
now. Furthermore, the odds that any marked change will be for the worse
are far higher than it will be for the better (in a context like Iraq,
real progress takes years under the best of circumstances, while all-out
chaos is always just around the corner).
The hard political reality is that anything like "success" in Iraq,
even as that term is defined down to levels that would have seemed
wildly pessimistic when President Bush gave his "Mission Accomplished"
speech four years ago, will require several more years of all-out
commitment. That commitment will cost, at a minimum, the lives of
several thousand more of our troops, along with tens of thousands of
serious injuries, and hundreds of billions more tax dollars.
And of course this immense sacrifice might very well fail to achieve
even the relatively modest goals the White House is now pursuing (the
word "victory" has become noticeably absent from the president's
speeches).
Whatever one thought of the original decision to invade Iraq, the
political question the nation now faces could not be clearer: Should we
ask our troops to continue to fight this war, and our children to pay
for it through future tax increases? (The option of paying for it
ourselves would require some sacrifice on the part of the average voter,
so it never seems to have been considered seriously).
The American people have already answered that question, and their
answer is "No." The Republicans lost 30 Congressional seats in last
fall's election, while the Democrats lost none, largely because the
American people were voting against the war. Every opinion poll shows
that, by large majorities, Americans support the efforts of Democrats to
force President Bush to begin withdrawing our troops.
That pressure will only grow. As increasingly panicky Republicans
are all too aware, this is still a democracy, which means America will
begin to withdraw from Iraq no later than January of 2009, even if
bringing this about requires an electoral rout of the Republican Party
in November of next year.
In the end, President Bush's failure to heed the will of the people
isn't so much an act of principle, but rather an outburst of sheer
peevishness. With Democrats in control of Congress, he's no longer
getting a blank check to fund his military adventures. He finds this
frustrating, so he's stamping his foot, covering his ears, and taking
his party down with him.
All this is exactly what one would expect in the way of a political
farewell gesture from a spoiled rich kid who never grew up. Future
generations of historians will note George W. Bush made a mess of every
real job he ever had - and, unfortunately for America, the presidency of
the United States proved to be no exception.
Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050207E.shtml
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