Bravo! Dems MUST MAKE CLEAR: Support for the "War on Terror" IS NOT SYNONYMOUS with Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney INCOMPETENCE and CORRUPTION
Bravo! Barney Franks as an example for Democrats to follow: Support for the "War on Terror" IS NOT SYNONYMOUS with Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney INCOMPETENCE and CORRUPTION.
Indeed, giving Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush-Rove carte-blanche to OUT CIA UNDERCOVER OPERATIONS as traitorous political 'payback' and intimidation of government whistleblowers and political opponents; allowing them to promote the TORTURE GENERALS while running KANGAROO courts for female volunteer privates; ALLOWING bush-rumsfeld-rove-cheney to LOOT THE US TREASURY while SHORTING FAA air traffic control experts at Kentucky airports, and funding for brain-traumatized Iraq war veterans...
Again, to date, the Bush administration's ONLY historical successes have been to COWER the Democratic opponents in two presidential elections (Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 both gave Bush a "FREE PASS" for Bush's AWOL during Vietnam war record, for his Texas budget deficts record, and Kerry gave Bush a "FREE PASS for letting Osama bin Laden escape, and for letting the US occupation of Iraq degenerate into a murderous quagmire as unemployed Iraqis were FROZEN OUT of corrupt US mega-corporation fixed-bid contracts.
Barney Frank's Pro-War Op-Ed: Remembering Afghanistan
Steve Clemons
08.30.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/barney-franks-prowar-op_b_28344.html
Barney Frank gets it. His Boston Globe piece this morning, "Afghanistan Ignored," reinforces a point I tried to make long ago -- those who have opposed Joe Lieberman's continued tenure are "not anti-war."
Rather, they are "anti-Iraq War."
Barney Frank rips up the fiction that Dems are mostly pacifists, a bias carried in too many editorial boards in the country, by writing:
Their argument is that the refusal of many Democrats to support the war in Iraq shows that President Bush's opposition is unwilling to use force against terrorism.
There is, of course, one factual refutation of this partisan distortion. Every Democratic senator and representative but one voted for the war in Afghanistan. It is this war that represented America's reaction to the murders of thousands of Americans on Sept. 11 . It was the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that was sheltering Osama bin Laden. The reaction of the overall majority of Americans, including virtually all Democrats, was to support the Afghan war as a necessary act of self-defense.
The Massachusetts 4th Congressman rips the clothes of the emperor with his sensible kicker:
Whether or not one subscribes to the geopolitical aims that motivated the Bush administration's intervention in Iraq, it is clearly invalid to assert that support for that war is the indispensable badge of one's willingness to confront terrorism. Only by adopting the techniques of the big lie can the vice president make his case that those opposed to the Iraqi war fail to understand the importance of a firm response to terrorists. In fact, given the deleterious effect it has had on our effort in Afghanistan, and the enormous boost it has given to anti-American forces around the world, the big truth is that the Iraq war has damaged our ability to fight terrorism.
Americans were united in their response to the mass murders of 9/11. The war in Iraq has weakened the United States internationally and divided it domestically, while draining needed resources. It is precisely because the Iraq war is not defensible on any other terms that the Bush/Cheney approach uses the big lie to defend the war in Iraq on grounds that in fact describe the war in Afghanistan.
Barney is exactly on target.
-- Steve Clemons is Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note.
Indeed, giving Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush-Rove carte-blanche to OUT CIA UNDERCOVER OPERATIONS as traitorous political 'payback' and intimidation of government whistleblowers and political opponents; allowing them to promote the TORTURE GENERALS while running KANGAROO courts for female volunteer privates; ALLOWING bush-rumsfeld-rove-cheney to LOOT THE US TREASURY while SHORTING FAA air traffic control experts at Kentucky airports, and funding for brain-traumatized Iraq war veterans...
Again, to date, the Bush administration's ONLY historical successes have been to COWER the Democratic opponents in two presidential elections (Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 both gave Bush a "FREE PASS" for Bush's AWOL during Vietnam war record, for his Texas budget deficts record, and Kerry gave Bush a "FREE PASS for letting Osama bin Laden escape, and for letting the US occupation of Iraq degenerate into a murderous quagmire as unemployed Iraqis were FROZEN OUT of corrupt US mega-corporation fixed-bid contracts.
Barney Frank's Pro-War Op-Ed: Remembering Afghanistan
Steve Clemons
08.30.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/barney-franks-prowar-op_b_28344.html
Barney Frank gets it. His Boston Globe piece this morning, "Afghanistan Ignored," reinforces a point I tried to make long ago -- those who have opposed Joe Lieberman's continued tenure are "not anti-war."
Rather, they are "anti-Iraq War."
Barney Frank rips up the fiction that Dems are mostly pacifists, a bias carried in too many editorial boards in the country, by writing:
Their argument is that the refusal of many Democrats to support the war in Iraq shows that President Bush's opposition is unwilling to use force against terrorism.
There is, of course, one factual refutation of this partisan distortion. Every Democratic senator and representative but one voted for the war in Afghanistan. It is this war that represented America's reaction to the murders of thousands of Americans on Sept. 11 . It was the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that was sheltering Osama bin Laden. The reaction of the overall majority of Americans, including virtually all Democrats, was to support the Afghan war as a necessary act of self-defense.
The Massachusetts 4th Congressman rips the clothes of the emperor with his sensible kicker:
Whether or not one subscribes to the geopolitical aims that motivated the Bush administration's intervention in Iraq, it is clearly invalid to assert that support for that war is the indispensable badge of one's willingness to confront terrorism. Only by adopting the techniques of the big lie can the vice president make his case that those opposed to the Iraqi war fail to understand the importance of a firm response to terrorists. In fact, given the deleterious effect it has had on our effort in Afghanistan, and the enormous boost it has given to anti-American forces around the world, the big truth is that the Iraq war has damaged our ability to fight terrorism.
Americans were united in their response to the mass murders of 9/11. The war in Iraq has weakened the United States internationally and divided it domestically, while draining needed resources. It is precisely because the Iraq war is not defensible on any other terms that the Bush/Cheney approach uses the big lie to defend the war in Iraq on grounds that in fact describe the war in Afghanistan.
Barney is exactly on target.
-- Steve Clemons is Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note.
posted by verifi at 11:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home