eriposte...impressive post. I'd love to hear the Dem candidates give their view of the events in Pakistan..where a military dictator suspends the constitution and high court, clamps down on any dissent, AND has nuclear weapons -real ones, not imaginary ones. And all with the full support of the Bush government. Isn't Mushy exactly the kind of guy Bush loves to blow up? Oh, I guess its the "real nukes" part that may keep Mr. Tough guy from messing with Mushy. I'd like to hear what Clinton, Edwards and Obama have to say about the continued US support for the Pakistani Dictator.
Posted by T2 at November 5, 2007 07:12 AMAgain, thank you, eriposte for mucking this all out. It's hard enough to figure out what's true and what's not with the candidates trying to distinguish themselves from the others; you've helped make a lot of the "differences" much clearer.
Like T2, I'm curious what they candidates think they'd do now that Pakistan is imploding and Turkey's set to attack N. Iraq. Things are getting pretty crazy in the ME and are likely to get much worse in the next year.
Posted by iamcoyote at November 5, 2007 09:34 AMWith all due respect, eriposte, I still think you are missing the point of the Lieberman-Kyl amendment. I don't want to see a candidate naively parse the language of such resolutions and decide, in the abstract, whether they should be supported or opposed.
I want to see a candidate who decides, first, what policies should be enacted and then supports or opposes legislation or resolutions based on whether they advance the political goal.
Edwards, wisely, has determined that the Bush-Cheney administration simply cannot be trusted to use military force. He is taking away the keys to the car, as it were. It doesn't matter if Lieberman-Kyl would be benign or even positive given a Edwards or Clinton administration. We have a Bush-Cheney administration and all decisions must be made in that context.
Hillary, clearly, has not made that same determination. And one of the reasons that I do not trust Hillary's judgment, in the slightest, on foreign policy matters, is that she STILL is willing to give Bush and Cheney any wiggle room. If I was in her shoes -- as the leading candidate for the party that will almost certainly win the WH in '08, I would NEVER give Bush and Cheney the slightest opportunity to create another mess that I would have to clean up.
Even if I believed that military action was necessary. Even if my first decision as President would be to order airstrikes on Iran, I would do everything in my power to prevent Bush from acting before I was inaugurated. Edwards seems to grasp this. Hillary doesn't.
Posted by space at November 5, 2007 09:42 AMThanks, eriposte, for your good work on this (and putting it all in one place for us to review).
Kudos.
Posted by Meteor Blades at November 5, 2007 10:29 AM"I was wrong."
Three words that have never come out of Hillary;s mouth about the Iraq War.
If you think that's merely a matter of nuance, you are naive.
We have had 7 years of a President who thought he could do no wrong, and who engaged in a foolish obstinancy rather than admit a mistake.
We don't need that again.
1. On KLA, Taylor Marsh and the "two unnamed" Democratic senators aides are wrong: check the congressional record. Reid tabled for the foreesable future on Sept. 25. On September 26th, it was brought to the floor during the afternoon session as part of a UC Agreement between Biden and Kyle-Lieberman. This was announced at 12:14. The vote on the Biden Amendment occured at 12:16. The vote on KLA occured at 12:44 (the times of the votes can be confirmed at Roll Call).
2. S.970 is dramatically different from KLA, in that it does not suggest that we structure our forces in Iraq to combat the influence of Iran. Also, it actually outlines the diplomatic steps to be taken (including designating IRG a terrorist organization) and specifically states that it is not an authorization for military action. And the Webb amendment says that no funds in the appropriations bill will be used to attack Iran. Obama's Joint Resolution says that no act of Congress authorizes Bush to use offensive military action against Iran.
I can read about half your posts before getting the same message I have gotten from your previous threads: Obama and Edwards are no better. You know what? They shouldn't be any better: all three were DLC Democrats during their time in the Senate.
You apparently spend a lot of time digging. Maybe if Hillary would simply stop voting 'aye' on Neocon / Neoliberal outrages, you wouldn't have to spend so much time making relativist arguments and researching Hillary's smaller efforts on procedural maneouvers and dead ammendments.
It doesn't appear we have that many Democrats in Congress much concerned about the 'progressive netroots' these days. I enjoyed reading this bit of drivel from the Wall Street Journal today. Sure, its slanted. But its pretty hard to argue with the end result. Ultimately, does it make a sh*t what they say 'for the record' if the sh*t ultimately passes and becomes the law of the land?
If Hillary REALLY wants to take us back to the 1990's, why isn't she telling us how she'll lobby congress to repeal the Patriot Act? Why isn't she talking about putting an end to warrantless wiretapping? Why isn't she talking about the need to repeal the outrageous bill that actually expanded the situations where the President can declare Martial Law here in the U.S.? I don't hear ANY of these policies front and center in her rhetoric.
I hear nothing but broad strokes and imprecise answers...kind of like we heard from Dubya in 2000. But, as it turns out, he damn well had an agenda upon coming to office; it just happened to be something that was never discussed before the general election. What exactly does President Hillary intend to do in her first year in office?
Posted by Tampa Student at November 5, 2007 06:45 PMSpace,
You said:
Edwards, wisely, has determined that the Bush-Cheney administration simply cannot be trusted to use military force. He is taking away the keys to the car, as it were. It doesn't matter if Lieberman-Kyl would be benign or even positive given a Edwards or Clinton administration. We have a Bush-Cheney administration and all decisions must be made in that context.
Hillary, clearly, has not made that same determination. And one of the reasons that I do not trust Hillary's judgment, in the slightest, on foreign policy matters, is that she STILL is willing to give Bush and Cheney any wiggle room.
With due respect, Edwards has supported the designation of Iran as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. Is he going to retract that support now since Bush and Cheney are in the driver's seat? Nope. He has stated unequivocally that Iran sponsors terrorism in other countries, including Iraq and that these terrorist groups should be shut down. For that, he gets a free pass and he is labeled as "one who is not enabling Bush and Cheney"? :-)
I'm really try to move beyond the spin from the campaigns here to focus on their actual words and deeds. It's easy to buy a campaign's narrative about the campaign. The objective of these posts is to examine whether there is more to it than the campaign's spin.
Posted by eriposte at November 5, 2007 07:25 PMDrfranklives,
You said:
"I was wrong."
Three words that have never come out of Hillary;s mouth about the Iraq War.
If you think that's merely a matter of nuance, you are naive.
I am all in favor of people who admit they were wrong and I commend Sen. Edwards for doing that.
Let me say a few words about Sen. Clinton here since she is usually maligned for her vote. Sen. Clinton has chosen to not to say "I was wrong" but rather that she regrets her vote and would not have voted that way if she knew what she knew now. She has also said she would have never invaded Iraq with ground troops - I believe that, especially considering Bill Clinton never invaded Iraq with ground troops. I also believe she would not have pushed for a wholesale politicization and manipulation of intelligence to support a pre-emptive war. The fact that she was willing to push for an investigation into pre-war intelligence manipulation when Edwards wasn't provides additional indication that she will not fabricate reality to go to war.
At the end, you are still free to argue that Edwards is more trustworthy. I know what I believe - I believe that either of them (or Obama) will make a far better President - and far less a proponent of war-all-the-time than any Republican ever will.
Posted by eriposte at November 5, 2007 07:35 PMKeith,
You said:
1. On KLA, Taylor Marsh and the "two unnamed" Democratic senators aides are wrong: check the congressional record. Reid tabled for the foreesable future on Sept. 25. On September 26th, it was brought to the floor during the afternoon session as part of a UC Agreement between Biden and Kyle-Lieberman. This was announced at 12:14. The vote on the Biden Amendment occured at 12:16. The vote on KLA occured at 12:44 (the times of the votes can be confirmed at Roll Call).
Your timeline, even if correct, does not in any way prove that the campaigning Senators were not alerted the previous night that the Bill would be brought up to a vote the next afternoon. I have a hard time believing that every other campaigning Senator, who considered it less of an earth-shattering vote than Sen. Obama did, made it a point to know when it was coming up for vote and attended the vote while Sen. Obama who considered it a radical "blank check" couldn't do the same.
You also said:
2. S.970 is dramatically different from KLA, in that it does not suggest that we structure our forces in Iraq to combat the influence of Iran. Also, it actually outlines the diplomatic steps to be taken (including designating IRG a terrorist organization) and specifically states that it is not an authorization for military action. And the Webb amendment says that no funds in the appropriations bill will be used to attack Iran. Obama's Joint Resolution says that no act of Congress authorizes Bush to use offensive military action against Iran.
a) The principal argument offered in public by most critics of KLA is that it plays into the hands of Bush and Cheney through its designation of IRG as a terrorist entity, which has been painted as supporting B-C warmongering against Iran. In your comment you portray that designation as a path to drive greater diplomacy - which is exactly the point Sen. Clinton has been making. So, if you believe that the IRG designation itself is not a problem (since the Obama-supported S.970 says the same thing) and that this designation could be considered part of a diplomacy strategy, then perhaps you can acknowledge that the criticisms of Hillary for that part of KLA are wrong - and perhaps Sen. Obama would be kind enough to slap down others who are criticizing Sen. Clinton for that part of the amendment.
b) KLA does not in any way state that it authorizes military action against Iran, plus Sen. Webb/Clinton et al. have sponsored a separate Bill requiring Congressional approval for any military action against Iran and others have spoken out strongly that KLA is not in any way authorizing an attack against Iran.
c) KLA does not even directly suggest that the US Government should structure the presence of the US military in Iraq to act against Iranian-sponsored terrorism within Iraq. Even if it does, this is an absurdly silly issue to get hot over because the US Government is *already* acting against Iranian-sponsored terrorism inside Iraq! We have ~160,000 military members in Iraq and guess what, they are fighting Iranian sponsored terrorism within Iraq *today*!
d) KLA says it is in the interests of the US to prevent Iran from completely destabilizing Iraq through its terrorism - it doesn't say that the way to do this is by invading Iran. This is a garden variety proclamation that every Democrat has been making or is standing behind. I can bet you that neither Obama nor Biden nor Dodd will come out tomorrow and claim that it is acceptable to let Iran destabilize Iraq.
e) KLA explicitly includes statements within the "Sense of the Senate" - including a key extract from Sec. Gates' testimony to Congress - which call out the fact that we need to continue to use diplomacy as the most favored path to address the Iran issue.
f) The main problem I have with KLA has nothing to do with a war with Iran - it is simply seen as saber-rattling by people within Iran and may strengthen the extremists within Iran. However, this type of saber-rattling is happening through the words of Obama and Edwards as well when they talk about keeping military options open to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat or talk about how to clamp down on Iranian sponsored terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere.
I wish people actually read the final version of KLA before making it out to be something as catastrophic as the 2002 Iraq bill. This is campaign 2008 rhetoric, and nothing to do with someone enabling a war against Iran.
Posted by eriposte at November 5, 2007 08:11 PMTampa Student,
You said:
You apparently spend a lot of time digging
That said, your questions about what Hillary plans to do on warrantless wiretapping, the Patriot Act, etc. are very legitimate questions. If she doesn't address those questions adequately, she will face the voters in the coming months and they can decide whether she should be their representative.
Posted by eriposte at November 5, 2007 08:17 PMThe Kyl-Lieberman amendment presents by its language a very blinkered and distorted image of the situation between Iran and the US. It is kind of one-sided and it definitely mirrors the end-product of an orchestrated propaganda rollout by Bush-Cheney. The Senators are privy to knowledge about ongoing covert military actions against Iran, a little proxy war that's been in motion for a while. It is frightful that any democratic senator would endorse the malignant payoff in this amendment, namely the designation of Iran's Republican Guard as a terrorist organization. To endorse this is to endorse Bush-Cheney and the administration's corrupt, distorted view of reality. I don't think I was exaggerating when I wrote previously that it is a blueprint of lies.
We have to be clear about what is real and what is not real. Whenever the democrats stoop to validating and endorsing unreality, they have indeed become accomplices of this administration; they thereby enable false perceptions; they thereby twist themselves into service of a false creed; they thereby endanger this nation and risk driving us ever deeper into the scourge of war. It was, and is outrageous, to designate an integral part of Iran's armed forces as a terrorist organization.
The designation is propaganda, and is another tool fashioned as a pretext for war. The senators showed very flawed judgment when they signed off on it.
Posted by Copeland at November 5, 2007 10:55 PM