Had Enough? YES.
(cross-posted at firedoglake, updated below)
“The news is going to be heartbreaking for my family,” Ken MacKenzie,
uncle of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, told NBC's “Today” show. “Because
the U.S. government did not have a plan in place, my nephew has paid for it
with his life,” he said. Missing
Soldier's Uncle Criticizes U.S.
 |
President Bush said this on Monday: “There will be no early withdrawal as long as we run the Congress and occupy the White House.” Got political ego? At least we know the Republicans’ priorities. Saving political face.
The Democrats are united on the most important aspect of all: we
all want to change course on Iraq.
Cut and run?
Republicans want to sit
and watch. That's the Republican plan. Sit and watch until 2009, until
the next president's on the job. Passing the buck won't get the job done.
Our soldiers know what they're getting into when they volunteer. But they clearly
deserve better than they're getting from the Bush administration, as well as
the Republicans who back Bush at all costs. I've heard personally from military
men, as well as interviewed a father
of one Marine in custody, and I can tell you that the families of our soldiers
are begging for real leadership. Something that will not come from the Republicans.
Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca were tortured,
then beheaded and killed, their bodies unrecognizable. Yet the Republican response is to sit and watch. Yet the Republican response is to sit
and watch.
“Cut and run” may be cute and catchy, but some slogan to smear Democratic
leaders doesn't help our troops or the Iraqi people.
The American people are with us.
They want a timetable,
“benchmarks,”
but a change of course, for sure.
“Which comes closer to your view about U.S. troops in Iraq? The U.S.
should set a timetable for withdrawal by announcing that it will remove all
of its troops from Iraq by a certain date. The U.S. should keep troops in
Iraq as long as necessary without setting any timetable for withdrawal.”
Options rotated.Timetable: 53%
No Timetable: 41%
Unsure: 6%
It's time for a referendum on the Republican “leadership” on Iraq.
Democratic Senators
John Kerry and Russ
Feingold have joined together to demand it. Levin
and Reed have another way. But all Democrats
want a change
in course. Even Joe
Biden is demanding no permanent bases in Iraq.
Bush and the Republicans say “stay the course,” but offer no course
on which we can build. American troops in limbo, living a life of no way out
or through is not a course, it is a suicide mission for warriors. We've got
the dead, the wounded and critically maimed to prove it.
Kerry's got it right, “lie and die” is how he described Republicans.
If you've got a better one, let's hear it.
The Republicans have no plan.
They have no purpose.
The president has chosen to punt. The Republicans willing to sit
and watch, kicking the war down the years until 2009, as our
soldiers die, hoping someone else will provide the answers.
One general begs to differ with W., and he actually knows what he's talking
about.
Before U.S. forces stand down, Iraqi security forces must stand up. The problem in Iraq is not military competency; it is political consolidation. Iraq has a large officer corps with plenty of combat experience from the Iran-Iraq war. Moktada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia fights well today without U.S. advisors, as do Kurdish pesh merga units. The problem is loyalty. To whom can officers and troops afford to give their loyalty? The political camps in Iraq are still shifting. So every Iraqi soldier and officer today risks choosing the wrong side. As a result, most choose to retain as much latitude as possible to switch allegiances. All the U.S. military trainers in the world cannot remove that reality. But political consolidation will. It should by now be clear that political power can only be established via Iraqi guns and civil war, not through elections or U.S. colonialism by ventriloquism.
Cut
and Run? You Bet., By Lt. Gen. William E. Odom
Our soldiers won the war, they captured Saddam, the Iraqis have voted and their
government is in place. Our job is done.
It's time to change course in Iraq. Democrats all agree on that.
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