Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Conservatives get tough on TeamBush Iraq policy
We've known for a while now that members of the GOP's core coalition have been splintering in their support for TeamBush going into this election cycle. Fiscal conservatives are really worried about the ballooning deficit driven by huge spending increases and ill-timed tax cuts. Rank-and-file GOP congresspeople must also be getting a bit chafed about how the administration (and the GOP leadership on the Hill) has consistently manipulated, lied, cajoled, and withheld key information to get TeamBush legislation such as the Medicaid reforms (aka, The Pharmaceutical and Insurance Industries Assistance Package) passed. Attempted bribery and intimidation on the House floor, both serious felonies, have been alleged by Republicans and are currently being investigated. And remember, these are their own teammates who suffered through this treatment, not some Democratic pinko from Taxachusetts or rag-wearin' camel jockey from somewhere bad over there.
Karma being karma, however, it would appear that conservatives are starting to take issue with this 'war president's' foreign policy (read war policy) as well. This is a critical rebuke for TeamBush, which is basing its electoral strategy on portraying W as a decisive and incisive leader on foreign affairs.
A quick aside: That his handlers have already chosen to put their eggs in one basket speaks volumes about the general failure of his domestic policies. As if one needed any more evidence after his doomed sop of an anti-gay marriage amendment that has no chance of even getting a simple majority in either chamber but is there to appease his fundamentalist base.
Back to our regularly scheduled rant: There is increasing evidence that conservatives are coming out to question Bush's foreign policy, namely his decision to attack Iraq in the midst of a struggle against terrorism. Richard Clarke is just the most famous at the moment. Despite TeamBush attempts to paint him as a petulant, vindictive, misinformed, politically motivated peacenik whiner, his record speaks for itself. He is a registered Republican who worked at the highest levels of our nation's security apparatus under four presidents (three of whom were also Republicans). As his memoirs should make clear, he was considered a war hawk in the Clinton cabinet. His critique of Bush policy (and where he's run afoul of TeamBush's loyalty provision) is that he went after Iraq and didn't concentrate his resources on al Qaeda--a move which in fact weakened, not enhanced, our nation's and western society's struggle against militant fanatics.
And he's not alone in that assessment. Eric Margolis, writing for The Conservative magazine, writes about the nearly optionless morass in Iraq, saying:
"(T)he Bush administration is faced with a basic contradiction between its claims of forging a truly democratic Iraq and U.S. strategic ambitions in the region. A free vote in Iraq will produce a Shia-dominated government sympathetic to neighboring Iran. And the ultimate test of any genuine democracy in Iraq will be its ability to order U.S. forces out of Iraq, something the Bush administration will not allow."
He is left to conclude that the US must:
"(H)and Iraq to the UN and pull out. This would produce intense neocon wailing about loss of credibility and giving in to terrorism. But in fact, the longer the U.S. stays in Iraq, the more credibility it loses, and the more it stokes terrorism."
Another strong voice from the right against TeamBush foreign policy has emerged from Admiral James Webb, ret., who in the 1980's was Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. Webb, like Clarke, is no peacenik assailing Bush's policy with give-peace-a-chance pleas. Instead, he strikes at the heart of Bush's folly. I apologize for the long quote, but it's just so well stated. Webb writes:
"Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region that never has known peace.
Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its presence.
There is no historical precedent for taking such action when our country was not being directly threatened. The reckless course that Bush and his advisers have set will affect the economic and military energy of our nation for decades. It is only the tactical competence of our military that, to this point, has protected him from the harsh judgment he deserves."
If for that reason alone, this man simply does not deserve a second term.
We've known for a while now that members of the GOP's core coalition have been splintering in their support for TeamBush going into this election cycle. Fiscal conservatives are really worried about the ballooning deficit driven by huge spending increases and ill-timed tax cuts. Rank-and-file GOP congresspeople must also be getting a bit chafed about how the administration (and the GOP leadership on the Hill) has consistently manipulated, lied, cajoled, and withheld key information to get TeamBush legislation such as the Medicaid reforms (aka, The Pharmaceutical and Insurance Industries Assistance Package) passed. Attempted bribery and intimidation on the House floor, both serious felonies, have been alleged by Republicans and are currently being investigated. And remember, these are their own teammates who suffered through this treatment, not some Democratic pinko from Taxachusetts or rag-wearin' camel jockey from somewhere bad over there.
Karma being karma, however, it would appear that conservatives are starting to take issue with this 'war president's' foreign policy (read war policy) as well. This is a critical rebuke for TeamBush, which is basing its electoral strategy on portraying W as a decisive and incisive leader on foreign affairs.
A quick aside: That his handlers have already chosen to put their eggs in one basket speaks volumes about the general failure of his domestic policies. As if one needed any more evidence after his doomed sop of an anti-gay marriage amendment that has no chance of even getting a simple majority in either chamber but is there to appease his fundamentalist base.
Back to our regularly scheduled rant: There is increasing evidence that conservatives are coming out to question Bush's foreign policy, namely his decision to attack Iraq in the midst of a struggle against terrorism. Richard Clarke is just the most famous at the moment. Despite TeamBush attempts to paint him as a petulant, vindictive, misinformed, politically motivated peacenik whiner, his record speaks for itself. He is a registered Republican who worked at the highest levels of our nation's security apparatus under four presidents (three of whom were also Republicans). As his memoirs should make clear, he was considered a war hawk in the Clinton cabinet. His critique of Bush policy (and where he's run afoul of TeamBush's loyalty provision) is that he went after Iraq and didn't concentrate his resources on al Qaeda--a move which in fact weakened, not enhanced, our nation's and western society's struggle against militant fanatics.
And he's not alone in that assessment. Eric Margolis, writing for The Conservative magazine, writes about the nearly optionless morass in Iraq, saying:
"(T)he Bush administration is faced with a basic contradiction between its claims of forging a truly democratic Iraq and U.S. strategic ambitions in the region. A free vote in Iraq will produce a Shia-dominated government sympathetic to neighboring Iran. And the ultimate test of any genuine democracy in Iraq will be its ability to order U.S. forces out of Iraq, something the Bush administration will not allow."
He is left to conclude that the US must:
"(H)and Iraq to the UN and pull out. This would produce intense neocon wailing about loss of credibility and giving in to terrorism. But in fact, the longer the U.S. stays in Iraq, the more credibility it loses, and the more it stokes terrorism."
Another strong voice from the right against TeamBush foreign policy has emerged from Admiral James Webb, ret., who in the 1980's was Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. Webb, like Clarke, is no peacenik assailing Bush's policy with give-peace-a-chance pleas. Instead, he strikes at the heart of Bush's folly. I apologize for the long quote, but it's just so well stated. Webb writes:
"Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region that never has known peace.
Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its presence.
There is no historical precedent for taking such action when our country was not being directly threatened. The reckless course that Bush and his advisers have set will affect the economic and military energy of our nation for decades. It is only the tactical competence of our military that, to this point, has protected him from the harsh judgment he deserves."
If for that reason alone, this man simply does not deserve a second term.
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