The Iron Chancellor of Germany, Otto von Bismarck, is quoted to the effect that there are two things you don't want to watch being made, sausages and legislation.
Winston Churchill, the Iron Prime Minister who stood up to Hitler's Nazis when he didn't have much to lean against, except us, said, of democracy, that it is the worst system, except for all the others.
Check out Speaker Pelosi's dilemma in opposing the war in Iraq, which is costing life after American life each day that passes, yet not having enough Democratic votes to override a presidential veto. Thus she cannot withdraw the troops legislatively and must continue to feed, arm, and equip them for as long as we have a president who attacked Al Qaeda, which attacked us on 9-11, but who also attacked Iraq, which didn't attack us, for good measure. Teach those Ay-rabs who don't like us a lesson, or something, is what I get out of it.
So now they're picking us off with suicide bombers whenever they get a clear shot, which is often, as we need to keep sending out convoys to supply the troops. It's like the wolfpacks of the sea-lanes in WWII, and just as terrifying for the troops.
Can Pelosi refuse to support the bill that provides the funds to support the troops?
Of course not.
She has to support the troops, just as Congress had to supply the funds to Theodore Roosevelt to bring the Great White Fleet home after he sent it half-way around the world despite the lack of appropriated funds to bring it home. What was Congress going to do? Strand the navy in Antarctica?
You get the point.
So Pelosi has to vote against a bill she's shepherding through. She wants to put a deadline on how long the troops can stay in Baghdad and continue to get picked off, blown up, sniped at, and otherwise killed, piecemeal.
But Bush promises to veto any bill with a deadline as this gives the enemy a date to hold out for which Bush regards as a surrender date.
Okay, I see his point and accept it.
Congress meanwhile, says, okay, how 'bout if we just have you report back on progress made and things to do, Pres. Bush? This seems to be where we're at, at the moment.
We're going to have to wait and see how Bush conducts his war, which he said today in a Rose Garden press conference was justified in part because
we don't want to have to fight the terrorists here in America.
Bush has created more terrorists in four years than Osama Bin Laden was able to recruit in twenty. Had we put all the troops we've been wasting in Baghdad into the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, we might have found Osama and his confederates. Whether we did or didn't, he's made himself into a martyr either way, and whether he lives or dies, his image will be spread all over the landscape. His or someone else's.
The last thing we're about to accomplish is to eliminate sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia, not to mention the Kurds. Was Britain able to eliminate the sectarian violence between the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland? How long did it take? How many murders were there, all told?
Since the war in Iraq isn't going so swimmingly, and we can't leave in a hurry if we all wanted to (the more troops you pull out before an Iraqi replacement force replaces them, the more danger for the reduced force; if you pull them all out prematurely, the place is in a bigger mess than anything we've seen so far and Iran comes in and picks up the pieces), George W needs a diversion. Not for the insurgents, but for us.
The other day he staged a demonstration of naval force in the PG (Persian Gulf). Carriers, escort vessels, etc., steaming in formation. Sending a message to Iran's Pres. Ahmadinejad, who never quite seems impressed with our sabre rattling. He's embarked on a nuclear weapons industry that's driving us nuts. We're trying to put a defense system in Eastern Europe on Russia's doorstep that's driving them nuts, to protect against Iran.
The big fear here is that Bush and his fans in the military and intelligence communities want him to invade Iran "so we don't have to fight them here," with is the Bush mantra of the day, kinda like Saddam is a bad man who has to go because he's got WMD and we've got to get him before he gets us.
It's Osama, buddy, who attacked us, not Saddam or Ahmadinejad.
Osama brought down the twin towers, not everyone else who hates us. The others are simply flocking to Osama while we continue kicking in doors in Iraq.
Our greatest power is soft power, not kicking in doors, in case anyone hasn't mentioned this lately. Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, and computers. That's us. That's why those who hate us love to hate us so dearly. That and the lack of jobs in their home dictatorships. They are hopeless and in distress. Of course some of them are going to commit suicide and take our people with them. Muslim kamikazes, diving into our ships.
My guess is that we'll attack Iran in order to have to avoid leaving Iraq, or better put, to keep our new presence in the Middle East, we'll refocus our attention to the neighboring states of Iran and Syria to give the Muslim dictatorships and their anti-American populations something really to think about.
In the meantime, we'll energize a billion Muslims even more against us.
This way we'll be safer and not have to fight them in Kansas City, if I have the Bush-Cheney logic down right.
Right.
How come I don't feel a lot safer, I wonder.
Perhaps it would be better to reflect on the attack on the Trade Center.
Was that the beginning of a war?
I don't think so.
I think it was a terrible crime.
You bring criminals to justice. Not people you make war against. Bush keeps saying he needs to bring Osama to justice, but he makes war on Iraq. We needed to bring Al Capone to justice, but we didn't make war on Canada to do so.
But there I go, talking crazy again. Been listening to Bush to long. He says he perceives the threat very clearly and can't understand why some people, meaning the likes of me, can't see the threat the way he does.
I was appointed to represent a client who was arrested as she bought drugs on the street. She told me during an interview at the jail that she worked for the police, the sheriff, the FBI, and the Secret Service, at the same time, like now, as in being a sworn uniformed officer.
Somehow I had trouble seeing things her way. Nor did the judge after she testified in an ability-to-cooperate-with-counsel hearing. Off to the farm until feeling better was the result, not that the folks over there were able to help out a lot, but that's a different story.
Some folks think this country is being led by a madman and the rest of the country is powerless to stop him, such as Speaker Pelosi.
"They're a threat to your children, David," Pres. Bush said to a newsman who asked him a question about why we were fighting in Iraq.
"Bullshit, you are," is what David was too polite to reply.
Check out the legislative gymnastics, below:
RMaking History, Reluctantly
In a Hill Anomaly, Pelosi Shepherds Iraq Bill She Opposes
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 25, 2007; A17
In public, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had done nothing to suppress her frustration as she assented to funding the Iraq war without a deadline to end it. But behind closed doors Wednesday night, she was all business.
With its members gathered in her office, she told the House's "Progressive Caucus" that she would vote against the war funding bill, but that she also had no choice but to facilitate its passage. Funds were running out for the troops, and she had promised to protect them. The Memorial Day break loomed, and without the money President Bush would have a week to hammer her party for taking a vacation while the Pentagon scrambled to keep its soldiers fed.
Was she agonized over the situation? Sure, said Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.), who attended the meeting. But "we all feel that way," he added. "I feel that way, too. Are we going to just walk away now, or are we going to continue this process, to keep the pressure on?"
Yesterday's vote to fund the war through September was a historical rarity: the passage of a bill opposed by the speaker of the House and a majority of the speaker's party.
Two years ago to the day, then-Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) violated the "Hastert rule" -- that only bills supported by a majority of the majority can come up -- by bringing up legislation to allow federal funding for stem cell research. The majority of the Republican majority opposed the law. He voted against it, but he knew it would never become law over President Bush's signature.
Over his objections and the opposition of most Republicans, Hastert did allow passage of campaign finance reform in 2002, but only because a petition drive was about to force the bill to the floor. The North American Free Trade Agreement passed in 1993, over the objections of most Democrats, who were then in the majority. But NAFTA did have the support of then-Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), as well as the Democratic president, Bill Clinton.
In contrast, the Iraq funding bill was not only opposed by the majority of House Democrats, it was also ardently opposed by the speaker and even the lawmaker who drafted it, Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.). And it is destined to become law.
"We don't relish bringing a package to the floor that we're not going to vote for," Obey conceded before last night's vote.
Pelosi's agonized decision put her in the company of Foley, who in 1991 brought to the floor the resolution authorizing the Persian Gulf War and then voted against it, and Thomas Brackett Reed, a speaker in the 1890s who voted against the annexation of Hawaii, and then against the Spanish-American War, but allowed both to go forward.
"To have the chairman and the speaker vote against a bill like this, I've never heard of it," Hastert said.
But while protesters outside the Capitol condemned what they saw as a capitulation, Democrats inside were remarkably understanding of their speaker's contortions.
Party leaders jury-rigged the votes yesterday to give all Democrats something to brag about. A parliamentary vote to bring the Iraq funding legislation to the floor included language demanding a showdown vote in September over further funding. A second vote allowed Democrats to vote in favor of funds for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery, agricultural drought relief and children's health insurance. Finally, the House got around to funding the war.
Republicans cried foul over what they saw as an abuse of the legislative system, but Democrats saw brilliance in the legerdemain. And with such contortions came more appreciation for the efforts Pelosi was making to fund the war in a fashion most palatable to angry Democrats.
"It was the responsible thing to do, and she's a responsible speaker," said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.), who is personally close to Pelosi. "You can't just walk away."
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