Compared to Andy Jackson, West Virginia's Democratic Senator Robert Byrd is a stodgy conservative.
But conservative, liberal, whatever, he's right about what he said on the Senate floor today. He used some rather awkward references to Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" (Into the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred") inspired by the more than 600 combat deaths the US has already suffered in Iraq. But what he's saying is something that needs to be said:
It is time we faced up to the fact that this President and his administration blundered as well when they took the nation into war with Iraq without compelling reason, without broad international or even regional support, and without a plan for dealing with the enormous post-war security and reconstruction challenges posed by Iraq. And it is our soldiers, our own 600 and more, who are paying the price for that blunder. ...
The harsh reality is this: one year after the fall of Baghdad, the United States should not be casting about for a formula to bring additional U.S. troops to Iraq. We should instead be working toward an exit strategy.
Where should we look for leadership? To this Congress? To this Senate? This Senate, the foundation of the Republic, has been unwilling to take a hard look at the chaos in Iraq. Senators have once again been cowed into silence and support, not because the policy is right, but because the blood of our soldiers and thousands of innocents is on our hands. Questions that ought to be stated loudly in this chamber are instead whispered in the halls. Those few Senators with the courage to stand up and speak out are challenged as unpatriotic and charged with sowing seeds of terrorism. It has been suggested that any who dare to question the President are no better than the terrorists themselves. Such are the suggestions of those who would rather not face the truth.
With the Senate and the House in the death grip of prowar Republicans, we're not likely to see much leadership from Congress on the Iraq War this year. Miracles do happen. But Republicans in Congress are less interested in miracles than in discrediting whatever disillusioned former Administration official turns up next with less-than-flattering stories aboutDear Leader Bush.
3 comments:
Sen Byrd can be surprising. He certainly has been outspoken with his opinions of the Bushies! He grew up about 10 miles from where my mom did in WV, and his politics remind me a lot of hers! He gave a great speech last year right before we attacked Iraq.
http://byrd.senate.gov/byrd_speeches/byrd_speeches_2003march/byrd_speeches_2003march_list/byrd_speeches_2003march_list_4.html
I guess you can contrast that with the statement of one of my senators, Saxby Chambliss, today: “...it disturbs me when I hear statements made by politicians in America, politicians who aspire to higher office, as well as politicians who have been in the realm of politics in our country for many years, statements that tend to incite the opposition and to put our men and women in greater harm's way...When you play athletics or when you coach athletics, you want to be inspired as an athlete and as a coach. You do not want to inspire the opposition. Frankly, the statements that I have seen in the last 24 hours relative to the comparison of Iraq to Vietnam are the type of statements that a coach would take and plaster on the locker room wall when he wants to charge up his team and he tells the opponents look what is happening on the other side. Morale is decaying. We are winning. That is simply the type of statement that is foolish and should never be made by anyone in the political realm in our country in a time of great crisis and great confrontation over the issue of freedom and democracy..."
We're back to the old "dissent is giving aid and comfort to the enemy" argument. But what can you expect from a man who got his job by impuning Max Cleland's patriotism?
It's about par for the course for Saxby Chambliss, based on what I've heard about him. Ole Saxby didn't have to worry about Mad Annie Coulter or anyone else sliming his war record. He got out of the Vietnam-era draft with four student deferments and his "football injury."
No wonder he equates patriotism with athletic rah-rah. The football field was the closest thing he ever experienced to Vietnam. Although the injuries he sustained there weren't as extensive those Cleland got in Vietnam!
I just got a copy of Jerry Lembcke's book *The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam*. He puts a twist on the idea of equating "supporting the troops" to "supporting" the war that I hadn't seen before. He calls it a way of making the soldiers both the means and the ends of the war. Bush and Rummy sent our troops to Iraq to get WMDs that didn't exist. But now we're supposed to cheer for the war and the disastrous policy that has characterized it - because our troops are there.
Of course, there's "liberating" the Iraqis, for whom Bush and Dick Cheney lay awake nights worrying about their oppression. But the war fans are quickly transmuting that into "those ungrateful Iraqis should be glad we're trying to free them." - Bruce
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