The F-word, or Why I Won’t Vote for McCain

The surrender-deadline bill has now passed the Senate, and it took everything the Dems had to make it so, including a lot of votes bought through pork. It’s unconscionable, it’s terribly wrong, and it’s demoralizing to our troops, to our allies, and to our nation.

While the defeato-crats own the lion’s share of the blame and the coverage on this, it’s time to look at what Republicans did to oppose this.

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The blank space represents … nothing. Senator McCain, Arizona wasn’t even present for the vote.

The Republicans, who witnessed the power of the Filibuster in the previous congress seem to have forgotten that such a thing exists. The margin on this vote is narrow, and a simple filibuster would have stopped it at any time.

In other words, BOTH PARTIES are playing politics with our troops lives, the Iraqi’s future, and with the war on terrorism. It’s always a painful thing to tag a blog post with both “Politics” and “War”.

Jerry Pournelle has some thoughts on this as well:

Beware the fury of the Legions. The Congress is about to bring an army home. Over time the legends of what happened will grow. They were able to convince the army that it was defeated in Viet Nam, when it wasn’t; but that was the hollow army, not the nearly invincible Legions we have today.

We started this. We brought Saddam down. We disbanded the Iraqi Army, so that there was no central authority other than our own. This was done deliberately. Now we are pulling out, blaming the Iraqis for their problems. If this were part of a new policy of minding our own business, restoring the Republic and allowing the world to take care of itself, it might be comprehensible, but it is not: the very people who wanted to intervene in Bosnia, who put our troops into Somalia and then did not support them and eventually ran (telling Bin Laden what he had suspected all along) will be in charge of this withdrawal and of the army they bring home. They are still interventionists albeit rather stingy and politically sensitive interventionists. They are still the people who ask, seriously, what is the good of this splendid army if you can’t use it to go Do Good all over the world.

Bush meant well, but history will never forgive him for starting a war with no idea of what to do next. This was compounded by sending in an incompetent proconsul (who subsequently got the Medal of Freedom).

And Republicans and Democrats are now playing political games. Both seem to consider the soldiers as pawns.

9 thoughts on “The F-word, or Why I Won’t Vote for McCain”

  1. Pingback: An islamic extremist
  2. I’m fed up with McCain and Rudy, Fred Thompson is my man. He hasn’t even decided to run yet or start collecting money and he is in third place in the polls.

  3. It sound like we really need Operation Yellow Elephant sending white feathers to all the young Republicans supporting the war but staying home for other priorities.

    Why hasn’t Malkin enlisted? Maybe she should be sent a white feather. She’s of age. And if this war is the be all end all for this nation why the hell haven’t we instituted the draft and kick the poop out of this thing RIGHT NOW!! Not over the next 10 years and how many more thousands dead.

    [Editor’s note: Collapsing Dennis’ two comments into one, second comment follows.]

    Dennis said,

    April 27, 2007 at 12:31 pm

    Oh, and by the way – this war has ALWAYS been about politics from the get go

  4. Whether you like the reason for getting into the war or not, we are there now, and the Iraqi’s deserve our help. If you want to fight for the other side why don’t you go put on a white head band and jihadi vest Dennis? Why aren’t you over there?
    You see how silly ad-hominem debate is? “I know you are but what am I? is the level it always sinks to, so if you have a legitimate argument state the argument, not the angst.

  5. Who said anything about fighting for the other side, wacko? I’m not over there because I knew from the start this was pure horseshit, and I’m not putting my ass on the line for horseshit. The argument is, which I thought was apparent in the first post was this: Stop with the ad-hominem attacks, like sending white feathers, and actually do something! Furthermore, your characteriztion is false. The bill calls for the redeployment of troops, not removal. So, our troops are out of the way, which is what 79% or Iraqi’s want, and 70% of the American people want. The “terrorists”, aka the Iraqi’s, in some opinions, then “wait us out”, right? Well, sounds like our boys won’t be dying as much, that sounds good to me. And hey, maybe the Iraqi govt. could actually get it’s feet beneath it and do something for their people. And don’t spew me the horsepucky about fight them there blah blah blah. Heard that one during ‘Nam, didn’t buy it then, and it NEVER happened, did it?
    Why aren’t you over there?

  6. Sorry for the shorty second post thing again, bur pewrhaps you could tell me – Why did we attack Iraq?

  7. Sorry for the short reply, but we had one of those “get to cover, possible tornado” warning things earlier, and then it was dinner time. Great rainbow afterwards however.
    You said: “Who said anything about fighting for the other side, wacko?”

    I was illustrating a point, you saying “why don’t republicans go over and fight” is as sillly as me saying what I said, it’s a non argument.

    Let’s forget the terrorist aspect for just a moment then since that makes liberals froth at the mouth in denial.

    Just looking at reality if we pull out what will happen?
    1. Humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions, and refugee camps filled with starving mothers and children.
    2. Turkey will probably invade Kurdish regions, who will want to break away.
    3. The violence we are seeing now will go from car bombs to total genocide as various factions all jump into the fray to get their turf, or protect their turf (It’s a hell of a lot more complex than the simplistic Sunni-Shia-Kurd perspective the media presents, they don’t show the half of the factionalism in Iraq — there are numerous tribes, and every neighbor on Iraq’s borders is aligned with elements from some of them.)
    4. The refugee camps would spawn the next generation of displaced terrorist thugs. (Remember that the birth of most of this was from Afghan refugees who fled the Soviets into Pakistan.)

    So no “they will follow us” argument, just stark geopolitical reality — you sound willing to support the deaths of tens of thousands at minimum to achieve your “PEACE” objective. Isn’t that strange?

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