Ending the war: Take 7

THIS WEEK, for the 7th clip this year, Democrats in the House of Representatives passed statute law to coerce President Shrub to retreat our military personnel from Iraq. I supported it.

Unfortunately, it is not clear whether 10 Republicans in the Senate will fall in the 50 Democrats who will back up the House efforts. Their championship is necessary to stop an expected filibusterer and go through the bill. Then, we can only trust that the American people will carry the president not to blackball it and finally change his way in Iraq.

As it stand ups today, more than than 4½ old age after we started this war, the state of affairs in Republic Of Iraq for U.S. military personnel have worsened. More American soldiers and Marines have got been killed in Republic Of Iraq so far this twelvemonth than ever before -- a sum of 857 versus the former high of 849 in all of 2004. To date, more than than 3,860 of our courageous immature work force and women have got been killed in Iraq, with 38,164 wounded.

Also, while our planetary economical and military rivals have got got been pouring resources into their education, wellness care, transportation system substructures and militaries, under President Bush, one-half a trillion U.S. taxpayer dollars have been spent on the Republic Of Republic Of Iraq warfare and a one-half a trillion dollars more is projected for the physical and mental wellness attention costs for our Iraq warfare veterans.

Beyond the atrocious terms in the blood of our military personnel killed and wounded, the dollars spent and the chances lost to our country, there have got been other awful, unintended effects of this war.

Region is destabilized

One hundred thousand Iraki civilians are dead and 4 million displaced, which is the equivalent of 1.2 million American civilians killed and 48 million forced to fly their homes. This mass hegira have destabilized the part around Republic Of Iraq and, with the mounting decease toll, we are viewed by people throughout the Center East and the full human race as occupiers, torturers and liquidators of Moslem civilians.

We have got strengthened Islamic Republic Of Iran by eliminating its greatest threat, Saddam Hussein. The terms of oil on the human race marketplace have got tripled, in no little measurement owed to the latent hostilities we have introduced into Republic Of Iraq and the Irani Gulf. Moreover, the prosecution of this warfare have diminished America's standing in the human race as a beacon fire of hope and an able leader of international affairs.

Finally, we took a country, Iraq, where there were virtually no al-Qaida terrorists when we invaded and allowed them a small, but seeable presence, albeit in a state of 26 million Iraqis. Shrub utilizes al-Qaida to claim Republic Of Iraq is portion of our conflict against international terrorism. He is either beingness artful or is simply an incompetent commander-in-chief.

The impression that we must go on to perpetrate 130,000 to 165,000 U.S. military personnel to manage fewer than 1,000 al-Qaida inch Iraq, when we have got trained 350,000 Iraki soldiers for this purpose, is preposterous.

Further, deploying our military personnel to patrol the Iraki civil war, while Osama bin Laden remains free and al-Qaida and other terrorists organize worldwide trading operations from Islamic Republic Of Pakistan and Afghanistan, is an dismaying abuse of our military.

Instead, we must change course. We must concentrate on our demands at place by securing our ports, borders, chemical works and other targets. We must turn to the anti-American terrorists in more than than 60 states around the world, including Islamic Republic Of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Rebuild our armed forces

We must reconstruct our depleted armed military units to set up for any hereafter security menaces posed by North Korea, China, Russia, or Iran. We must reinvigorate diplomatic efforts, on a bilateral, regional, and international basis, which will assist the Iraqis maintain order, come up to understanding on power-sharing and discourage Persian and Syrian trouble- making.

The Democratic bulk in United States Congress desires U.S. engagement in Republic Of Iraq to come up to an end. So makes the bulk of Americans. Unfortunately, Shrub and his protagonists in United States Congress are trying to run out the clock, leaving this messiness to the adjacent president.

Americans must allow Shrub and his following cognize that no 1 who back ups staying the course of study in Republic Of Republic Of Iraq will be reelected -- and that any political political party that makes not renounce the president's Iraq policies will see rejection at the polls.

Jan. 20, 2009, when a new president takes office, is 14 calendar months away. Our country, Republic Of Iraq and the human race cannot delay until then.

The Democratic bulk in the House goes on to press this issue -- even without the Numbers to overrule the president's veto. Democrats will not give up. Too much is at stake.

U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman have represented New Jersey's 9th Congressional District since 1997 and sit downs on the House Committee on Appropriations.

The Un-Fairness Doctrine

If you were to ask a stranger on the street to name the top talk radio personalities in the country, you would inevitably receive an answer that included the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. The problem with all of them, according to some Democrats, is that they only represent one side of the political spectrum. And, of course, it's not the side the Democrats prefer the public to hear.

So, in order to level the playing field, many on the left are calling for the return of the so-called Fairness Doctrine to give opposing viewpoints an equal opportunity to be heard by listening audiences. The problem with the Fairness Doctrine, though, is that it's not really what it claims to be-fair.

There's little doubt about the assertion that most talk radio programs lean toward conservatism. But there's a reason for the ever-growing popularity of the Limbaughs and the Hannitys of the airwaves: it's called the marketplace. Simply put, successful radio programs are the ones that attract advertisers. Period. Limbaugh is the top-rated radio personality in the country because a large segment of the public likes what he has to say. Therefore, they tune in to his show. Advertisers then buy time during his program to pitch their products and services to his audience. If nobody was listening, the advertisers would take their business elsewhere and the Rush Limbaugh show would be but a distant memory. Case in point: Air America.

Leftists like Al Franken tried desperately to make their challenge to conservative talk radio dominance work. But they failed. They failed because their message did not resonate with a large enough segment of the radio listening population to attract the advertisers necessary to fund the programming. Talk radio is just like any other product. You make it attractive to an audience and it sells. If you can't do that, you're out of business.

Having failed at radio in the free marketplace, Democrats now want to impose their political ideology and viewpoints on a listening public that has already, for the most part, rejected their opinions. Prominent Democrats like Senator Byron Dorgan and Representative Dennis Kucinich want radio stations to make comparable time available for opposing opinions, regardless of whether or not that programming is profitable to the host stations. Having failed to sell you their message, they now want to force you to listen to it through congressional action.

Now, I've had a few people tell me that equal time would ensure that both sides of an issue were presented, thus enabling the listening audience to develop a better informed opinion about a given topic. That's ridiculous. People who listen to the radio listen to programming that appeals to them. They listen because they like what they hear. What do you suppose a listener will do if he or she disagrees with or dislikes what is on the radio? Odds are that the listener will tune in another program or just stop listening altogether.

The return of the Fairness Doctrine would be nothing more than another government infringement on our ability as citizens to exercise individual choice. By telling us what we will listen to on the radio, Democrats take away our ability to choose what we will listen to on the radio. Democrats who demand equal time under the Fairness Doctrine are keenly aware that they fail at talk radio when it comes to the free exchange of ideas. That is why the leftist agenda must be force-fed to the talk radio listening public, and that is why guys like Dorgan and Kucinich want to use the Fairness Doctrine to take away your ability to tune them out.

U.S. Senate to vote on whether to cut off money for Iraq war in 2008

WASHINGTON: The Senate is expected to vote as early as this week on whether to cut off money for the Iraq war next year, as well as on a softer measure calling for U.S. troops to leave by October.

Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday the two measures would be offered as amendments to a water projects funding bill being debated this week. While the Senate had planned to take up Iraq legislation this week, Reid had previously been unclear what specifics members would consider.

The first amendment, backed by Reid and Sen. Russ Feingold, would require that combat operations end by March 31, 2008, by cutting off money after that date.

The second measure would provide more than $120 billion (€88.5 billion) to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as various domestic projects. It would call for troops to begin leaving Iraq by Oct. 1, but allow the president to waive that requirement.

Passage of the $120 billion (€88.5 billion) in war spending would not allow the Senate to begin negotiating with the House of Representatives and send President George W. Bush a bill by the end of the month, said Rodell Mollineau, a Reid spokesman. Nevertheless, he added, "these are important votes. This will give members an opportunity to debate these issues and have up-or-down votes on these."




Today in Americas

The House last week approved, 221-205, legislation that would fund the war in two-month installments, giving Congress a chance to cut off money for the war after July. The House measure was considered unlikely to survive in the Senate, where Democrats wanted to fund the war through September.

"On our side of the aisle, Democrats believe they should do something very, very close to what was done in the bill that was sent to the president to be vetoed," said Reid.

Reid's strategy is likely to appease party members like Feingold who say they will not vote for legislation that funds the deeply unpopular war without binding language demanding U.S. troops leave. While Reid co-sponsored Feingold's proposal, he has said he would not push it as a caucus position.

"The American people deserve to have the Senate go on record about whether or not it wants to end our misguided mission in Iraq and safely redeploy our brave troops," said Feingold.

However, Feingold's tough anti-war measure is unlikely to pass the Senate, where Democrats hold a narrow majority and several oppose using the budget to end the war.

Arianna Huffington: Tony Blair's Legacy: George Bush's Iraq Trump Card

Arianna Huffington 47 minutes ago

With on his slow-bleed resignation, we can expect the floodgates to open on stories analyzing his ten year run as prime minister and the impact he had on America.

"Hand on heart," he said in announcing he will leave office at the end of June, "I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That's your call. But believe one thing: I did what I thought was right for our country."

Maybe so, but his hand-on-heartfelt convictions had dire consequences for U.S. foreign policy. Blair was exactly what George W. Bush needed to sell his fraudulent and immoral war in to the American public: a seemingly reasonable and non-partisan stamp of international approval (after all, he'd been bosom buddies with , hadn't he?). Blair enabled the Bush myth that the invasion of Iraq was a coalition effort, that it wasn't just Mongolia, Moldova, Singapore, Poland, and Tonga making up the Coalition of the Willing to Go Along. It was Britain. Great Britain.

More than being just Bush and Cheney's cheery wingman, Blair was one of their top salesmen, pitching dossiers, Nigeran yellowcake, and the specter of chemical weapons "" raining down on Europe. Although Blair was far from the only enabler to Bush's Iraq fantasies -- spineless Congressional Democrats and a wildly compliant press certainly did their part -- the impact of his unwavering support was enormous.

Iraq is 's war, but Tony Blair's legacy will be forever tainted by the part of it he claimed for his own.

Blair made Bush's ordeal in Iraq less lonely, but it cost him

WASHINGTON: The Iraq war has been a lonely quest for President George W. Bush, but it has been less so thanks to the unwavering backing of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Blair is stepping down on June 27 after a decade in power, and no issue during his tenure is leaving a more indelible imprint than his no-apologies support for the U.S.-led war effort.

Bush seemed optimistic Thursday about the possibility of continuity on Iraq between Blair and his likely successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, the government's financial chief.

The president told reporters on Thursday that he believes Brown "understands the consequences of failure" in Iraq. As Bush sees it, a U.S. defeat would give a boost to terror everywhere.

Britain ranks second, after the United States, in terms of troops committed to Iraq. The British total is 7,100 but a reduction to 5,000 is planned for late this year.






Today in Americas

With Blair's announcement, Bush faces the final 19 months of his term in office without his closest ally and, as the president described him, "good friend."

The two appear to have a relaxed relationship. In Russia last year, unaware that a nearby microphone was on, Bush was heard to greet his colleague with a "Yo, Blair," leaving the prime minister embarrassed.

While there was shared anguish over the maelstrom in Iraq, neither leader has given any hint of regret over the venture. Both have paid a dear price politically, scoring under 30 percent in polls, the fallout from a war that is highly unpopular in both the United States and Britain.

Julianne Smith, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said there is no question that Blair's legacy "will suffer from the stain of Iraq."

Blair, she said, was content to "cozy up to the United States to the bitter end, refusing to look back and question his choice."

Charles Kupchan, of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Blair "leaves under a cloud, having lost the confidence of his own party and with the Conservatives well ahead in the polls."

A month ago, Brown met with Bush for the first time without Blair being present. The two men spoke for a half-hour after Bush dropped in on a meeting between Brown and U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley. Brown was in Washington for meetings at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

"I have found him to be an open and engaging person," Bush said, also describing him as an "easy-to-talk-to, good thinker."

On Iraq, Brown had promised to "spend what it takes" to disarm Saddam Hussein's Iraq. He is expected to keep British troops in Iraq for the near future, and to maintain Britain's strong relationship with America.

While Brown's ultimate course on Iraq is unclear, Europe has been generally projecting a friendlier image toward the United States. The latest concrete example is the recent election of Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France, which followed the accession in Germany of Chancellor Angela Merkel in late 2005.