Pelosi: Committed To Bringing War To An End… HOW?
Pelosi writes for the Huffington Post that she is more committed than ever to bringing the war in Iraq to and end.
This morning, I visited our brave men and women at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center. It is a place of prayers, of honor, of respect, and reflection. And I left there more committed than ever to bringing the war to an end.I told my colleagues yesterday that the biggest ethical issue facing our country for the past three and a half years is the war in Iraq.
This unnecessary pre-emptive war has come at great cost. Nearly 2,900 of our brave troops have lost their lives and more than 21,000 more have suffered lasting wounds. Since the war began, Congress has appropriated more than $350 billion, and the United States has suffered devastating damage to our reputation in the eyes of the world.
Yesterday, I was truly honored to have been selected by acclamation of the Democratic Caucus as Speaker-designate. Many of you worked incredibly hard in the past year to see House Democrats take control of Congress and honored us with your vote. When the House reconvenes on January 4, 2007, Democrats will take power and I will take the gavel knowing the responsibility we have to you and to the country.
In other words: nothing but rhetoric. What’s your exact plan Nancy? When do you plan on withdrawing? And what do you mean with bringing the war to an end? You seem to mean American involvement in the war because once the US withdraws, full-scale civil war will break out. The sectarian violence we are witnessing now will be nothing compared to what we will see then. Or do you mean with putting an end to the war one giant push in an attempt to finally break sectarian militias, as Bush seems to favor?
And ‘wait for January’ is not the best of excuses to not come up with a plan right now. In fact, I would say, the sooner you present your plans, the quicker you can work on implementing them.
18 Responses to “Pelosi: Committed To Bringing War To An End… HOW?”
I can sort of understand the public safety concern (similar to laws here that prohibit people from wearing a mask in certain public places like banks). But I’d be concerned that the effect of this would be to isolate Muslim women even more. Their religion doesn’t permit them to be in public dressed any other way, and I don’t see that changing: instead, I think that these women would almost be under house arrest under these circumstances. I think that could only make matters worse for women who have to live under these conditions, and it would worsen the tensions between the isolated Muslim culture and the rest of the Dutch citizens, IMO.
Oops, wrong comment section!
lol doesn’t matter. it’s still early.
for you at least.
For one thing, there have been plans by the Dems that have been rejected by bush and the gop but, never reported.
For another, there is probably something ready to go but, why say what before they have the power to do anything about it.
Another is that the gop has been riding the dems for a plan when they have not had one since before the invasion and now expect the dems to suddenly come up with one so they can incorporate it as thier own.
It appears that the contribution the Democrats intend to make to the equation is to push for withdrawl as a way to provide pressure on the Iraqis to accelorate their progress – assuming the role of “Bad Cop.”; as compared to the President’s open ended support, essentially the “Good Cop”.
Rep. Ike Skelton, backs a plan that would set a formula to send home troops. For every three Iraqi units deemed proficient, one U.S. unit should come home, he said.
It seems to me that this validates the wisdom of the checks and balances of our government which, in this case, allows the Congress to play a role in helping to motivate our allies.
I’m still waiting for somebody to explain what is so good, clean and wholesome about Stenny Hoyer.
Nancy Pelosi is not the President. Voters sent a message to the President. Why isn’t this post about what do you think the President should do?
Michael, could you stop posting so often? You’ve got a wide push of your own posts, and you’re going to burn yourself out a bit with it….
Um Michael, I think she has to wait until January because the new Congress doesn’t convene until then and the GOP are still in power. She’s been speaker elect for one day. The GOP have had four years to do something about it. How about pressing them for an “exact” plan because “one final push” sounds pretty generic to me . What does that mean exactly? Have we been holding back until now?
And can we stop pretending that Iraq is not already in the midst of civil war and has been for a long time? I frankly don’t see how it can get much worse than it is already. And I seem recall the same gloom and doom predictions when we left Vietnam and none of those came true. Maybe we can learn something from history?
McCain pointed out in a recent speech that the Republican party abandoned it’s principles and tried to bribe [with massive deficit spending] the electorate to get votes. He also said hypocrisy was a sin that would be corrected at the ballot box. The deficit/earmark spending was Roves unprincipled idea, if the Republican party does not get rid of him the hypocrisy does not go away. I think this has less to do with confrontational dialog and more to do with a Republican revolt of what the party stands for. One of the reasons the Dems won was the election was angry conservatives staying at home, that lesson was not lost on many conservative Republicans.
Wrong comments section for me to! What the heck is going on?
Michael- She is doing the smart thing-waiting for the Baker report’s release. Even afterwards, it will not be up to her to plan an exit strategy for this war. If she did, Republicans would claim as the am radio hosts here are already claiming, that victory was at hand, but the Democrats wanted Bush to fall on his face.
Most of the blame should rightfully go to whoever came up with the ill-conceived plan and was responsible for a bungled execution of the plan. (neocons like Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith and Adelman for the initial idea, Rumsfeld and Franks for the plan and execution, Bremer for the mistakes made under his provisional governance, Bush and Cheney for overseeing, promoting and supporting the entire venture. Of course military leaders who did not stand up to Rumsfeld when it would have made a difference bear some blame.
Congressional Democrats who voted for it do bear some responsibility for not examining the intel more closely, and not having the political courage to oppose it before we got so deeply involved. Republicans bear the responsibility of going along with Bush for six years out of misguided loyalty.
Now that there is no solution that will not entail tragic consequences, is it fair to demand one from Pelosi?
doesnt matter if the dems have a plan…the executive is in charge of foreign policy
they could come up with an ingenious plan…and the prez could reject it as is his right
thx for the straw dog/repug talking points argunent
Voters sent a message to the President. Why isn’t this post about what do you think the President should do?
exactly BYG !
The GOP have had four years to do something about it. How about pressing them for an “exact” plan because “one final push” sounds pretty generic to me . What does that mean exactly? Have we been holding back until now?
good point. the following, from another blog, expresses it pretty well:
“This is Bush’s War, he wanted it, he lied to get it. He fired anybody in the military or intelligence that disagreed with Republican blood lust. The Democrats should limit their involvement to helping Bush get the innocent troops facing unnecessary violence out of Iraq. He should lead the troops out since he lead them in. This is his war and his responsibility. Bailing him out should not be a Democratic responsibility.”
BTW, for the wonkish here, that link is to a story about Scott Ritter’s plan. It’s a long but interesting read.
Complaining that there is no alternative plan has been a common theme from the American political right for some time now.
Let’s be honest, there is a plan and you don’t like it.
I have to agree with the people who want you to point out that apparently the Bush administration has no ability to solve this problem of their own making. I’ve about reached the point of saying that there’s not a darn thing you can do about a civil war and we’ll just have to let them kill each other until they tire of it. And yes, the incompetents who run our country are responsible. Yes, a bare majority of the people in our country re-elected them. But that stupidity has created an irreversible condition. So, Michael, what is the brilliant conservative plan to fix the irrevocably broken? Can you point me to the place to find it?
greendreams:”This is Bush’s War, he wanted it, he lied to get it. He fired anybody in the military or intelligence that disagreed with Republican blood lust. The Democrats should limit their involvement to helping Bush get the innocent troops facing unnecessary violence out of Iraq. He should lead the troops out since he lead them in.This is his war and his responsibility. Bailing him out should not be a Democratic responsibility.”
Hits the nail right on the head!!!!!! Plus he already has Big Daddy’s friends to bail him out–somehow they just have to create the illusion that we have liberated Iraq and brought democracy to the ME, so little Dubya can get his complete victory, LOL! Reminds me of Rumsfeld’s new webpage boasting that in 6 years of accomplishments, he liberated 50 million people in Afhganistan and Iraq. W just needs a webpage like that one!
I think Michael raises a fair point. There is little talk among supporters of withdrawal about what will follow in Iraq. I’m not sure anymore if a post-US Iraq will be radically worse than it is now. I used to think that, but the level of violence with 140,000 US troops IN Iraq is so high that it seems like our presence does virtually nothing to keep a lid on things. At the very least, we should discuss the likely outcome because we will almost certainly leave that country in some form of tatters.