White House: War bill 'punishes' troops, vows veto

George W. Bush and his Republican cronies hath wrought this on us:
When it's all said and done, every American family will end up paying $46,000 to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Aren't ya glad you got that $300 refund check back in '01?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8163848@N02/500030364/
Chickenhawks, all of them...

So what if he does veto it? If the Dems were serious they would just not let it get to the floor. If Bush wants the money badly enough he can always ask the Bin Laden family, they've bailed him out of so many failed endeavours, what's one more to them?

"And once again, they plan to send the president a bill that they know he will veto." If that doesn't work, I suppose he will hold his breath until he turns blue.

The current occupant of the White House is behaving more and more like a spoiled brat instead of the leader of the free world. The congressional Democrats are trying to provide for the troops while somehow finding a way out of the morass that is the occupation of Iraq.

Its time for the decider-in-chief to start paying attention to the reality based universe and stop holding our soldiers and marines hostage to his failed policies.

Blah, blah , blah. Same old White House propaganda.

Over six hundred veterans are committing suicide per month in America.

Over 25 percent of homeless in America are veterans.

Bring them home and get psychological help for them.

It was recognized, several wars ago, that extended duty in a combat zone causes mental illness.

Who's punishing our troops?

Re-start the draft and shorten the tours. If you can get the support of the American people to do that. If not, it's not our war, it's yours, GWB.

Attaching goals must be the new phrase the Democrats have instructed their cheerleaders to use. Instead of a truthful one it sounds so reasonable and measured. They are playing politics with our soldiers lives by encouraging the enemy.

"And once again, they plan to send the president a bill that they know he will veto,'' Perino said

According to Perino, you need only fight the fights you can win, not the fights that need fighing.

This bill IS punishment to the troops! They should be rewarded by staying in Iraq during the holidays. That is a reward every American would love to receive! Thanks GOP for putting your seal of approval on this reward.

If Dem leaders in Congress want to end the war, then modify or retract the authorization they supported when the war was popular. Attempting to put strategy requirements (troop levels, deployment dates, etc.) in with a budget is nothing more than a backdoor method of micromanaging the conflict.

I wonder how many hits the moveon.org web site gets every time Dana mentions them from the podium. Rather than chastising them she is giving them free pubilicity. I bet they love her.

"Once again, the Democratic leadership is starting this debate with a flawed strategy, including a withdrawal date for Iraq, despite the gains our military has made over the past year..." White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said today.

The flawed strategy is the one your boss implemented and refuses to recognize as failure, Ms. Mouthpiece Perino.

How about a special vote. Let the American people decide. One issue and only one issue on the ballot. Stay in Iraq or get out now. If the people want to stay, then we should give the military everything it ask for. If the people want out, then we should get out as fast as possible.
I agree, our elected representatives, on both sides of the isle, are unable to function. They are all too damn afraid of losing their jobs to make decisions which represent the will of the people, which is what they agreed to do when they ran for office.
Has anyone out there had their congressman or senator ask them for their opinion? NO!
How about if all congressmen and senators pole their constituents on this? How about the president doing the same?
This is government of by and for the people, isn't it?

And yet the hypocrite in the Whitehouse tells other leaders of countries they can't do what he's doing.

"You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time."

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/11/07/pakistan.html?ref=rss

Worst.Vice.President.Ever.

San Miguel, I don't disagree with your suggestion, but I think it is important how the question is framed. If you ask Americans if they want troops in Iraq, the vast majority will say no. If you ask them the more relevant question of whether they support full troop pullout regardless of consequences, I think you would get a different result, and Americans would demand that those consequences be defined before voting. From what I have seen, those consequences have been defined by rhetoric, not evidence, which is disappointing to me because in my opinion, the consequences of withdrawal is the paramount question.

I would take your suggestion a step further. How about a referendum to the Iraqis? If they vote by a majority that they want Americans completely out of their country, then I say adios. In my view, this would force the Iraqi Govt., who know that they need US presence to maintain any semblance of security, to relate that to the population. I think as it stands now, Iraqi Govt. officials quietly acknowledge the need for US forces, but speak out of the other side of their mouth to their own civilian population denouncing US forces as occupiers.

This type of war usually lasts a decade or more. As a professional Army officer, combat veteran, and military historian, I I do not see how one can blame any single politician or political party for what unfolded in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. However, I do blame those who have created this mantra that this war is lost, and think we should pull out immediately. It would be rank stupidity to leave now, and allow Iraq to crumble. And if Al-Qaeda boasts of how they are going to push the US out of Iraq(they don't seem to be saying that lately), why would we hand them that victory? We should do exactly the opposite, stay as long as is necessary and kick them out of Iraq.
Comparing the number of years between Pearl Harbor and 1945 to Iraq 2003 to 2007, for example, and then drawing a conclusion Iraq should therefore have been concluded makes no sense. Certainly our American culture that extols and demands instantaneous results is partly the reason for the dissatisfaction by some. President Lincoln had to deal with this too. I would also suggest that this mentality was clearly present at high levels in 2003, and was the reason we did not bother to have a plan for the occupation Iraq. It was easier to believe the Iraqis would be able to take over immediately, than pour 400,000 troops into the country. Another reason for perceived slow progress is that is takes years to learn and apply the right tactics, techniques, and procedures in a new war. It takes time to realize an effort is going the wrong way, and find and appoint the right people and get changes implemented. Even if we get security under control in the next year or two, it will take many years for Iraq’s political process to gel. After 40 years under a dictatorship, how could we expect any less? Iraq is going to require a huge commitment for a long time, plain and simple.
But in the big picture, we are going to have to stay in the Middle East for a few decades anyway. Our starting points in this larger war against radical Islam are Iraq and Afghanistan, but this type of world war will require additional campaigns in other places.
The way ahead in Iraq is to repudiate the war is lost mentality, so that it does not become a self fulfilling prophesy, and build upon the lessons learned from the mistakes and inaction of the first years there.
If leaders like Grant, Sherman, Eisenhower, and McArthur were alive today, they would probably advise us to see the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan as fronts in a world war. They would probably reject even discussion of timelines, and look forward to build upon the progress made, which are two huge gapping holes in the middle of the Pan-Arab World – that which the radical Islamists hoped to control, but now have lost. Maintaining and building upon these over the next decades through war, diplomacy, and economic efforts will take more and more territory away from their influence, and lead to their eventual demise.
Our military is entirely too small, and the mistake that left us with a small Army was the Peace Dividend, which deprived our military of $100 billion during the 1990s. We must payback the Peace Dividend by restoring the Defense Department portion of the GDP to a wartime level, and rebuild our military at least to the Cold War size, and perhaps even larger as far as the Army is concerned. The lack of force structure is a large reason why the Iraq war is taking time. Now that we have better tactics and a reinforcement underway, the subsequent successes should exemplify the reason for the large military growth we need to implement. Plain and simple, we are going to need it.

"YALE BUSINESS SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT"

GEORGE BUSH EMERGENCY WAR SPENDING BILLS 101.

DECLARE MISSION ACCOMPLISH!
REQUEST SUPPLEMENTAL WAR SPENDING BILLS.
REQUEST EMERGENCY SPENDING WAR BILLS
REQUEST EMERGENCY SPENDING BILLS FOR BOTH IRAQ AND AFGANISTAN

LOSE 9.4 BILLION DOLLARS ON A SEMI TRUCK MADE IN AMERICA.

GIVE 5.2 MILLION TO SHIEKS TO END THE VIOLENCE.

BLAME THE DEMOCRATS FOR THE GOP HANDLING IN 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07.

SOUNDS LIKE A C GRADE TO ME.!

Shorter HK-

The US must become an empire dedicated to the military conquest of the world.

They need the money for the permanent Navy base on the oil platform...to protect us against thie insurgents.

As the situation continues to get better in Iraq, deaths continue to plummet, terrorists continued to get round up, record amounts of records caches found with the help of Iraqis, and Iraq continues to stabilize, the Demoncrats continue to want defeat.

As some Demoncratic politicians have said in the past year: Victory and success in Iraq is bad for the Democratic party.

That's right: The Demoncrats care more about themselves and the terrorists than do the U.S. and the military. Same old song.

Haha. This is so typical. Why is it that military guys tend to quote facts and support their opinoins, yet the "libbies" love to just throw out simple ignorant comments or put up links to some bias site full of BS. Grow up boys and girls. John E., stop calling people "chickenhawks"; It sounds ridiculous coming from a chicken____, um I think you get it....

As John Edwards said about another war bill that had money for the troops as well as timelines: "Keep sending the same bill back to the president and let him be the one to deny the troops funding"...Well, congress did not listen to Edwards at the time-- if they had, the Iraqi military and police would have stepped up more, and some of the tired and worn American troops would be on their way home now. The blood of the killed and injured soldiers babysitting in the Iraq civil war continues to be on the hands of congress. The troops are still cared for with timelines. They are cared for more with timelines. It is not up to congress to send Bush a bill that he will sign. It is up to congress to send the WH the best bill period. Headlines: BUSH REFUSES TO FUND TROOPS.

It would be rank stupidity to leave now, and allow Iraq to crumble.
Posted by: HK
-
BS
Sure, there will be hard times, but Iraq will survive. This region has been the epicenter of wars for quite a while now. Probably since the Earth first cooled down after the big bang.
Humanity perseveres.

Blah blah...another loss for the "demophile" no-nothings, and it will won't matter how much they whine or complain. Let the commanders on the ground decide the issue, just shut up and say "we are behind you 100%". Of course we could go back to the Clinton days of "hey we got money, so who cares...just keep bombing and killing our civilians..."

It is not just Iraq. We have military bases in more than 120 countries. Why do we have bases in those countries? What do you think that costs? And why do you think we cannot muster enuf manpower in Iraq?
There is a difference between being an isolationist state and having bases in just about every country worldwide.
Why are we still creating more military basis, to the tune of 20 this last year alone?
KH has a well taken succinct point.

I can't tell if HK's post is a masterpiece of snark, or if he really believes that we must '...rebuild our military to Cold War size...'? Another gem: 'Our military is entirely too small...'?!?!

The stupidity...it burns!

KH-
Shorter? Absolutely - the US needs to make the kind of commitment we made to Europe and Korea and apply that long term effort in the Middle East.

HK - that's just great. Why are you applying the same solution to different problems?

US forces in the Europe and Korea are a STABILIZING force. Not so in the Middle East. Tell me, who's side are we on in the ME? Freedom's side? The stable oil flow's side, perhaps?

Sergeant Major, Let me ask you something. You don't like Bill Clinton, OK, Nothing wrong with that. BUT under Bill Clinton:

1. My Army didn't allow in recruits with Felony conviction
2. My Army didn't allow in recruits without GED/HS diploma
3. My Army didn't allow in recruits wih failed drug tests
4. Have you seen the exodus rate of the company grade officers and junior NCOs?

Those are just my starters, but I'd sure l like your views on those.

Jack,
Our forces in Europe and Korea are/were combat forces specifically placed their to defend against invasion from the USSR and North Korea. Our forces brought Stabilization to the regions because of the decades long combat readiness. At some point, that is what we will need to provide as partners with Arab countries. No war, the Iraq war included, lasts forever. When the political process in Iraq steps up, and replaces the violence, the stabilization commitement will go on for a much longer period, than the time we were engaged in combat.

I see that HK is indeed serious. Pray tell HK and Private Bolus, where exactly do you think the money is going to come from? We're the most indebted nation on Earth and dipwits like you guys want to keep digging? The Fighting 101st Keyboarders, always good for a laugh.

Let the commanders on the ground decide the issue, just shut up and say "we are behind you 100%".

OK Lets let the commanders on the ground decide.

They've decided that the Iraqi government is failing completely to come to anysort of long term political solution and that their failure will lead to further violence.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21781092/

Do you accept that judgement Sgt Bolen? The judgement that the surge has not led to the fulfillment of it's primary goal?

HK-

America Uber Alles?

How many colonies do you think our new empire can subjugate at once?

Vivian,

Nice post! Sorry I didn't explain the earlier reference to Kay. Kind of a funny story, really. Kay is a childhood friend of mine. In the Vietnam era, we were of similar ideology, both of Democratic stock, we despised the war, protested on campus against Johnson and Nixon. Because we were prime cannon fodder, we both ended up wearing the pickle suits together. Then, as these things go, Kay moved acrossed country and I didn't see him for a very long time. But this summer, we and some other old friends had a reunion, of sorts.

So we're all sitting around the hotel Jacuzzi and I ask Kay how his sister, Vivian, is doing. Says Kay, "I barely speak to her any more, she's turned into a damn liberal." I thought he was just messing with me, but as the night's discussion turned to politics, I witnessed my friend of 50 years do a frightening imitation of Sean Hannity. Well, it was awkward, to say the least, and the metamorphis shocking.

Anyway, when I saw your name pop up on the Swamp, I thought of my friend's "damn liberal" sister. Glad to have you over here. It's been tough since one of my best friends turned into John D. I liken it to "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Peace.

KH-
Colonies? Empire? Your are out there where the busses do not run.

Weinerdog,
The money has to come from restoring the portion of the GDP we had in Defense Budget prior to the time we slashed it in the 1990s. We are going to have a tough time fighting wars on 3-4% of GDP.

Why do the Dems keep passing bills that they know will not fly. this is pure politics for them. Just put the money up and they will eventually do anyway.

Dana Perino should be pickled in brine.