[Newsbot]

<strong>Filibuster Cartoon</strong>
<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20070128" target="_blank">Surge protector</a> (click to view)
<strong>Date: </strong> January 28, 2007

President Bush is unwavering in his determination to go ahead with his \"more troops for Iraq\" plan, and it looks like a surge of several thousand new soldiers will be arriving shortly. <br> <br>The Democrats all hate this surge plan, but their options are fairly limited. Since the President is Commander in Chief of the military, they cannot directly over-rule a wartime command he makes. They can however cut off funding to the war, but CNN tells me they will never do this because it is \"a bad move, politically.\" <br> <br>So instead they plan to pass some non-binding bills declaring themselves to be opposed.

[Lan]

It really should be noted that its NOT 'just' the dems who are opposing the president on this, the majority of the repiblicans do as well, i think its at 87% of the house of representatives now are oposed to the surge, just in varying degrees on how much they should act about it, the republicans wont stand for any use of the power of the purse, but theyre names are going to be on the pointless symbolic resolution too.

(may want to check a reliable news source for actuall numbers of republicans in congress who suport the troop surge, i dont have that on hand, just bringing this to attentin hehe,)

[Voyager]

The great irony of all of this is, it's actually working.

Al Qaida in Iraq is retreating to the Diyala province, and the al Sadr militia is going inactive for the duration. Apparently, both forces would rather wait for us to leave than try to actually engage our units their, and are both of the opinion that we'll be leaving in about six or so months, at which point they can resume normal operations.

Ironic, no?

Harry Voyager

[Psudo]

The only vote on this issue (Senate Resolution 2) that I'm aware of is the committee vote, which was 11 Democrats and 1 Republican for and 9 Republicans against (1). According to the Library of Congress (which doesn't allow direct linking to search information), it hasn't been voted on by the Senate as a body and it's sponsor and 15 of it's 17 cosponsors are Democrats. (The two Republicans are Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine.)

From that evidence, it looks to be a very party-lines vote. I couldn't find any numbers on support/opposition to the bill from the House of Reps. Lan's claim of 87% opposition within the House seems unlikely, but that's just my opinion.

[tritium]

It's sure is nice to see there are still some people in this world that have the balls as a man to stand by their convictions and get done what needs to be done without all the Liberal B.S. dilly dally.

Saddam was an evil man and both Democrats, Republicans and the United Nations agreed at the start of this Iraq war that Saddam needed to be taken out of power. I mean seriously after years of ignoring UN sanctions, raping and torturing of his own people. (but then again, Kofi Annan was Muslim )

Shame on the Republicans that are now trying to curb their opinion on what they think the rest of the country is feeling.

The sad truth is the United States and the American public in general have become weak, they can not stomach a war. They are truly ripe for another ass kicking, which I hope comes soon. They need another wake-up call.

The USA has become a crippled nation from within. Way to go Liberals.

[CanadianJeff]

wow the ignorance is astounding.

yes BOTH the republicans AND the democrats disapprove of this plan with a fury.

You need only look to all the republicans who spoke out in the papers against this plan as proof of that.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota
"“I can't tell you what the path to success is, but it's not what the president has put on the table,”"

Sen John W Warner, Republican chairman of Armed Services Committee, warns that situation in Iraq is 'drifting sideways' and says United States should consider change of course if violence does not diminish soon; expresses concern that Prime Min Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has not moved decisively against sectarian militias

not to mention that there are many veterans Jim Webb aside who have slammed the way the war is being fought. Not the idea of the war mind you but the very way it's being fought. That says something about the strategy of the president.

It's not the liberals fault and it's not the republicans fault. Let's be honest and up front here. It's the presidents fault plain and simple and his entire party as far as I'm concerned needs to stand up and say "You are an idiot, get out, were replacing you and calling elections"

After all isn't the American thing to do stand up and fight when your oppressed? Oh right I forgot...that was before everyone got stuffed on being a republican or a democrat and forgot to look at the real issues here.

It shouldn't matter if your left or right on this. Were is the good old American patriots in the face of the idiot destroying the world in the name of America? That's the issue here.

America has indeed become lazy. It needs unity again.

[tritium]

CanadianJeff wrote:

After all isn't the American thing to do stand up and fight when your oppressed? Oh right I forgot...that was before everyone got stuffed on being a republican or a democrat and forgot to look at the real issues here.

Not anymore. Seems the American thing, at least for the Liberals, is to cry about the state of our country, but when put in power as they now are, have no real definitive solution to the problem themselves.

It's not what's best for the country anymore, but more a political war dance with both parties dancing around the real issue "terrorism."

"Better to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here."

[CanadianJeff]

Which disgusts me to no end.

"Not anymore. Seems the American thing, at least for the Liberals, is to cry about the state of our country, but when put in power as they now are, have no real definitive solution to the problem themselves."

I agree but honestly can they really do worse then bush? Even if they tried. That and the election was only a few months ago. Give it time.

[dog77_1999]

The Democrats can stop the war at any time. They don't because a withdraw from Iraq would make things worse than they are. They don't want to be the ones who made Iraq's democracy fail. It's better for them not to do anything and wait till 2008.

At least they were able to make real progress and get Congressional seats.

[ejacksonian]

Psudo wrote:

The only vote on this issue (Senate Resolution 2) that I'm aware of is the committee vote, which was 11 Democrats and 1 Republican for and 9 Republicans against (1). According to the Library of Congress (which doesn't allow direct linking to search information), it hasn't been voted on by the Senate as a body and it's sponsor and 15 of it's 17 cosponsors are Democrats. (The two Republicans are Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine.)

From that evidence, it looks to be a very party-lines vote. I couldn't find any numbers on support/opposition to the bill from the House of Reps. Lan's claim of 87% opposition within the House seems unlikely, but that's just my opinion.

I just want to point out that, while you are correct, most of the Senate (don't konw about the House), Republicans might be willing to vote for Warner's/Collin's/Nelson's Resolution. Had Warner not made an alternative, things might have gone down differently.

However, I'm really surprised that Sununu and Coleman would vote against it' while most people do not pay attention to committee votes, if they vote like that on the floor... well, 'etls just say, they are in deep dudu.

[Psudo]

The numbers:

CanadianJeff wrote:

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota
"“I can't tell you what the path to success is, but it's not what the president has put on the table,”"

Sen John W Warner, Republican chairman of Armed Services Committee, warns that situation in Iraq is 'drifting sideways'

Anecdotal evidence is more trouble than it's worth.

Between the two of us, we suggested 4 out of 49 Republican Senators (8.1%) to be opposed to Bush's plan. That's not sufficiently close to 50% to really call Senate Republicans "divided". A percentage of 20%+ would be more persuasive. For that proportion, we'd need about 10+ anecdotes (6+ more). And to prove Republican Congressmen divided on the issue, we'd about 45 anecdotes. I'm not willing to go through that much work this time around.

CanadianJeff wrote:

It's not the liberals fault and it's not the republicans fault. Let's be honest and up front here. It's the presidents fault plain and simple and his entire party as far as I'm concerned needs to stand up and say "You are an idiot, get out, were replacing you and calling elections"

You're free to your opinion of what should happen, but I see no evidence that this is happening.
[hr]My opinion:

CanadianJeff wrote:

After all isn't the American thing to do stand up and fight when your oppressed?

Or for the oppressed. But the latter's become controversial lately.

CanadianJeff wrote:

but honestly can they really do worse then bush?

Easily. Clinton's (in)action in Rwanda is an example of liberals doing worse than Bush. Helping clumsily is better than morbidly watchful inaction.

[ejacksonian]

Althoug I agree that Clinton should have helped Rwanda, Iraq's situation is much different.

In fact, Sudan's situation is more simliar to Rwanda's than Iraq is. If you are making the case that Iraq is also similar to Sudan, go ahead.

[CanadianJeff]

Rwanda and Iraq are on very diffrent scales of blunder.

Iraq could easily be called the worst US blunder in a long while.

[PTBO]

tritium said:

Quote:

I mean seriously after years of ignoring UN sanctions, raping and torturing of his own people. (but then again, Kofi Annan was Muslim )

It's pretty hard to ignore UN sanctions buddy. I lived next to an American airbase in Saudi for years- those planes controlled Iraq's air and border. I saw a huge bombing fleet once when Clinton was bombing it in 98. No wonder everybody in Saudi wanted Bush to be elected- Albright said she didn't even care that 500,000 Iraqi children were murdered by the sanctions.

Kofi is from Ghana right and I do realize it has a sizable Muslim minority in this largly Christian nation. But I'm having trouble finding if Kofi converted. I mean his parents have Christian names and he attended a Methodist school so I kinda doubt he was born a Muslim. But I guess it's possible you dont know what your talking about.

[Psudo]

CanadianJeff wrote:

Rwanda and Iraq are on very diffrent scales of blunder.

Sure are. In Rwanda, about a million people were killed in 100 days (1) (or about 10,000 per day). Meanwhile, around 60,000 Iraqi civilians have died (2) in 4 years in Iraq, for around 40 a day. Rwanda was 2 orders of magnitude worse in total death count and 3 in death rate.

CanadianJeff wrote:

Iraq could easily be called the worst US blunder in a long while.

The worst since Clinton certainly.