Pelosi Blasts Cheney As “Not Dignified” For Hitting Obama On Afghanistan
The partisan warfare over Afghanistan just got a whole lot hotter.
A few moments ago, Nancy Pelosi took a scorching shot at Dick Cheney for claiming yesterday that Obama is “dithering” in Afghaninstan, blaming the current danger troops face squarely on the Bush administration and asserting that the former Vice President’s assault was “not dignified.”
Pelosi make the remarks after her weekly presser today, as she strolled along in a Capitol hallway, setting in motion a clash over national security between two of the more polarizing figures on either side.
“That’s really just not dignified,” Pelosi said when asked to respond to Cheney, who made his comments in a speech yesterday. “The president has a very difficult decision to make. He’s got to have the facts.”
Pelosi said Cheney’s remarks are not “very constructive,” adding that “his administration made matters worse in Afghanistan.”
White House aides also expect press secretary Robert Gibbs to hit back at Cheney today at the briefing.
The larger context here is that Dems — hoping to go on the offensive on Afghanistan — want to refocus the debate on the Bush administration’s culpability in leaving behind a mess that Obama now has to clean up. Cheney’s comments yesterday seem to have given Dems an opening to do just that.
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I have to say that it is really nice to see the White House and top Democrats hitting back hard at these fearmongers.
question all, the site was down for a bit (apologies). what did you all experience? and how is it now?
Last time I checked, the reason we are still in Afghanistan 7 years after Bush/Cheney started the war is because they were unable to get the job done. Or catch Osama Bin Laden. Oh, that’s after the worst terrorist attack on US Soil in history happened under their watch.
Advice from Dick Cheney on National Security is about as useful as taking fire saftey tips from an arsonist.
@Greg
Seems ok now.
Ditering in Cheney’s world is waiting to find out if Curveball is who he says he is.
I kept getting redirected to boobs.com which wasn’t a bad thing.
Cheney’s got a lot of room to talk. He was dead wrong about Iraq. Just throw that at his denial at all costs smirk.
If I were a Dem with a mic I’d call the guy a coward for not going after Al-Qaeda and leaving it for the next administration. Instead, they decided to go after a country they knew they could crush which wasn’t even a threat just to inflate their little ego’s. Oh wow! America defeats a tiny country. Great job big boy.
The guys is pathetic.
j/k about the redirection though.
Clearly what we need is more “dignified” criticism of a President’s handling of foreign affairs, like Al Gore’s shrieking with neck veins bulging that George Bush had betrayed his country, and like Harry Reid’s calling him a liar and a loser.
Or all the Democrats including Obama declaring Iraq a lost war and demanding that Bush accept defeat and withdraw.
Is there any sense of shame in this party?
Site is okay now.
Where is the part about Pelosi ‘blasting’ Cheney? I don’t see that.
And just what Cheney wants – to be pulled into the spotlight once again and draw attention to a traditional Dem weak spot. Not a good move by Gibbs/Pelosi to engage. Didn’t work out so hot last time, did it?
Could anyone tell me if it was dignified for Obama’s chief of staff to lie and claim that the Bush Administration hadn’t asked any tough questions about Afghanistan? Was it dignified for him to lie and claim that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy?
Oh, and it’s 8 years. For some reason I thought it was 2008.
sbj: “not dignified,” not “constructive,” blames mess on “his administration”
Umm qb, what year did those things happen? A little perspective would go a long way here.
Ah cheeeney trying to maintain his status as school yard bully…It’s amazing to watch more so than not when the target of the the school yard bullying turns and *****-slaps the bully right out of their shoes…
Keep it up old man….
sbj, getting Iraq wrong is a weak spot.
Just ask Cheney.
You were dead wrong about Iraq. Why should we trust anything you or anyone from the previous Administration has to say about anything regarding national defense at this point?
umm, mike, why does that matter? Why isn’t it appropriate to compare what Dems say now about appropriate and inappropriate opposition to how they themselves behaved just a short time ago in the opposition?
Or is this just another Democrat double-standard, do as I say not as I do, that was then this is now, that was us this is you moment?
“You were dead wrong about Iraq.”
You mean when Pelosi and Obama declared Iraq lost and demanded acceptance of defeat and withdrawal almost three years ago, only to eat crow?
@Greg: Honestly her remarks seem pretty tame to me. It was Cheney who was doing the blasting.
It’s true, Dick and co. messed up Afghanistan pulling out at the exact moment they really could have built up that nation, at the exact moment when it was showing signs of increased stability. Now we are beyond any possibility of doing that. Bush and Dick squandered any chance of doing that. Afghanistan has been lost. It was lost the second we went into Iraq and allowed the Taliban to regain control.
It’s time for the troops to come home- if we have to drag Bush and Dick over the coals to do that and explain to the public just how badly they screwed up- so be it. Oh, and thanks for the opening to do so, Dick.
Personally, I think Dick is just worried about HIS pipeline.
I don’t think Cheney being back in the limelight is necessarily a bad thing. What are his numbers like right now?
qb, because most dissent was focused on the complete failure of intelligence that came from the Bush/Cheney WH.
How could they get something that important so wrong?
The 4500 soldiers killed, tens of thousands more injured and the $1.5 trillion mistake.
Maybe if someone from the previous administration would fess up so Americans could know who ignored what and who pushed what theories, they would have a little more credibility with the American public. Until then, the previous administration was an utter failure that can’t even fess up to its errors in judgment.
Here is another good example of what Pelosi apparently considers “dignified” criticism of the President (just over a year ago, Mike):
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/17/pelosi.interview/index.html
Pelosi is a fraud and hypocrite of indescribably proportions.
This manufactured outrage that both sides like to show for the camera’s & press is getting really old.
Am I the only one who thinks both sides look like a bunch of Junior High School girls shrieking at each other? “but she said!” “but they did!”
Such tripe.
This is what I know. I know that on 9/11 we were attacked. I know that 8yrs later the guy that did it is still out there. I know that “W” promised to get him, but he didn’t. I know that Obama promised to get him, and to refocus on the true problem – Afghanistan. But – that bad guy is still out there.
I know the banks were to big to fail, but they failed. I know they were bailed out. Same with the car companies. I know if you are big enough, you get a bailout. But if you’re a working guy, you get a couple weeks severence (if you’re lucky). I know the government throws around numbers like they don’t mean anything… and then revises them later when no one is looking.
You all get all bent out of shape over reds & blues – I sit here and say, situation is the same – there is no difference. The lobbyists still rule the roost, big companies & big people with lots of money call the shots. The rest is smoke & mirrors – as long as the blues are mad at the reds, and the reds are mad at the blues.. then all is good in Washington because the people aren’t focused on the game.
And don’t tell me Iraq is a success either qb.
I’d put money on it that if we hadn’t gone in, tens of thousands fewer civilians would have died, millions less misplace from their homes, women would have had more civil rights, Iran would be less emboldened because Iraq would be there to challenge them.
There are dozens every day that die from sectarian violence there.
This is the legacy Bush’s misguided war brought about.
Congratulations?
“Am I the only one who thinks both sides look like a bunch of Junior High School girls”
Dick Cheney as a Junior High School girl? Picture that!
qb, Politics is a fraud.
But the fact of the matter is, no matter how much politics plays into who’s the fraud and who isn’t, the Bush/Cheney WH has little room to talk regarding national security considering they got Iraq so wrong.
mike,
You’re either in denial or uninformed. E.g.,
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/13/bush-obama-press-oped-cx_sg_0113garment.html
You just can allow yourself to acknowledge any redeeming aspect in Bush, any positive thing he did, or even a shred of humanity in him. Your views are based on hatred and passion, not facts.
More generally, it’s really absurd for you to keep repeating this generalization that Bush/Cheney “was wrong on Iraq,” with the implication that all their critics “were right,” as if “Iraq” is one question. Your heros on the Dem left were a lot more wrong a lot more times than Bush/Cheney or their other whipping boy McCain. Including their politically motivated haste to declare Iraq a lost cause and demand immediate withdrawal.
And if you want to talk about pre-war intelligence, well, lots of people on both sides reached very similar conclusions. The intelligence, after all, does not come from the WH as you imagine. It comes from the intelligence agencies.
Tom,
“Am I the only one who thinks both sides look like a bunch of Junior High School girls shrieking at each other? “but she said!” “but they did!””
I would say the only problem with this is that Cheney gave a perfectly dignified, serious speech. There was no shrieking, no name calling, no personal denigration — not like Dems from Gore to Pelosi to Reid routinely practiced on Bush. Cheney just expressed a point of view that Democrats can’t tolerate.
So Pelosi resorted to her usual personal denigration. There really isn’t any moral equivalency here. Not that there isn’t sometimes, but not here.
qb, I’m not going to read that link but I assume it refers to Bush stating, and I’m paraphrasing, he wished the intelligence on Iraq were better.
Again, passing the buck on the intelligence department his administration controlled. Maybe if Cheney wasn’t browbeating at those regarding what came out of the CIA, we wouldn’t have had such one sided intell.
For everyone, Gibbs just responded to Cheney’s revisionist history circuit.
Something along the lines of he found the comments curious considering Obama filled the request for troops increases that sat on Bush’s desk for 8 months. And what Cheney calls dithering Obama considers taking into account our men and women in uniform when making decisions and he ended by pointing to we all know what happens when you don’t take time to think about it.
*cough* Iraq *cough*
mike,
I think your views on Iraq overall are a fantasy. But there isn’t a point in debating that. You really can’t claim your sanguine alternate history of Iraq somehow makes Bush/Cheney “wrong” about taking out the regime. That’s just an opinion you have.
The *cough* Iraq thing was mine but I assume that is what that last jab was referring to.
qb, what was fantasy was the mushroom cloud propaganda coming out of his administration in the build up to the war.
That was fantasy.
mike,
No, your assumption is wrong. Here is part of the Forbes article, describing remarks by Bush in January.
“He admitted mistakes, including the administration’s “mission accomplished” rhetoric and staging after the Iraq invasion and the failure of U.S. Iraq policy prior to the surge, as well as tactical mistakes such as the decision to address Social Security rather than immigration after his 2004 re-election. He noted specific disappointments, like the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and general disappointments, especially with the tone of his critics’ attacks.”
You just want to continue beating him for “not admitting mistakes” blah blah blah. You really just hate him and would never be satisfied with anything he said short of admitting that Hugo Chavez was right about his true identity.
Sunday, January 19, 2003:
–Q: Mr. Secretary, on Iraq, how much money do you think the Department of Defense would need to pay for a war with Iraq?
–A (Rumsfeld): Well, the Office of Management and Budget, has come up come up with a number that’s something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question. I think the way to put it into perspective is that the estimates as to what September 11th cost the United States of America ranges high up into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Now, another event in the United States that was like September 11th, and which cost thousands of lives, but one that involved a — for example, a biological weapon, would be — have a cost in human life, as well as in billions, hundreds of billions of dollars, that would be vastly greater.
3/27/03 testimony before a Senate Appropriations Hearing
a. Rumsfeld:
I don’t believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense…[Reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it.
b. Wolfowitz:
We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.
September 3, 2003
Before the war the hope was that Iraq’s annual production could relatively quickly rise to $15 billion to $20 billion per year. However, the system is far more decrepit that such estimates assumed, and combined with the near-daily sabotage of facilities and pipelines, it appears that oil revenues will rise only slowly over the next three years, from approximately $10 billion in 2004 to $20 billion in 2006.
Donald Hepburn, former chief executive of the Bahrain Petroleum Company and an advisor to the Middle East Policy Council, stated in his op-ed article “Nice War. Here’s the Bill”, published in The New York Times
September 14, 2003:
Cheney hints Iraq campaign’s cost will grow
October 1, 2003:
Iraq is pumping 900,000 barrels per day–considerably less than the pre-war production level of 2.2 million-2.4 million barrels per day
November 18, 2004:
Iraq War Topping $5.8 Billion A Month
April 27, 2006:
Projected Iraq War Costs Soar–Total Spending Is Likely to More Than Double, Analysis Finds
(cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill … and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week).
Second Transparency Report on Smuggling of Crude Petroleum and Products; 2006:
Document, produced by the inspector general of Iraq’s ministry of oil and translated by Revenue Watch, describes corruption in the oil sector, and particularly the multi-billion dollar smuggling of crude petroleum and refined products)
Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, May 2006 Report to Congress:
–Managing the budget will be a particular challenge this year, as first quarter revenues fell below projections because oil production and export volumes were lower than expected.
–Crude oil production remained steady at an average of 1.9 million barrels per day (mbpd) in the first four months of 2006, while exports increased from an average of 1.2 mbpd early in the first quarter to 1.4 mbpd. Poor weather and a lack of storage facilities in the South, and pipeline maintenance challenges and sabotage in the North hurt production and exports. Achieving oil production export goals continued to be hampered by intimidation of workers and terrorist attacks on infrastructure.
June 16, 2006:
Former Iraqi oil minister Bahr Al Uloum told Gulf News that renovation of Iraqi oilfield infrastructure will cost $10 billion, “$2 billion annually until 2010.
People living happily with civil liberties under Sadaam Hussein is a fantasy, in an Iraq friendly to the US and not in league with terrorists — that’s a fantasy.
Dick Cheney’s Pipe Dream. Oil Pipe Dream, that is!
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0110-01.htm
U.S. considers seizing revenues to pay for occupation, source says
by Knut Royce
WASHINGTON – Bush administration officials are seriously considering proposals that the United States tap Iraq’s oil to help pay the cost of a military occupation, a move that likely would prove highly inflammatory in an Arab world already suspicious of U.S. motives in Iraq.
Officially, the White House agrees that oil revenue would play an important role during an occupation period, but only for the benefit of Iraqis, according to a National Security Council spokesman.
Yet there are strong advocates inside the administration, including in the White House, for appropriating the oil funds as “spoils of war,” according to a source who has been briefed by participants in the dialogue.
“There are people in the White House who take the position that it’s all the spoils of war,” said the source, who asked not to be further identified. “We [the United States] take all the oil money until there is a new democratic government [in Iraq].”
The source said the Justice Department has urged caution. “The Justice Department has doubts,” he said. He said department lawyers are unsure “whether any of it [Iraqi oil funds] can be used or has to all be held in trust for the people of Iraq.”
Another source who has worked closely with the office of Vice President Dick Cheney said that a number of officials there too are urging that Iraq’s oil funds be used to defray the cost of occupation.
Jennifer Millerwise, a Cheney spokeswoman, declined to talk about “internal policy discussions.”
Using Iraqi oil to fund an occupation would reinforce a prevalent belief in the Mideast that the conflict is all about control of oil, not rooting out weapons of mass destruction, according to Halim Barakat, a recently retired professor of Arab studies at Georgetown University.
“It would mean that the real … objective of the war is not the democratization of Iraq, not getting rid of Saddam, not to liberate the Iraqi people, but a return to colonialism,” he said. “That is how they [Mideast nations] would perceive it.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost of an occupation would range from $12 billion to $48 billion a year, and officials believe an occupation could last 1 1/2 years or more.
And Iraq has a lot of oil. Its proven oil reserves are second in the world only to Saudi Arabia’s. But how much revenue could be generated is an open question. The budget office estimates Iraq now is producing nearly 2.8 million barrels a day, with 80 percent of the revenues going for the United Nations Oil for Food Program or domestic consumption. The remaining 20 percent, worth about $3 billion a year, is generated by oil smuggling and much of it goes to support Saddam Hussein’s military. In theory that is the money that could be used for reconstruction or to help defer occupation costs.
Yet with fresh drilling and new equipment Iraq could produce much more. By some estimates, however, it would take 10 years to fully restore Iraq’s oil industry. Conversely, if Hussein torches the fields, as he did in Kuwait in 1991, it would take a year or more to resume even a modest flow. And, of course, it is impossible to predict the price of oil.
Laurence Meyer, a former Federal Reserve Board governor who chaired a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference in November on the economic consequences of a war with Iraq, said that conference participants deliberately avoided the question of whether Iraq should help pay occupation or other costs. “It’s a very politically sensitive issue,” he said. “… We’re in a situation where we’re going to be very sensitive to how our actions are perceived in the Arab world.”
Meyer said officials who believe Iraq’s oil could defer some of the occupation costs may be “too optimistic about how much you could increase [oil production] and how long it would take to reinvest in the infrastructure and reinvest in additional oil.”
An administration source said that most of the proposals for the conduct of the war and implementation of plans for a subsequent occupation are being drafted by the Pentagon. Last month a respected Washington think tank prepared a classified briefing commissioned by Andrew Marshall, the Pentagon’s influential director of Net Assessment, on the future role of U.S. Special Forces in the global war against terrorism, among other issues. Part of the presentation recommended that oil funds be used to defray the costs of a military occupation in Iraq, according to a source who helped prepare the report.
He said that the study, undertaken by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, concluded that “the cost of the occupation, the cost for the military administration and providing for a provisional [civilian] administration, all of that would come out of Iraqi oil.” He said the briefing was delivered to the office of Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Defense and one of the administration’s strongest advocates for an invasion of Iraq, on Dec. 13.
Steven Kosiak, the center’s director of budget studies, said he could not remember whether such a recommendation was made, but if it was it would only have been “a passing reference to something we did.”
Asked whether the Pentagon was now advocating the use of Iraqi oil to pay for the cost of a military occupation, Army Lt. Col. Gary Keck, a spokesman, said, “We don’t have any official comment on that.”
NSC spokesman Mike Anton said that in the event of war and a military occupation the oil revenues would be used “not so much to fund the operation and maintaining American forces but for humanitarian aid, refugees, possibly for infrastructure rebuilding, that kind of thing.”
But the source who contributed to the Marshall report said that its conclusions reflect the opinion of many senior administration officials. “It [the oil] is going to fund the U.S. military presence there,” he said. “… They’re not just going to take the Iraqi oil and use it for Iraq’s purpose. They will charge the Iraqis for the U.S. cost of operating in Iraq. I don’t think they’re planning as far as I know to use Iraqi oil to pay for the invasion, but they are going to use it to pay for the occupation.”
Tax Cuts, Food Stamps
And Cost-Free War
By Terrell E. Arnold
3-21-3
http://www.rense.com/general35/andcost.htm
Wednesday night President Bush authorized an attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein and his core leadership. That move violated a long-standing international rule against killing heads of state. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer justified the attack by saying they lead the country’s armed forces and are therefore legitimate military targets. Of course if taking out national leaders who lead their armed forces is now defined as legitimate military targeting, then these new rules make the US Commander in Chief and his national security team equal candidates. Last week USAID announced it had sought and received bids from major US construction and development firms to rebuild Iraq after the war at a cost of $ 900 million. The assumption in this case was that Iraq could be put back together for about $40 per head after so-called “shock and awe” saturation and destruction by America’s own panoply of mass destruction weaponry. Those are only the tips of a foreign policy iceberg that is astoundingly simplistic.
On the very day that Bush launched the Saddam takeout attempt, Republican members of Congress quietly indicated that work would progress without interruption on the administration’s $1. 3 trillion tax-cut. In short, the Republican ideology that is so avidly espoused by the Bush team–lessen the tax burden of the rich and starve government down to size–is cruising along through totally untroubled waters.
Meanwhile, our armed forces, especially ground forces, struggle with an ironic twist on making war on Iraq. The Bush team was prepared and actually offered to pay billions of dollars for support on UN approval of the war, while the families of a sizeable number of American ground troops whose lives are on the line are expected to live on food stamps. Even with pay increases that have been approved by Bush, the lowest ranking soldiers are paid at rates comparable to those of workers in minimum wage jobs. The willingness of those young men and women to serve our country and to face the severe risks of war in Iraq has not moved the administration or members of Congress out of the fantasy world of small government and low taxes long enough to correct this pay gap.
Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein:
The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. (It had been included several years earlier because of ties with several Palestinian nationalist groups, not Islamicists sharing the worldview of al-Qaeda. Activism by Iraq’s main Shiite Islamicist opposition group, al-Dawa, was a major factor precipitating the war — stirred by Iran’s Islamic revolution, its endeavors included the attempted assassination of Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.)
Prolonging the war was phenomenally expensive. Iraq received massive external financial support from the Gulf states, and assistance through loan programs from the U.S. The White House and State Department pressured the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing, to enhance its credit standing and enable it to obtain loans from other international financial institutions. The U.S. Agriculture Department provided taxpayer-guaranteed loans for purchases of American commodities, to the satisfaction of U.S. grain exporters.
The U.S. restored formal relations with Iraq in November 1984, but the U.S. had begun, several years earlier, to provide it with intelligence and military support (in secret and contrary to this country’s official neutrality) in accordance with policy directives from President Ronald Reagan. These were prepared pursuant to his March 1982 National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM 4-82) asking for a review of U.S. policy toward the Middle East.
One of these directives from Reagan, National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 99, signed on July 12, 1983, is available only in a highly redacted version [Document 21]. It reviews U.S. regional interests in the Middle East and South Asia, and U.S. objectives, including peace between Israel and the Arabs, resolution of other regional conflicts, and economic and military improvements, “to strengthen regional stability.” It deals with threats to the U.S., strategic planning, cooperation with other countries, including the Arab states, and plans for action. An interdepartmental review of the implications of shifting policy in favor of Iraq was conducted following promulgation of the directive.
By the summer of 1983 Iran had been reporting Iraqi use of using chemical weapons for some time. The Geneva protocol requires that the international community respond to chemical warfare, but a diplomatically isolated Iran received only a muted response to its complaints [Note 1]. It intensified its accusations in October 1983, however, and in November asked for a United Nations Security Council investigation.
The U.S., which followed developments in the Iran-Iraq war with extraordinary intensity, had intelligence confirming Iran’s accusations, and describing Iraq’s “almost daily” use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war [Document 24]. The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against “Kurdish insurgents” as well [Document 25].
What was the Reagan administration’s response? A State Department account indicates that the administration had decided to limit its “efforts against the Iraqi CW program to close monitoring because of our strict neutrality in the Gulf war, the sensitivity of sources, and the low probability of achieving desired results.” But the department noted in late November 1983 that “with the essential assistance of foreign firms, Iraq ha[d] become able to deploy and use CW and probably has built up large reserves of CW for further use. Given its desperation to end the war, Iraq may again use lethal or incapacitating CW, particularly if Iran threatens to break through Iraqi lines in a large-scale attack” [Document 25]. The State Department argued that the U.S. needed to respond in some way to maintain the credibility of its official opposition to chemical warfare, and recommended that the National Security Council discuss the issue.
It’s it kind of ironic that two of the main beneficiaries of American support during Rayguns presidency, Al-Qaeda and Iraq, became our targets militarily?
Republicans supported Saddam, and supplied him with Chemical and Biological starter kits.
Under Ronald Reagan, Cheney and Rumsfeld got all cozy with Saddam, and did not give a rat’s arse about how much he abused his own people or used chemical weapons against Iran.
I Want To Hold Your Hand.
http://cache2.asset-cache.net/xc/1424016.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF1939057D9939C83F10683233376E4B9D8B7B01E70F2B3269972
Before Saddam invaded Kuwait, he met with George Herbert Walker Bush’s Ambassador to Iraq; April Glaspie.
She just about gave him the green light to go ahead and Invade Kuwait.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Glaspie
“Later the transcript has Glaspie saying: “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.”"
After he invaded Kuwait, Saddam released a video tape of his meeting with the US Ambassador, and it showed her saying that Kuwait was not of vital interest to the US.
Wow. Inouye is trying to strip the Franken amendment out that prevents the Govn’t to do business with contractors that prevent employees from suing if they are raped.
Call that bozo. Let him know what you think.
Phone: 202-224-3934
Fax: 202-224-6747
Leave it to Dems to turn a question of whether Pelosi’s inane attack on Cheney into an argument about whether Reagan mishandled Iraq.
Well, if we were going to do that, then I suppose we’d have to go back and debate the fecklessness of Carter in bungling things even earlier.
But, still, no one can defend Nancy’s idiotic statements in comparison to her own and Gore’s and Reid’s “undignified” attacks on Bush. Silly libs fail again.
Why Did The DoD, And The White House, Oppose The Franken Rape Amendment?
On Oct. 6, the Senate passed an amendment that would guarantee rape victims employed by defense contractors a chance to take their case to court. The 30 Republicans who voted against it have been vilified. (See, for example, RepublicansForRape.org.) But the Department of Defense — and, by extension, the White House — also opposed the amendment. Why?
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/why-the-dod-and-the-white-house-opposed-the-franken-rape-amendment.php?ref=mp
I think they should all go back to the old days in the Senate where if you really thought someone was full of shite, you heaped complements on them in direct proportion to how much they were full of it. Thusly, Madame Speaker could have said “The Most Honorable, Learned, Wise, Experienced, Beyond Reproach, Dignified, Awesome Vice President makes an interesting point with which I couldn’t disagree more”.
Re “dithering”…as Steve Benen pointed out last night or this morning, there was a significant period of time where the Bush administration was contemplating the surge option in Iraq.
As we all likely recall, Cheney spoke in front of Gaffney’s group at that time and strongly attacked himself for placing American forces in jeopardy.
sbj, you mean, why did the DoD, the same group that leaks stories to the NYT as to why Obama should side with McChrystal no matter what, oppose the rape amendment.
I guess I didn’t see an official condemnation of this vote from the WH.
Did you?
@Mike: Did you read the link?
“The White House does say it supports “the intent of the amendment,” spokesman Tommy Vietor told TPM.
“Vietor also said the White House is working with legislators to rework the amendment “to make sure it is enforceable.”
“The DoD opposes the proposed amendment,” reads a message sent from the administration to the Senate on October 6, the day the amendment passed by a 68-30 vote.”
Sent from the administration
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/19/defense-department-oppose_n_326569.html
I’m just glad that Cheney is back to shooting off his mouth again- instead of someone else’s.
QB
Your ‘concern’ is underwhelming.
Keep trying to be relevant there QB. Perhaps sometime in the future, you will be.
Right after the Bruins win a Stanley Cup…
Dboy,
Those are really deep thoughts you have there. Just remember, yours is the party that considers a serious speech without personal denigration to be “undignified” criticism, but considers dignified and approprate: (a) a former VP’s shrieking and sputtering that the President has “betrayed” the country, (b) a Senate majority leader’s calling the President a “liar” and “loser,” and (c) the House majority leader condescendingly remarking “bless his heart, a total failure” about the President.
Your party is morally, philosophically, and rhetorically bankrupt.
The Right Wing Nut Jobs Can Not Handle It!
At Last The Truth Is Revealed.
The Reason Why The Taliban Have Come Back So Strong In Afghanistan Is:
During the Summer of 2008, General McKiernan requested 30,000 more Troops, in order to keep The Taliban from becoming a growing Presence in Afghanistan.
Bush/Cheney turned him down flat. It was Bush/Cheney that allowed the Taliban to Mushroom once more in Afghanistan.
Bush/Cheney did not listen to their General in Afghanistan. He requested 30,000 more troops, and they refused his request. They did not support the Troops in the field.
Bush/Cheney left our Troops in Afghanistan unprotected, by Dick Cheney’s own standards.
Bush/Cheney did not dither, or listen to Their General in Afghanistan. They just said no to him, and made it easy for The Taliban to spread through out the country.
Well QB, looks like your WRONG again! I do not have a party because I can think for myself. Whats your excuse?
Your hero in chimp was a LOSER! See, I have the guts to say it.LOSER! Can you hear me know QB?
Lets look at the subject at hand shall we? The GWB administration had 7.5 years to get it right in Afghanistan. They FAILED QB.F_A_I_L_E_D!!! End of story. Never had a plan or a clue as to what the f*&k had to be done nor how to do it. Your hero’s wanted to play soldier since they NEVER SERVED. So, they dragged the country along twice and SCREWED it up both times. In my book that makes them LOSERS. Losers of the worse kind QB because they’re abject failures have cost almost 10,000 American lives. Think about that if your intelligent enuff to do so QB. 10,000 Americans dead and not a damned thing to show for it. NADA.
Your arguments to date have been on a 4th grade level QB. If my son said “They did it too”, which is what your saying, I would tell him that he does not have top do anything anyone else does. It does not make his actions right. In fact, it makes his actions all the more wrong because he KNOWS BETTER.
Get back to me when you grow up and gain some relevance QB. Until then, I will see you as just another loser conservatard.
Republican Dick “Five Deferments” Cheney is a war criminal who endangered American troops by instituting a torture program.
Now the right wing cheer torture programs that were created by Communist Chinese torturers and Pol Pot torturers.
That’s what the right wing has degenerated into: Torturers and war criminals.
But let’s be clear, Republican Bush/Cheney failed in Afghanistan. From the beginning the Republicans didn’t go in with a plan, they didn’t put the troops in that were needed, and then they lied US into the wrong war (Iraq) while abandoning Afghanistan.
The Republican Party leadership didn’t serve but cheered on the pointless Iraq War Lie, cheered on torture that endangers every American troop on earth, and on the home front the Republicans used every fear and smear campaign they knew and then invented new ones to terrorize Americans into thinking it was okay to eviscerate the Bill of Rights and burn the Constitution.
And Republicans borrowed money from Communist China to pay for the war because they wanted tax cuts during a time of multiple wars.
Republicans even expected to profiteer from the wars while borrowing money from foreign nations so that their corporate rapists at KBR/Haliburton could get away with electrocuting American soldiers because of their shoddy work.
And let’s not forget that the Republicans just voted to allow rapists to be protected so that the Republican’s true owners, the corporations, could hide gang rape committed by their employees from the courts.
Republican Dick Cheney is a war criminal who should be in prison for life for his torture crimes, war profiteering, and myriad unconstitutional acts.
But Republicans have fallen in behind war criminals and unconstitutional criminals with the ease of sheep even while the Republican leadership has been repeatedly exposed as wolves.
“And let’s not forget that the Republicans just voted to allow rapists to be protected so that the Republican’s true owners, the corporations, could hide gang rape committed by their employees from the courts.”
You need to read up a bit, buddy:
On Oct. 6, the Senate passed an amendment that would guarantee rape victims employed by defense contractors a chance to take their case to court. The 30 Republicans who voted against it have been vilified. (See, for example, RepublicansForRape.org.) But the Department of Defense — and, by extension, the White House — also opposed the amendment. Why?
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/why-the-dod-and-the-white-house-opposed-the-franken-rape-amendment.php?ref=mp
So right winger sbj is now pro-rape?
And your excuse is “authority figure x” says it’s okay?
The DoD’s pro-rape position is abominable.
That 75% of the Republican Senators are openly pro-rape reveals that the Republicans are far sicker than anyone imagined.
Thanks for revealing who you really are sbj.
http://RepublicansForRape.org
According to a White House spokesperson:
“We support the intent of the [Al Franken] amendment, and we’re working with the conferees to make sure that it is enforceable,” said spokesman Tommy Vietor when asked about the DoD statement.
It appears that parts of the DoD are actively working against the Commander in Chief.
Nancy Pelosi: “Dick Cheney can (holds up middle finger) dither this!”
Dtard,
I would say that your incoherent rant made everyone who read it dumber, but most people here have minimal intelligence anyway. Way to go, you have the courage to call Bush a “LOSER” on the internet. You are some hero.
You bellow that I was “WRONG again” but haven’t — nor has anyone — pointed out a single fact about which I was wrong.
It isn’t a matter of “he did it too.” In case you didn’t notice, Greg’s post is celebrating Pelosi’s foolish personal attack on Cheney’s speech as “undignfied.” As I pointed out, Pelosi’s and Gore’s and Reid’s history of truly undignified attacks makes this absurd and hypocritical.
And neither you nor anyone else here has even tried to defend San Fran Nan’s idiocy — because I was right. Thanks for giving me the chance to rub it in again. I’ll take Cheney giving a serious and substantive speech. You can have Al Gore sputtering and shrieking that the President betrayed his country — to the extent that even honest liberals wondered whether Gore had actually become unstable.
And, no, I don’t care at all what an uneducated lower primate like you thinks about me. Look in a mirror; it isn’t a pretty sight.
old news,
You’re just plain a slobbering idiot. I’ve wasted enough words on idiots here. You aren’t even a high quality idiot.
Whatever Cheney wants to do, you can be pretty sure doing the exact opposite is what is actually in the USA’s best interests.
He is a war criminal and will go down in history as the worst vice president we have ever had – by a wide margin.
Right winger nickleback illustrates the thuggish nature of what the Republican Party has degenerated into: Childish insults meant to distract from substantive issues.
Why do right wingers hate American democracy?
It says a LOT about the right wing that they would support a war criminal like Republican Dick Cheney.
Republican Bush/Cheney’s torture crimes are now the low bar that foreign dictatorships and stateless extremists will use as an excuse to torture American troops and overseas American travelers.
Republicans sit in their private bunkers and gamble American troops as if they were sacrificial pawns.
Again:
Republicans lied US into the Iraq War.
Republicans failed to plan for the inevitable long war.
Republicans delusively thought that Afghanistan AND Iraq would be a “cakewalk” and so failed to provide adequate troops, failed to recognize their failures as the wars became worse under Republican leadership, and Republicans failed to provide the requests of American troops for more body armor and MRAPs.
Republicans failed to provide returning American troops with decent medical care (See: Republican’s neglect of the Walter Reed Hospital scandal).
Moreover: Republican elites like Cheney, Romney, and Limbaugh avoided military service with laughable excuses even while they send other American’s children off to wars that the Republicans refuse to pay for.
Right winger nickleback illustrates the thuggish nature of what the Republican Party has degenerated into
qb has bragged here repeatedly about how enthusiastically he supports committing war crimes.
In fact, qb is such a pervert “he” castigates as moral monsters all those who disagree with “him”, even though those of us who rightly remember the laws of the land also hold to the 200+ year-old tradition established by George Washington of not torturing those of your enemies who torture you.
How is that “scorching?” What about those comments make them a “blast?” She made a fairly civil retort to petty BS from Cheney. Let’s not set the bar so low for liberals. Scorching would be something like, “hey, if Darth Cheney would have finished the job the first time, rather than handing out federal dollars to corporate cronies and starting unnecessary wars elsewhere, we wouldn’t be debating alternative courses of action now.”
sbj, your dishonesty (in lying about WH opposing Franken amendment) is par for the course. Congratulations. You’re trending towards the likes of nutjobs like qb.
My vote for “scorching” would have been:
“If Republican war criminal Dick Cheney hadn’t been betraying American values and looting the American treasury while lying US into a war so that his corporatist friends could profiteer from war while Americans were dying we wouldn’t be spending so much time trying to fix what he’s broken and clean up after the elephant dung he’s burdened America with.”
Republicans Bush and Cheney (and Yoo, Addington, Feith, Rumsfeld amongst others) are war criminals.
That Republicans celebrate war criminals means that it’s now the Republican War Crimes Party.
Greg, you seem to have your own sock puppet. Congrats.
“sbj, your dishonesty (in lying about WH opposing Franken amendment) is par for the course. Congratulations. You’re trending towards the likes of nutjobs like qb.”
Dude – I have to believe that you did not read either the TPM or HuffPo articles. The admin opposed the Franken amendment. They support the intent – but not the wording. To run around claiming that anyone supports rape is just plain awful. You and others do a disservice to all of the thinking liberals here, of which there are many.
sbj – “The admin opposed the Franken amendment. They support the intent – but not the wording.” May be you should read your own contradictions first.
And thanks for your ‘concern” about thinking liberals. Quite touching, really.
Cheney is performing a necessary function in a two-party democracy of opposing the party in power and holding them to standards. Obama claimed there wasn’t any review or strategy. Clearly there was and just as clearly Obama embraced it back in March. Few people have been as eloquent regarding Afghanistan as the ‘necessary’ war and Cheney didn’t make up the term ‘dithering’. It’s been repeated all over the internet including at the Washington Post. Liberals often make the mistake of under-estimating their enemies. Cheney and Obama gave speeches on National Security on the same day earlier this year and polls proved Cheney got the best of it. Too bad Obama can’t trust this fight to Biden.
“May be you should read your own contradictions first.”
Um, contradiction?
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor: “We support the intent of the [Al Franken] amendment, and we’re working with the conferees to make sure that it is enforceable.”
Right winger sbj is at best being dishonest, though it appears more likely that sbj is just lying.
The DoD apparently has some inside that are working against the Commander in Chief.
So add “Rick W” to the War Criminal Party?
Torturing is un-American.
Republican Dick Cheney and Bush and Yoo and Addington are war criminals.
The Republican Torture Party is a disgrace and Republican policies have endangered Americans and specifically Republican torture advocates like Cheney and Bush have endangered American troops fighting overseas.
Can you guys read? The White House AND the DoD both opposed the amendment, along with all those Rethuglicans (or whatever it is you call them), as written. The DoD is headed by Gates – Obama appointee. The DoD is a part of the executive branch.
“The DoD opposes the proposed amendment,” reads a message sent from the administration to the Senate on October 6, the day the amendment passed by a 68-30 vote.
…
A White House spokesman said that the DoD opposition is overstated in the message sent to Congress. “We support the intent of the amendment, and we’re working with the conferees to make sure that it is enforceable,” said spokesman Tommy Vietor when asked about the DoD statement.
…
“”Senator Burr believes violence against women is despicable and intolerable, and those who have committed or abetted such heinous crimes should be subjected to the full weight of the law. Unfortunately, the Franken amendment would not do anything to protect women from violence or to punish criminals. If it had, Senator Burr would certainly have voted for the amendment. Instead, rather than protect women from rape, the Franken amendment prohibits contractors who have employment arbitration agreements with their employees from being paid for the work they have done for the military. In fact, the Obama Defense Department opposed the amendment. As current federal law states and the courts have already upheld in the Jones case, arbitration agreements are non-binding when it comes to criminal acts, like rape. Unfortunately, the Franken amendment was a cynical attempt by the trial lawyers to eliminate arbitration agreements, which limit their fees, behind the guise of protecting women.”
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/19/defense-department-oppose_n_326569.html
“This vote has been grossly misunderstood, oversimplified, and misreported. Senator Corker, the father of two daughters, believes what happened to Jamie Leigh Jones is abhorrent and that the culprits should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law; further, he agrees that rape, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress should not be arbitrated, but the Franken amendment went far beyond the ill it was trying to remedy to encompass most possible employment claims,” said Laura Lefler Herzog, communications director for Corker.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/19/defense-department-oppose_n_326569.html
Obama has kept in place all of GWBs policies from wiretaps to rendition to enhanced questioning to keeping gitmo open and to ensuring the core group in gitmo never makes it into a courtroom. They are not sending people to Gitmo but using Bagram Air Force base in the exact same manner. There is no difference between Obama and Bush except perhaps are far more aggressive assassination record in Pakistan. Obama likes his drones. Bush and Cheney were and remain beloved by the troops which is one reason why the reenlistment program was so successful. One thing I am sure we can agree on is the military has been stellar and deserves thair ranking as the most respected institution in the USA.
Is right winger sbj incapable of reading what he’s posting?
A White House spokesman explicitly said: “We [the Obama administration] support the intent of the [Al Franken] amendment, and we’re working with the conferees to make sure that it is enforceable.”
THE WHITE HOUSE SUPPORTED ALL FRANKEN’S AMENDMENT.
Again: 75% of Republican Senators are pro-rape.
Republicans Bush and Cheney are detested by many American troops.
Most American troops recognize that Republicans Bush and Cheney lied US into the Iraq War, that Bush and Cheney abandoned Afghanistan, that Bush and Cheney didn’t adequately plan for either war, that Bush and Cheney didn’t provide adequate troops, didn’t provide adequate body armor, and didn’t provide adequate MRAPs.
Worse, many American troops recognize that Republican Bush and Cheney’s war criminal torture programs gave aid and comfort to the enemy and have endangered every American troop at risk of being captured an potentially mistreated the same way that Republican Bush and Cheney’s torture programs mistreated captured prisoners.
Oh for Christ’s sake News Reference, if you really believe that the vicious savages we’re fighting were beheading prisoners because we were subjecting our prisoners to waterboarding and that they would have behaved differently if we had, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. I’ll even throw in another one in San Francisco.
“The DoD opposes the proposed amendment,” reads a message sent from the administration to the Senate on October 6″
“Sent from the administration”
Comprende?
Headline from TPM: “Why Did The DoD, And The White House, Oppose The Franken Rape Amendment?”
C’mon now!
Right winger “Fred” bought the Republican’s Bridge to Iraq and now he’s selling US more right wing bridges?
Perhaps “Fred” will sell us another Republican Bridge to Nowhere.
Or perhaps the right wing will just sell America another bridge back to the 19th century.
For all of you brilliant, well informed leftos: Anybody call you for your counsel on the subjects of Afghanistan and Irag? It’s painfully obvious that none of you know squat! Who started all of these situations in the first place? AND, name anyone that had or has THE answers. Look at record – it wasn’t just Republicans involved in these matters. Do your home work if you dare. You all make me weary with your pseudo-everything.