Another Proposal
Senator Obama today introduced a bill for a binding legislation that lays out a plan for phased withdrawal from Iraq which accounts for a political solution, continued training of Iraqi troops, and anti-terrorism measures.
Bush and other Republicans have been pushing a lie which implies that their “Surge™” plan is the only viable one being offered, and that Democratic politicians have just been criticizing while not offering any serious solutions. Of course, this comes across in the media as if the Dems are not offering any solutions except for “cut and run.” Bush achieves this by demanding the opposition “offer an alternative that has a better chance for success” (italics mine). And, of course, they will never consider any Democratic plan to have a better chance of success than their own plan. And the Republican ploy to portray Democrats as not offering anything is working in the “liberal” media–as is expressed in the Boston Globe headline from the above link, which reads, “Bush says critics must offer alternative,” as if they haven’t.
The thing is, the Dems have been offering alternate plans, and for quite some time. As early as November 2005, John Murtha introduced a resolution to withdraw the troops from Iraq, deploy quick-reaction troops nearby in case of an emergency, and to pursue “security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.” Ever since then, Democratic lawmakers have proposed one plan or another for withdrawal, and every time it has been dismissed by the White House as lacking in some respect or another, as was this more recent proposal just last November, which the White House dismissed as not being “fleshed out.” Two other plans proposed by Democrats last June were defeated by Republicans in Congress, and have been disregarded by the White House in any case. There have been many others.
And that’s simply the game plan the White House has set out to play: no matter what the Democrats or anyone else proposes, it isn’t good enough, so they aren’t really offering any “real” alternatives. After all, could you even imagine the White House hearing a Democratic proposal and saying, “hey, yeah, that’s better than our plan, let’s go with that”? Not in this universe. So Senator Obama’s proposal will without doubt also be found deficient in some manner, again on the presumption that the “Surge™” is the ultimate in perfection among plans for Iraq.
My personal feeling is that Democrats don’t have to offer up a plan for success in Iraq. As long as the Republicans are in office, its their war, its their problem. Why would the Democrats offer up a solution to the Republicans problem, in detail? I mean, what if, by God they struck upon an obviously brilliant plan, and Bush adopted it and it saved his administration setting up Jeb Bush’s turn at the wheel?
I know, I know there are Americans dying over there.
My point isn’t that the Democrats shouldn’t care. My point is that its the Republicans job to have a detailed plan that will work, and since the real problem has been a force short fall of a half million troops, otherwise known as the Powell doctrine, an escalation of 20,000 more troops is too little and has already failed twice.
The Democrats should be saying that the Republican request for a better idea is simply evidence that they don’t know a way out, that they don’t know what the hell they are doing, and haven’t since day one. Fuck’em and feed’em beans I say.
The Democrats should, instead pull some version of the old Eisenhower ‘If elected I will go to Korea’ meme. The Democrats should say, if elected, they will fix the problem with good ol’ American common sense, and not later-day neo-german fascist-lite ideologicalness that got the country into this mess in the first place. – They will go to Iraq, eye ball the problem as it is “AT THE TIME” and do what common sense and American interest dictates. And they should promise, that it may not be pretty.
I think the closest to this approach is Hillary Clinton’s recent speach where she stated that Iraq is a mess of Bush’s creation and if he leaves it for the next president to fix it is monumental irresponsibility on his part. He created the mess he’s had ample time to fix it.
Put Iraq on them, don’t let them put it on us.
And while they are at it, they can show their concern for Americans by passing a minimum wage hike.
Always put it in terms that they don’t care about average every day americans because by their actions, they really don’t.