Afghanistan now deadlier than Iraq ever was

h/t Brandon Friedman at VetVoice

When the Iraq War reached its deadliest peak during a 10-week period in April, May, and June of 2007, 308 coalition troops died. That was 1 out of every 575 troops on the ground at the time.* It was a terrible period in which even the most die-hard Bush supporters began to question the sense in continuing the occupation. By contrast, 105 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan during the past 10 weeks. But because there are only 52,700 troops in Afghanistan, this represents 1 out of every 502 troops on the ground.

Memo to Pentagon: What more evidence do you need that Afghanistan is looking like an emergency?

* = The surge reached its peak in early summer 2007 and there were at least 177,000 coalition troops present.

No money for bridges, lots for war

Money woes may have led to the collapse of that bridge in Minnesota last year, the one that killed 13 people, according to a report conducted for the state Legislature by a private law firm.

But the key finding was on the money issue.

"Financial considerations, we believe, did play a part in the decision-making" on bridge maintenance, Robert Stein, one of the attorneys, told lawmakers during a briefing. "Sometimes it's easier just to take the least expensive alternative or just commission another study."

Tom Johnson, another attorney who worked on the report, told legislators the maintenance work wasn't sufficient. The bridge was rated in "serious to poor" condition for 17 consecutive years by the National Bridge Inventory Standards.

"The question for the Legislature is, do you want to have a bridge that remains in a poor condition over 17 years?" Johnson told lawmakers.

There were other issues too, but the lack of money necessary for proper maintenance was the main issue. The question just begs to be asked...

When are we going to start taking care of our needs here at home?

(Cross-posted at BFM.)

Labor Calls for Strike Against the War

(h/t AlterNet)

Take note, John McCain: Labor is calling for a general strike against the war. Specifically, the Vermont AFL-CIO is throwing their support behind the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), who announced it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1st to demand an immediate end to the war and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East.

Here's the VT AFL-CIO press release [my emphasis]:

The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their "unequivocal" support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq.

Montpelier, VT - The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their "unequivocal" support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq. The strike, being organized by the Longshore Caucus of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), will seek to shutdown all west coast ports for a period of 8 hours on the day of May 1st 2008. The Vermont AFL-CIO is the first state labor federation to publicly back the Longshoremen; other state federations are expected to follow.

The resolution, among other things, calls the war in Iraq "immoral, unwanted, and unnecessary", states that the vast majority of working Vermonters oppose the war, and contends that the war will only be brought to an end by "the direct actions of working people." Many other Vermont labor unions and organizations, including the Vermont Workers' Center, have also made official statements condemning the war.

The resolution also calls on working Vermonters to "discuss the actions of the Longshoremen, to wear anti-war buttons, and to take various actions of their own design and choosing in their workplace on May 1st, 2008."

"Workers in Vermont and all across this nation are against this war. We have already demanded that the government end it, but they have consistently failed to heed our words. Therefore working people are beginning to take concrete steps to make our resistance known. If the war does not immediately end we, the unions and working people of Vermont, will also be compelled to take appropriate action," said David Van Deusen, a District Vice President of the Vermont AFL-CIO.

Traven Leyshon, President of the Washington, Lamoille & Orange County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, said, "Vermont labor has long called for an end to this war. The untold billions being spent on the war could instead be used to address our domestic needs. It is working people who pay the cost of the war - in some cases with our lives, but always with our sacrifices."

Labor looks out for us. The same can't be said for John McCain and friends.

You can read the full text of the resolution here.

(Cross-posted at Blogging for Michigan.)

Liberators or Liars?

Wednesday marks the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war. This is what President Bush said about Iraq five years ago today:

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.

The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.

The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

This is what the media reported last week:

A detailed Pentagon study confirms there was no direct link between late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda network, debunking a claim President George W. Bush's administration used to justify invading Iraq.

Coming five years after the start of the war in Iraq, the study of 600,000 official Iraqi documents and thousands of hours of interrogations of former Saddam Hussein colleagues "found no smoking gun (i.e. direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and Al-Qaeda," said the study, quoted in US media Thursday.

And this is what McCain and Cheney told Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki today:

...both Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Vice President Cheney vowed “that the U.S. would maintain a long-term military presence in Iraq until al-Qaida is defeated there.”

So much for "Mission Accomplished," and Bush said that on May 1, 2003.

(Cross-posted at BFM. Also check out the great pictures WK posted from the anti-war march held over the weekend by the local chapter of SDS.)

A lot of money for death and destruction

How much have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost American taxpayers? Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz coauthored an article in the London Times yesterday that crunched some numbers.

As the fifth year of the war draws to a close, operating costs (spending on the war itself, what you might call “running expenses”) for 2008 are projected to exceed $12.5 billion a month for Iraq alone, up from $4.4 billion in 2003, and with Afghanistan the total is $16 billion a month. Sixteen billion dollars is equal to the annual budget of the United Nations, or of all but 13 of the US states. Even so, it does not include the $500 billion we already spend per year on the regular expenses of the Defence Department. Nor does it include other hidden expenditures, such as intelligence gathering, or funds mixed in with the budgets of other departments. [...]

From the unhealthy brew of emergency funding, multiple sets of books, and chronic underestimates of the resources required to prosecute the war, we have attempted to identify how much we have been spending - and how much we will, in the end, likely have to spend. The figure we arrive at is more than $3 trillion. [emphasis added]

Three trillion dollars for death and destruction, and a majority of it was spent on the Bush administration's lies about Iraq. How different our country and the world would be today if leaders had followed Barack Obama's example and voted against the war. Instead of reading the intelligence for themselves, they took the President at his word. Their intellectual laziness cost thousands of people their lives and put future generations in debt for years to come. History will not only judge Bush harshly, but also our leaders who blindly followed him.

Economy and war in Iraq linked

The NY Times asks, Will George W. Bush be remembered as the president who lost the economy while trying to win a war?

Mr. Bush has spent years presiding over an economic climate of growth that would be the envy of most presidents. Yet much to the consternation of his political advisers, he has had trouble getting credit for it, in large part because Americans were consumed by the war in Iraq.

Americans weren't consumed by the war in Iraq - Bush and friends were. Ironically, it's because of their war that our economy is in such bad shape.

Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org:

But, every time the president talks about it, just keep one thing in mind. You cannot separate the economy and the war in Iraq, which has cost billions of dollars. Whether one believes in the cause of the war or doesn't, an unobjectionable truth is that it has been a drain on the economy and Americans have not been asked to sacrifice to lessen the impact. We've now entered the Iraq Recession, another point the president is unlikely to admit.

The president is unlikely to admit this either:

A proposed economic stimulus plan could boost this year's deficit by $100 billion, but political leaders believe the flood of red ink is worth the cost if it keeps the country from falling into a prolonged recession.

How prolonged?

Worries that any recession could be a severe one, far surpassing the last two mild, brief downturns in 1990-91 and 2001.

Finally, I doubt you'll hear the president relate how the world views our economy:

In Switzerland, the World Economic Forum has wrapped up after five days of talks. Joseph Stiglitz, the former chief economist of the World Bank, was one of several economists attending the summit in Davos to issue grave warnings about the state of the economy.

"There really are some deep structural problems. The fact that the U.S had to borrow in 2006 $850 billion from other countries-the richest country in the world; fundamental global imbalances, financial systems that don't know how to manage risk. These are not symptoms of what you might call a fundamentally strong economy."

It turns out our economic climate of growth was all smoke and mirrors. There's nothing to envy about that.

U.S. awakens to "soft power"

Led by the military, war-weary US awakens to 'soft power'

After six hard years of war, the United States is awakening to the idea that "soft power" is a better way to regain influence and clout in a world bubbling with instability.

And nowhere is the change in thinking more advanced than in the US military, which is pushing for greater diplomacy, economic aid, civic action and civilian capabilities to prevent new wars and win the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hmm...I seem to recall diplomacy being recommend before we went into Iraq, before we lost all these lives, before we squandered all this money, and before Bush ruined our reputation and standing in the world.

At least the military isn't waiting on the Bush administration to change their thinking, which the article describes as a "a mixed bag."

The military wants civilian agencies to do more to prevent wars, but is not waiting for them to get their act together, analysts say.

Instead, it has stepped up thinking and planning for what it calls "phase zero," military jargon for conflict prevention.

"I think they've come to the conclusion that insurgencies are really hard to fight. And so it would be better if they could not have the conflict in the first place," said Robert Perito, an expert at the US Institute of Peace.

"In conflict prevention, of course, there is very little military component to that. It's mostly all political and economic.

Americans will be dealing with the ramifications of the Iraq war for decades to come. Maybe conflict prevention will be the one good thing that comes out of all of this.

Bush Mentors Maliki

It appears Maliki's model of government is a clone of the Bush administration. From TPM Muckraker [all emphasis mine]:

President Bush might not require Congressional approval for the upcoming U.S.-Iraq security agreement. But [Iraq gov't spokesman] al-Dabbagh said the Maliki government will need to secure a blessing for the deal from the Iraqi parliament. And even though the deal will cover a U.S. military presence for years to come, Dabbagh doesn't expect any parliamentary turbulence -- let alone refusal.

"[The] U.S. people should have confidence that the Iraqi people are accepting this without any pressure," he said. "It is their choice to have a lasting agreement."

Huh? It's their choice? Not according to recent polls (also from TPM):

A September poll conducted by ABC News and the BBC found that 47 percent of Iraqis want the U.S. to leave Iraq immediately, up from 26 percent in November 2005 and 35 percent last winter. Polls in Iraq should be taken with a grain of salt, given the inherent problems of polling under violent conditions. But only seven percent said U.S. troops should "remain until the Iraqi security forces can operate independently, and zero said the U.S. should never leave."

What the people want apparently doesn't matter (that sounds familiar). Dabbagh doesn't expect the parliament to scotch the agreement. He even hinted that the Maliki government will make sure it doesn't.

Meanwhile, here at home, a majority of Americans still remain committed to bringing our troops home. Maybe Bush or Maliki could explain to us how "bring the troops home" translates into "never leave Iraq."

Five years ago today...

Think Progress reminds us that five years ago today the Senate voted to authorize the use of military force in Iraq by a vote of 77-23. Here are the 23 Senators who courageously voted no, including Michigan's own, Sen. Debbie Stabenow and Sen. Levin.


Bush declared at the time that "America speaks with one voice."

Five years later, America is once again speaking with one voice: "Bring our troops home."

(Cross posted at Blogging for Michigan.)

Republicans two-faced about taxes

I wouldn't send a Republican to McDonald's with a $20 bill to pick up a hamburger for me. Not only would they keep the change, they'd probably eat my hamburger. How did I reach this conclusion? Follow along.

From Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, I learned that five MI GOP Members of Congress sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, House Leader Craig DeRoche, Rep. Joe Knollenberg, Thad McCotter, Fred Upton, and Tim Walberg urging them to hang tough against a state tax increase. Michigan faces a government shutdown if the legislature doesn't pass a new budget by the end of the month. State Republicans want $1 billion in cuts; meanwhile, Gov. Granholm and Democrats called the cuts draconian and said they would hurt our citizens, schools, police, etc.

The Republicans are outraged that Granholm and the Democrats would put people and a decent quality of life ahead of tax cuts. How dare they waste tax dollars they ask? Well, what about Iraq? Where's the outrage about the amount of money we're spending there? We've spent over $500 billion on that lie so far, but according to Daily Kos that's just the beginning.

A new Congressional study finds that President Bush's plans for the U.S. in Iraq over the next several decades will reach the trillions of dollars, on top of the approximately $567 billion the war has already cost. That accounting assumes a significant troop drawdown -- and still tallies a daunting expense for the United States [...] [emphasis added]

A prior CBO study estimated that U.S. costs in Iraq from 2009 to 2017 will total approximately $1 trillion. On top of that, under the reduced-force combat scenario envisioned in this CBO estimate, the U.S. will spend another $1 trillion by 2057 -- the lifespan of the U.S.'s Korean presence to date.

Kos says, "I'd respect the Republicans mishandling this war a tiny bit more if they actually worried about paying for this war rather than blather on about tax cuts."

To paraphrase Kos, I'd respect our state Republicans a tiny bit more if they were honest. They argue that no amount of money is too much to spend in Iraq, but when it comes to meeting the needs of people here at home - the ones who send their tax dollars to Washington to pay for their war - they snap their wallets shut and expect the rest of us to follow along. They know this war is based on a lie, but it's more important to stick to the party line than admit they were wrong.

So you see, it's okay for us to send money to Washington so they can continue their war indefinitely - a war that enriches Republican profiteers and CEO's of defense contractors - but we get nothing in return, not even some change to spend on our schools, infrastructure, health care, etc.

We're being robbed.

Republicans don't even try to pretend they care anymore

Several news items caught my eye this week that showed the Republican Party's true colors and/or total disregard and disrespect for American citizens. First, from the WaPo, comes this:

The Justice Department notified Chiquita Brands International yesterday that it will not seek to criminally charge its former top executive and other former high-ranking officers over the company's payment of bribes to a Colombian organization on the State Department's list of terrorist groups.

Corporations trump taxpayers and soldiers. How typical. Why should they be held accountable or have to sacrifice for the war on terror? That's what we have soldiers and taxpayers for according to Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). From Think Progress:

In an interview on CNN today, Wolf Blitzer asked House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) about “the Americans who are killed every month” in Iraq and “how much longer” the “military commitment is going to require?” “The investment that we’re making today will be a small price if we’re able to stop al Qaeda here,” replied Boehner.

What arrogance. Even one life is too much to pay for Bush's lie. But, wait, there's more:

...it's not only going to be a small price for the near future, but think about the future for our kids and their kids.

Does Boehner honestly think we believe he cares about our children? Bush and friends only care about corporations. Take the recent toy recalls by Mattel as an example. This is how Dana Milbank described the testimony of Nancy Nord (acting chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Bush appointee) when she appeared before legislators to answer questions about all that lead:

Actually, the lawmakers' drilling of Nord made it sound as if every day is a sad one for her agency. Product safety regulators, broke and undermanned, have been powerless to prevent millions of Barbie dolls, Polly Pockets, Dora the Explorers and Thomas the Tank Engines from entering the country from China with lead paint and other defects. Parents -- and therefore lawmakers -- are furious. But instead of showing contrition, Nord treated the lawmakers as if they were impertinent children.

"Are you saying that the Chinese have now adopted a new and different standard when it comes to lead paint?" asked Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the panel examining the issue.

"I think, sir, that that's a question you would really need to put to the Chinese," Nord replied curtly.

Durbin, with some of the offending toys on the table in front of him, asked why the commission didn't do more to block lead in children's jewelry.

"Well, the law is what it is" was Nord's brushoff.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) asked Nord if she knew what percentage of toys get lead tests.

"No, I don't."

After much hemming and hawing from Nord about her agency's ability to stop dangerous toys coming from China, Brownback got cranky: "Chairman, what I want to hear is you say these products are not going to enter our shores if that's what you continue to find."

"Well, I'm happy to say that," Nord retorted.

It's pretty obvious Nord doesn't care about our children, which turns out to be a plus for corporations.

While dismissive of the senators, the acting chairman was solicitous of the manufacturers. She "commended" the industry for its safety initiatives. A toy manufacturer reciprocated, calling Nord's agency "exemplary."

If Nord sounded a bit like a corporate fox guarding the consumer henhouse, consider her previous employers: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Corporate Counsel Association and Eastman Kodak.

Among the nuggets served up at yesterday's hearing: The CPSC's staff, once 978, is down to 401; its budget is half of what it was three decades ago, in inflation-adjusted terms; its toy-testing department consists of one man, Bob, who drops toys on the floor in his office; and its toy-testing lab is an overloaded workbench in its outmoded headquarters.

So the toy testing department's budget has been drowned in a bathtub. Let me guess. The Republicans trust corporations to do the right thing and test their own products, those same corporations that cut costs by outsourcing jobs to China. The same corporations that never stopped to think that the Chinese might cut costs too.

Why is lead paint — or lead, for that matter — turning up in so many recalls involving Chinese-made goods?

The simplest answer, experts and toy companies in China say, is price. Paint with higher levels of lead often sells for a third of the cost of paint with low levels. So Chinese factory owners, trying to eke out profits in an intensely competitive and poorly regulated market, sometimes cut corners and use the cheaper leaded paint.

So you can see why I don't believe the Republicans and their corporate friends when they say they care about our children. Their actions speaker louder than their words, and because of them, our children are dying or in danger.

No more tax dollars for war

President Bush plans to ask Congress for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq. The cost of the war now exceeds $3 billion a week.

Enough is enough already. The Big Easy is still in trouble, the number of uninsured continues to grow, our infrastructure needs repairs and 36.5 million people are living in poverty. The war has wasted money that could have been used to help people here at home and abroad.

No wonder the rest of the world views us with such disgust. Our priorities are screwed up. We spend billions to destroy foreign countries and kill people, but we become miserly when it comes to using money for the common good.

What happened? When did we become a nation of sociopaths?

A reason to be thankful for Mike Bishop (snark)

I thought Sen. Mike Bishop (R-MI) was over-the-top when he censored BFM from senate computers for saying bad things about him, but Rep. Randy Kuhl (R-NY) makes him look almost rational. Kuhl has been under pressure from protesters lately for his continued support of Bush's war policy, but his thoughts on how to deal with them sends shivers down my spine.

From the Huffington Post:

In an interview yesterday with the editorial board of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Kuhl said he has "thought about packing" firearms to fend off protesters:

"Kuhl said that he wasn't at his offices when the protesters in Bath and Fairport were there. When I asked him if he had ever protested, he said "Yes, when I walked off the floor in Congress recently." I asked if that means he thinks the protesters have a right to do so and he again said "yes, just not over the line." He said that the types of protests have caused him to rethink security at his offices and that means securing doors. He said they are "more protective now" and that he "thought about packing."" [emphasis mine]

Just how "over the line" were those protesters that Kuhl is considering carrying a gun? You be the judge.

Republicans in the Twilight Zone

Following their vote yesterday to remain in Iraq indefinitely, the NY Times says Republicans are trapped in the twilight zone.

Twilight Zone Filibusters

Republicans have the right to filibuster under centuries-old rules that this page has long defended. It is the height of hypocrisy for this band of Republicans to use that power since only about two years ago they were ready to unilaterally ban filibusters to push through some of Mr. Bush’s most ideologically blinkered judicial nominees.

But beyond that, the Republicans are doing the public a real disservice and playing an increasingly risky hand by delaying sober consideration of the war. [...]

In postponing real action to September and beyond, Republicans laughed off the all-night debate as a “slumber party” of “twilight zone” theatrics by the Democrats. In fact, Bush loyalists seem trapped in the twilight zone, ducking their responsibility to represent constituents by applying credible pressure on the president to come up with an end to his sorry war.

While Republicans remain in the twilight zone, the rest of the country lives with the reality they've created, which explains these results from a poll taken yesterday by CBS/NYT:

61% Say Congress Shouldn't Fund War Without Timetable For Withdrawal

Don't give up, Harry

It's about time, Harry

From Bob Geiger: Reid To Force Senate Into All-Night Session Tuesday

Forcing his Republican colleagues to put up or shut up on the notion of an up-or-down vote, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) just moments ago announced that he will immediately file a cloture motion on the Reed-Levin troop redeployment bill and, if Republicans follow through with a filibuster, will place the Senate in a prolonged all-night session Tuesday to force a true continuation of debate.

In Reid's words:

““All Senators will be welcome to speak their mind. Those of us who are ready to end the war will make our case to the American people. Those who support the status quo are welcome to equal floor time to make their case. Let the American people hear the arguments. Let them see their elected representatives engaging in a full, open and honest debate. Let them hear why Republicans are obstructing us on this amendment.

I can't wait to hear members of the GOP stand there and explain why they want U.S. troops to keep dying for nothing.

You can't veto the truth

I don't care what explanation the president gives for his veto. I don't want to hear it. Enough is enough already.

Americans United for Change have an ad ready to run in response to President Bush's veto and it says everything anyone needs to know:

Mr. President. You can veto a bill, but you can’t veto the truth.

Levin on Cheney: There he goes again

Yesterday, it was Lee Iaccoca blasting Bush, and today it's Sen. Carl Levin calling Cheney on his lies.

From the LA Times: Tell us another one, Mr. Vice President

TO PARAPHRASE President Reagan, there he goes again.

On Rush Limbaugh's radio program last week, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke about Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi and stated: "He went to Baghdad. He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the Al Qaeda operations inside Iraq…. This is Al Qaeda operating in Iraq and, as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq."

It is incredible that more than four years after the invasion, the vice president is still trying to convince the public that Saddam Hussein's regime was connected to Al Qaeda and that Zarqawi's presence in Iraq was evidence of a connection.

While the vice president doesn't say directly that there was a tie between the two, his clear purpose is to blur the line between Al Qaeda — the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks — and the Iraqi dictator in order to justify the war in Iraq.

The problem is, that's simply not supported by the facts or by our intelligence community — and everyone except the vice president acknowledges it. In September, for example, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in a bipartisan report that Hussein was "distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al Qaeda to provide material or operational support." And the CIA reported a year earlier, in October 2005, that the Iraqi regime "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates." As the Intelligence Committee report noted, the Iraqi intelligence service was actually trying to capture Zarqawi, who was in Baghdad under an alias. Is the vice president willfully ignoring what the rest of the government has concluded? Or does he have access to information he hasn't shared with us? If so, he should produce it.

The vice president has a clear, documented pattern of overstating and misstating information with regard to Iraq. He also, for instance, continued to claim that 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta may have met with an Iraqi agent in Prague — long after the intelligence community believed otherwise. Again, his obvious purpose is to link Hussein's regime with Sept. 11, even though the rest of the world has concluded that no such link exists.

The vice president has made so many outlandish statements that the country barely raised an eyebrow at his false statement last week. The public has stopped believing the words of a man who promised, before we invaded Iraq, that we would be "greeted as liberators" and reassured us nearly two years ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes."

But his comments continue to erode our credibility with the international community, which has already been severely damaged by our rush to war with Iraq with little international support. If, in the months ahead, we face a crisis over Iran's weapons programs and need to rally the international community, we may find that the world has little interest in trusting an administration that misstates facts.

By all accounts, Dick Cheney is one of the most powerful vice presidents in our history, if you define power as influence over policy. We need to ask ourselves: What does it mean for our country when the vice president's words lack credibility, but he still wields great power?

It means too many voters are taking at face value the ideas they're being fed instead of reading, investigating and thinking for themselves. Thankfully, Levin doesn't fall in line that easily. He voted against the war from the start (against popular opinion) and played a key role in determining that the connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda was intentionally misleading.

Michigan's Democrats Vote to Set Deadline

The House of Representives voted 218-212 today to set a firm deadline for our troops to leave Iraq. This reflects the sentiments of 6 in 10 Americans.

Thank you to all of Michigan's Democratic Representives who voted yes on the bill:

John Conyers, John Dingell, Dale Kildee, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Sander Levin, and Bart Stupak

Thanks for nothing to all of Michigan's Republican Representatives who voted no:

Dave Camp, Vernon Ehlers, Peter Hoekstra, Joe Knollenberg, Thad McCotter, Candice Miller, Mike Rogers, Fred Upton, and Timothy Walberg.

Now the troops know who really supports them.

Over the weekend, I suggest our state Republicans read what The Economist has to say about their party (especially after the way they voted today):

Collateral damage, The Republican Party is among the war's victims

And to help them understand why:

Mugged by reality. How it all went wrong in Iraq.

Rep. Kildee's Definitive Statement on Iraq

The Detroit News is reporting that Michigan Democrat Rep. Dale Kildee of Flint spoke on the House floor today in favor of the Democratic resolution.

"President Bush either did not get or did not understand the message the American people sent last November," said Kildee. "Before the end of this year, U.S. troops should be redeployed and their efforts focused on support and training for Iraqi security forces. It is their country. It is their fight. It is their future."

Kildee can't put it any plainer than that - and he echos the sentiments of all of Michigan's Democrats who are also opposed to escalation - yet most of our state Republicans support the President's plan.

If they won't listen to Kildee, then maybe they'll take to heart what one of their own has to say:

U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, said today that he will vote for a resolution opposing President Bush's plan to send more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq, becoming the first Michigan Republican to break with the White House. [...]

Upton said the evidence leading the U.S. to invade Iraq was "flat out wrong."

He added, "It is time for the Iraqis, not the United States, to lead after four years. We need to send a message to our troops that, yes, we support them, and for this administration, a signal to pursue a diplomatic surge in the region."

Upton called the situation in Iraq a civil war.

"The Iraqis don't want us there…So much for being a liberator. We are viewed as part of the problem, not the solution." [emphasis added]

Kudos to Kildee for reminding the House about the message voter's sent last November, and kudos to Upton for having the courage to put aside politics and do the right thing.