Question and answer
Who said it?- "Dates certain, Mr. President, are not the criteria here. What is the criteria and what should be the criteria is our immediate withdrawal from (there). And if we do not do that and other Americans die, other Americans are wounded, other Americans are captured because we stay too long-- longer than necessary-- then I say that (my italics) the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States who did not exercise their authority under the Constitution of the United States and mandate that they be brought home quickly and as safely as possible.Answer- Senator John McCain, October 19th, 1993, in regards to Bill Clinton's decision to maintain a military presence in Somalia.
Isn't the internet a marvelous tool? So much for the Republicans' argument that only the president can make decisions about military deployment. No American in history has emboldened our enemies more than George W. Bush. It's time for Congress to cut off funding for his imperial occupation of Iraq.
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Cardinals' World Series hero Jeff Weaver just reinforced for me again Jerry Seinfeld's old gag that cheering in sports is essentially just rooting for laundry. I was completely ambivalent about Weaver before he wore the Cardinal uniform last summer, and then he quickly became one of my favorites in October, exemplifying quite well the Birds' overachieving status. He filed for free agency in November and I'd been putting the odds that he would return to the Cardinals in '07 squarely at 50-50. Fair or not, my prejudices dictated that if he agreed to return to St. Louis for the coming year, my entire personal opinion of him as an athlete and as a man would soar, and if he didn't, he would forever after be the stooge who didn't know a good thing when he had it, and who let his agent sacrifice the pitcher's career achievement and public adulation for a bit more money which he couldn't rightly spend regardless.
Well, Weaver officially became a Seattle Mariner this week. He had told Cards' manager Tony LaRussa that he wanted to return, and instructed the team's GM that a long-term deal was more important than the dollars in the contract. Then he turned down the club's two-year contract for a one-year pact with the Mariners, returning to the American League, where he says he hates pitching. He leaves the World Champions, where he was penciled for the #2 slot in the rotation, for a perennial cellar-dweller in a four-team division, and for a home ballpark in the corner of the country where he has a career 6.55 ERA. He leaves Dave Duncan, the pitching coach who resurrected his career, for a job in the stable of first-year Major League coach Rafael Chaves. And wait until he finds out that that's not Gold Glovers Scott Rolen and Albert Pujols patrolling the infield corners for scorching line drives at Safeco Field, it's Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson.
Good luck, stooge.
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Quote of the Day: Miami Herald's Greg Cote, "NFL officials have come out with a list of prohibitive items that cannot be brought into the stadium Sunday. The list includes umbrellas, coolers, beach balls, banners, weapons, and O.J. Simpson."
posted by CM @ 8:45 PM
5 Comments:
Congress doesn’t have the balls to cut funding for Iraq. Neither will they have the balls to stop Bush or Clinton from attacking Iran. Iraq, the surge, and the resolution are small potatoes in the big picture. Iran is the issue to focus on if one really want to stop US military action in the Middle East.
Q: Who said, “Iran threatens the security of Israel and the entire world. Let me be clear: Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons. For years, the US hasn't done enough to deal with what I have seen as a threat from Iran. As my country stayed on the sidelines, these problems got worse. To a large extent, the US abdicated its responsibility to the Europeans. This was a mistake. The Iranian president's statements such as his description of the Holocaust as a myth and his goals to wipe Israel off the map indicate that Iran is serious about its threats.”
A: John Edwards
TA
I think you're absolutely correct.
I agree with Edwards, though, that Iran has to be dealt with-- if it's from a diplomatic standpoint and involves the input of other nations. I don't understand why we refuse to meet these rogue countries at the table. There's no danger in "legitimizing" their leaders by simply talking with them. The mistake is refusing to talk and allowing men like Ahmadinejad to taunt us towards attack. Our military action in the Middle East is what rallies support for these regimes.
Apologies in advance for the length…
CM, I’m surprised that you feel Iran has to be dealt with. Why do you say that?
Edwards’ seems to believe that Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb would be disastrous. I see only two fundamental ways to even try to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb: by force or by changing the way Iran leadership thinks. You don’t prefer the former and I don’t think we can change the minds of leaders who call the USA “The Great Satan” before a nuclear bomb can be developed. For example, even Bill Clinton couldn’t bring peace between the PLO and Israel no matter how much talking was done because the PLO simply did not want peace.
I believe that our political as well as our military action in the Middle East rallies support for these regimes. The only true solution is to stop buying their oil, keep their troublemakers out of western nations, and leave them alone so that their culture can remain unchanged for another thousand years.
I say that the USA can and should safely ignore Iran’s nuclear program for the following reasons:
1) Iranian leaders are provoking the USA and Israel for internal political reasons and do not intend to attack either on any significant scale. They have long had the conventional weapons to kill just as many people as three nuclear bombs and dead is dead; what have they been waiting for the past 25 years?
2) Any nuclear attack from WMD developed in Iran could eventually be traced back to them. The mutually assured destruction principle applies again here. Clerics and Iranian politicians don’t go on suicide missions they just convince their citizens to do this on small scales where leadership will not be taken out as a result.
3) If a country like Iran wants WMD, that country will get WMD because they can easily obtain the instructions.
4) If Iran really wanted to attack they would not be so open with their development program. They could strike with surprise and maintain plausible deniability on the world stage to gain sympathy and support. Instead they publicize so they can use their development program to extort money from other countries.
5) If Israel was really worried they would have taken out the Iranian development sites years ago like they did with Iraq.
6) People against the USA using military power in the Middle East should be in favor of letting Iran alone simply because countries with nuclear bombs don’t attack other countries with nuclear bombs.
TA
I hope you never feel you have to apologize for lack of brevity on this blog.
I agree with you (once again) that Ahmadinejad's provocation is the result of Iran's internal political realities. Our militarism and iron-handed approach to conflict resolution has helped rally Iranian patriotism (and Syrian patriotism, as well, for that matter.) One of the truly damaging results of President Bush's bravado and action is that it has failed to take into account that other world leaders are not beholden to the voters of America. Allies like Spain didn't abandon us because they were "weak-willed," but because their pro-Bush governments were tossed out of office or reduced in power over Bush's global debacle.
I'm definitely not advocating military action in Iran, or even any type of nation-building effort which, in effect, would equate to early 20th century-style British and French colonization over that part of the world, but it's also important to recognize that we have had widespread pro-democracy, anti-Ahmadinejad rallies in Tehran over the last couple weeks, and we have to support these courageous demonstrators in any fundamental, unilateral, diplomatic way we can.
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It's actually hard to blame Iran for pursuing a nuclear program. Our policy, after all, has encouraged it. Their leaders see an "axis of evil" country that doesn't have nukes (Iraq) get attacked, and one that does (North Korea) get ignored. What would you do?
If I were Iran I would go after the bomb, too. If I were the U.S. I would quietly monitor Iran’s nuclear program while publicly ignoring them and make energy independence a serious top priority. TA
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