(Ironic that Republicans who called previous voters against supplementals traitors or defeatist now vote against it, and Democrats vote for it. - promoted by Jon Kantrowitz)
When it comes to a major opportunity to stop the wars, as Edwin Starr would sing, Absolutely nothing!
All the members of the Connecticut Congressional delegation--Rosa DeLauro, Chris Murphy, Joe Courtney, Jim Himes, John Larson--voted for the war supplemental. Several of these pols have presented themselves in their campaigns as being committed to a less warlike foreign policy. But when the chips were down and there was an opportunity to stand up and really cut the funding that fuels this bloody mayhem, they voted for war.
Mr. Hugh Bailey
Assistant Editorial Board Editor
The Connecticut Post
Dear Mr. Bailey,
I read with surprise and dismay your recent oped suggesting that Republican Congressman Chris Shays should be re-elected. You asked rhetorically, "What's so bad with Chris Shays?", responding "He's pretty good on global warming. He supports alternative energy. He says he wants universal health care. What's so bad about all that?" You go on to conclude that, "Shays looks good on a whole list of issues," and assert, without explaining the rationale, that the suggestion "that Republican moderates are a group worth having around isn't without merit." You also suggest that the main rationale for getting rid of Mr. Shays, returning the Democrats to power, makes "getting Shays" a moot point.
Have our standards for public officials and their accountability to the voters sunk so low that any incumbent Republican should be re-elected as long as Democrats are in control and he can no longer do much damage? I would like to point out a critical reason that Mr. Shays should be removed from Congress that was not a factor in the last election: He lied to us. Chris Shays told voters repeatedly that he favored setting a timeline for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq, and that most could be withdrawn in 2007 (Washington Post, August 25, 2006). He stated in debates with Democratic candidate Diane Farrell that he was "more anti-war than she is" because he favored a timeline, but she favored benchmarks. Yet once re-elected, Mr. Shays turned around and voted five separate times against setting precisely such a benchmark for withdrawal that he told the voters he favored. He justified his flip-flop by telling voters that he supported a timeline, but only if it were introduced by President Bush, the commander-in-chief. Mr. Shays certainly didn't tell voters about that little catch during the campaign. And now, while still maintaining that he supports a timeline for withdrawal, he is supporting John McCain for president, who has stated emphatically that such a timeline would create "chaos", and was tantamount to "retreat" and surrender" and that he would never support one. Should we voters really be expected to reward Mr. Shays with re-election for lying through his teeth to us about supporting timelines when hundreds of young Americans continue to be killed and wounded every month?
Faux moderate and Bush Neocon Chris Shays will appear on John Dankosky's "Where We Live" live call-in show tomorrow morning (Friday, July 11) on Connecticut public radio's WNPR. In Fairfield County, it is carried on 88.5 FM. Please call in or email your questions for Both Ways Shays.
Call during the Show:
(860) 275-7266
Or email questions and comments to:
wherewelive@wnpr.org
You have to get on the phone early, because Dankosky actually doesn't take many calls from listeners.
As we remember the nation's war dead and
veterans today, let's take a look at how
Connecticut's Congressional delegation has honored their service.
Here are the voting scorecard ratings from the Disabled
American Veterans. There are no ratings yet for Chris Murphy
and Joe Courtney, but we can look at those with longer records.
Republicans like to talk a good game with veterans
at this time of year, but their records tell a story of profound
cynicism.
Hmm. Notice any trends? Even though Republicans
have been hard at work lately to make sure that veterans don't vote,
they may hear from the better informed veterans at election time.
DAV records: % calculations are mine, did not count missed
votes or votes that were not scored by DAV.
This is the oped I authored that appeared last week in Greenwich Citizen:
"Lord, I want a timeline!", Congressman Chris Shays blurted out toward the end of a rambling speech on the floor of the House early this month. But does Mr. Shays really want to establish a firm timeline for the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq? If one looks closely at his pronouncements on the Iraq War, the answer is "doubtful."
Mr. Shays has served as one of the Bush administration's most ardent and outspoken supporters for war from the beginning. For years following the invasion, Shays had been a consistent and determined foe of setting a timeline for withdrawal, declaring in January 2005, "We should not put out a timetable." Again in June of that year he told Larry King that, "The only people who need an exit plan, in my judgment, are the Syrians, Saudi Arabians and the Iranians. They're the ones who need to find a way to get out of the mess they're getting themselves into." In April of 2006 he stated, "I'm having every expert on terror that I talk to say that the last thing you do to terrorists is give them a timetable." Then in June of that year he blurted, "Thank goodness George Washington didn't have a timetable. Thank goodness George Washington didn't have Congress telling him he had to have a timetable to beat the Brits." On August 3, he was even more forceful in denouncing timelines, remarking on WNPR's "Where We Live" that, "To have a timeline would be absolutely foolish."
No, wait! Now I remember. Yes, I really did read the National Intelligence Estimate, and I just reread it. But it didn't have anything that said anything that would really dissuade me from voting for the war. Just a couple of pages in this great big document.
That, essentially, was what Shays said today in the Darien town hall meeting. Yet sly ole' Both Ways Shays neglected to specify whether he was talking about the pure blather in the unclassified NIE, or the classified NIE that was made available to members of congress. To read the classified version, the congressman had to go to a highly secure room near the Capitol, where he could read the report, but not take notes. And, as reported in Frontline's documentary "Bush's War", it was the classified version in which all of the qualifications and disagreements to the administration's intelligence assertions were laid out. If Shays had read the classified version, he would have remembered it.
It seems that Shays is trying to obscure the truth: that he didn't bother to read the classified intelligence, but simply relied on Bush, Cheney, and Rummie.
Nice try, congressman, but you gave the honest answer the first time in Westport last weekend: you didn't bother to read the classified intelligence, and as a result, tens of thousands of Americans are dead and wounded. You made a horrible mistake, and this country will be paying for it for decades.
Yep, Neocon Chris Shays (R, CT-04) at a town hall meeting this morning in Greenwich, Connecticut actually said that General Petraeus is "our Peace Corps general." Now Shays is so whacky to begin with, and his reasoning so goofy that I couldn't possibly explain to you why he made that statement. But as a former Peace Corps volunteer myself, I'm offended. And although Shays was also a Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji in the late '60's, he should be ashamed of himself.
It is unfathomable to me what sort of mentality could possibly conflate the killing, bombing and destruction of the Iraq War with the efforts of Peace Corps volunteers in developing countries around the world to improve the lives of ordinary people. Does Republican Chris Shays even understand the irony of calling a general of the United States Army the "Peace Corps" general? I suppose that if Ronald Reagan can name an intercontinental nuclear missile "The Peacemaker", then I suppose another Republican conservative like Shays can make an equally idiotic statement like calling the top military commander in the Iraqi theater of war the "Peace Corps general". But to decent, dedicated, hard-working Peace Corps volunteers around the world, past and present, his expression is inexplicable and reprehensible.
According to Hersam-Acorn publisher Thomas Nash (email address: tbnash@acorn-online.com), I've been banned by Greenwich Post! Here's the sequence of emails leading to my journalistic defenestration.
After I submitted the letter to the editor regarding Shays' CO status, which is published here at myleftnutmeg.com, and which I sent in before the deadline for letters to the editor, I received this from assistant editor Sara Poirier:
"Dear Mr. Goldrick,
I just wanted to give you a heads up in regard to your letter to the editor. After speaking with my publisher, we agreed that we most definitely want to run your letter, but would like to also get response from Chris Shays' camp on the important issues you raise and run the letters in the same issue. Being past deadline for this week's issue, it's only fair that we hold your letter until next week.
Thank you.
Sara"
That really ticked me off. Here's my response to assistant editor Poirier and editor Kristan Zimmer:
"Leadership matters." That was Congressman Chris Shays' campaign slogan. And I agree with him: leadership does matter. So it is important for voters to understand how Chris Shays, one of the most ardent supporters of sending young American men and women to fight in Iraq, could himself refuse service in the military when he was called. Chris Shays was twenty four years old when the lottery was reinstated on December 1, 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War. According to Selective Service records, Shays, whose birthday was October 18, drew the very low number 5. All men who drew the number 195 or lower that month were inducted into military service. Somehow, however, Shays was able to avoid induction. At the time Shays was serving in the Peace Corps in Fiji. Yet Peace Corps has confirmed that Peace Corps service was not considered a basis for a draft deferment.
I just got this link tonight from a good friend of mine who lives up in Woodbury, CT; he had fought in Vietnam and even this YouTube video brought tears to his eyes.....it certainly brought tears to mine.
This was made by a 15 year old girl, and if you haven't seen it yet, you must! Especially since its been 5 years that we've been in Iraq...
This afternoon's Moratorium started out like our past events had with about 10 people standing near the Veterans Memorial on Chelsea Parade. We held signs, showed the peace sign with our hands or waved.
Many cars passed by either honking or giving us the thumbs up or peace sign. The afternoon turned into evening and the temperature dropped.
About that time a car pulled up along side of us and a young man clad in a kind of sports jersey came out. We weren't sure what to expect, but were pleasantly surprised when he reached out to shake our hands and thank us for exercising the right his fellow marines were in Iraq for. He said he was a marine and due to head over there for the first time very soon. He appreciated what we were doing.
We explained to him that we were not against the soldiers but against the war that the administration had placed them in. We asked him to convey to his fellow marines once he was in Iraq that we support them wholeheartedly, but we want them home and ready to actually defend our nation should a real threat occur.
I honestly got the feeling that he did not believe in the war, but as a marine he was going to do his duty.
He was truly a respectful young man, and I only wished I could somehow keep him from going, from having to experience the horrors of war that would change him. I only wish this war was over now.
If ever I had a moment of doubt about the value of this Moratorium or any other anti-war demonstration, tonight made it perfectly clear. For all those people who sit on the sidelines not wanting or caring to speak out, we do.
STAMFORD - A Glenbrook Fire Department volunteer has been killed in Iraq, fire department and city officials said yesterday.
Gabrielle Costello, 26, a U.S. Army ranger, was killed in action Sunday, Fire Lt. Troy Jones said. Costello, who lived on Rose Street in the Glenbrook section of Stamford, was an active member of the department from March 2004 until October 2004, when he went into the Army, Jones said.
[...]
"This is the first person in uniform we have lost in either Iraq and Afghanistan," said Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy ... "We're reaching out to the family," Malloy said. "We will reach out and offer support, and to the extent that we can be helpful, we will be."
Stamford is also Joe Lieberman's home town.
UPDATE: Short bios of soldiers from Connecticut who were killed in the Iraq War (more than 40) can be found here.
A running count of U.S. Iraq War casualties can be found here.
WASHINGTON - Two Republican senators said that unless Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki makes more political progress by January, the U.S. should consider pulling political or financial support for his government.
The stern warnings, coming from Sens. Lindsey Graham and Saxby Chambliss Monday, are an indication that while GOP patience on the war has greatly increased this fall because of security gains made by the military, it isn't bottomless.
"I do expect them to deliver," Graham, R-S.C., said in a phone interview upon returning from a Thanksgiving trip to Iraq. "What would happen for me if there's no progress on reconciliation after the first of the year, I would be looking at ways to invest our money into groups that can deliver."
Thanksgiving is two days away, but around Connecticut, political leaders, community groups, and journalists are talking turkey -- or, in some cases, acting like turkeys. Part I of today's turkey roundup took a brief look at the status of food banks in CT. Here's a turkey call for worthwhile read 'ems:
Connecticut's junior turkey senator, Joe Lieberman, went to Iraq with John McCain, and you can bet they'll bring back glad tidings from thankful Iraqis thrilled at being liberated from the death and destruction of .... oh, forget it, you've heard it before. The NY Times reports that suicide bombings are down to 16 per month in Baghdad. Yes, that's the good news.
There are no shortages of turkeys on the environmental newsbeat. Peter Urban, in today's Connecticut Post hypes the Lieberman-Warner bill, saying it would "provide a signal to a skeptical world that the United States is serious about tackling this problem." Actually, the bill is weak, and if only Lieberman would use his vast oratory skills to strengthen it, we might just wean ourselves from oil and stop funding terrorist-producing countries in the Middle East.
Connecticutyankee offers some helpful hints for getting through Thanksgiving Day conversations without indigestion.
Seems like more and more people are expressing their frustrations with the war -- even business leaders in Bristol. That's something to be thankful for.
Joe Lieberman flipped out last week because Democrats refuse to accept his goofy World Domination and Destruction Policy. Lieberman, who has helped put hundreds of thousands of American troops into harm's way in Iraq for purposes never adequately explained while handing control of the region to Iran, implied that Democrats don't care that "Iran is murdering out troops."
The statement makes so little sense, you would expect some leading Democratic official -- a presidential candidate perhaps -- to tell Joe how ridiculous his statement was. But the reaction from leading Democrats was silence.
So, once again, Ned Lamont does what no other Democrat has the courage or good sense to do: Put Joe Lieberman in his place. In yesterday's Politico, Ned Lamont took apart Lieberman's speech, piece by piece:
Rather than challenge anyone's patriotism or motivations, let me pander to your common sense and challenge Lieberman's rereading of history.
In his speech, the senator stated that the Democratic foreign policy establishment has "flip-flopped" on its commitment to the "internationalist and tough-minded" foreign policy consensus of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy, and now the party is "viscerally opposed to the use of force."
Remember, this is the same Democratic establishment that pushed for military action in Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan and (regrettably) Iraq.
It is President Bush and Lieberman who have wandered from the "internationalist and tough-minded" foreign policy consensus that helped us to keep our alliance strong for 40 years of a Cold War, a war we won not by arrogantly going it alone but by working closely with our allies under Truman's NATO umbrella.
It was a war we won not by reflexively pulling the trigger but by exerting all the levers of American power [...]
Democrats are so invested in defeat, Lieberman said, that they cannot acknowledge that "the surge" is working. [...]
The not-so-good news is that Iraq's central government is barely functional, increasingly irrelevant to the security situation and incapable of making the political choices necessary for a lasting peace.
The British military recently reported that violence in Basra dropped 90% when British troops left the region. Nevertheless, Joe Lieberman will continue to argue for keeping Americans on the firing line in Iraq, and insulting anyone who disagrees with him.
Ned Lamont, in an interview with Yale University's The Politic, talks about the 2006 Senate race, the netroots, and his plans for the future. Here's an excerpt:
"The online community did not line up behind the incumbent but was willing to take a look at me. They give challengers like me an opportunity. Over time the Hartford Courant, The New Haven Register, and WFSB television news picked up once we got momentum, but the online community helped us pick up that momentum. The other thing the online community does is fact-check. They challenge you; they say, this is inaccurate or this is misrepresentative, or this is different from what you said a week ago Thursday. ...[T]he mainstream media like the Hartford Courant and New York Times start reading these commentaries online, and they slowly begin to filter into the mainstream press."
...
In Darien, First Selectman Evonne Klein, a Democrat who won re-election in a Republican town, explains what really matters to voters: competence.
"Local issues are not rooted in party politics," Klein said. "It's about who's going to best lead us. Who's been able to get the job done for the town." [...]
"We always have to work harder because we're in the minority," Klein said. "We can't sit back and say, 'If all our folks show up, we'll win,' because we won't."
...
The story of Marine Staff Sgt. Terry Rathbun's struggle to recover from his injuries reminds us of why ending the Iraq War is so important:
Most of the time, when Rathbun talks about being a wounded Marine, it's not long before he redirects the subject to other people. "I know there are a lot of people out there a lot worse off than me." He wonders what National Guard soldiers - who left higher-paying jobs to serve - do when they come home with life-changing wounds. How do they keep paying the mortgage with the relatively low VA benefits?
"There are a lot of people out there that have families that are losing everything," he said.
Great job by the Hartford Courant's Jesse Hamilton in covering Rathbun's story.
According to data carried on the website icasualties.org, the number of Americans killed, wounded, and medivac'd out of the country due to serious injury, disease, and combat-related psychiatric illness has now surpassed 61,000. That total includes 97 American women soldiers who've been killed and unspecified hundreds more women soldiers who have been wounded. It doesn't include most of the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who've returned from Iraq afflicted with PTSD, but only those who cracked while they were there and had to be medivac'd out of the combat zone. And it doesn't include the 130 American soldiers who committed suicide over there.
Here are the cold numbers for the senseless war that Joe Lieberman, Chris Shays, George Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of their neocon cabal forced us into:
killed in action: 3,859
wounded: 28,451
medivac'd out with serious injuries or disease: 29,584
Total: 61,894.
That also doesn't include the 17% of all soldiers who suffer "mild traumatic brain injury," or most of the 30% of all troops deployed to Iraq who suffer from PTSD, which now numbers in the hundreds of thousands. And the suicides only account for a quarter of all "non-hostile" deaths suffered by military members in Iraq. Furthermore, the figures for wounded and injured medivac'd out are only up to the beginning of October, more than a month ago in the deadliest year yet of this war.
Shame on those who sent them into that war and who still pretend that it is worth the dying.
Ever wonder how much your heating bill goes up each time Joe Lieberman threatens an attack on Iran? Or what happens to gas prices when Chris Shays greenlights a Turkish attack on the Kurds?
Since January of this year, crude oil prices have jumped 40%, and they have more than quadrupled since 2002. While oil producers like Russia, Venezuela, and Middle East countries experience enormous windfall profits, we consumers pay more for heating oil and gasoline, as do American businesses.
The Turkish government has sought parliamentary authority to launch attacks against Kurdish militants, who have long sought their own independent homeland. ...But it is fears that the dispute may escalate and threaten oil output in the wider region - Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia between them account for 20% of global supplies - which have fanned the price rises.
[..] The situation in northern Iraq is just one of a number of geopolitical factors which are causing uncertainty in the market and helping to push prices up.
Iran's push to acquire nuclear power and, many believe, nuclear weapons has sparked concerns it could use its own oil supplies as a bargaining chip in any future showdown.
Barely-veiled threats from the US, suggesting that military action remains a live option, have further accentuated fears.
Many factors account for price increases, including the Iraq War itself, violence in Nigeria, rising energy demands, and a devalued dollar. But as the Washington Post reports, the Iran War risk premium alone may be as high $15 a barrel.
Considering that tension in the Middle East makes oil-producing countries like Russia and Venezuela stronger while sucking money from the American economy (excluding the U.S. oil and arms industries), you would think that our political leaders would try to ease those tensions. But not Lieberman, Shays and the Bush Administration.
Instead of taking measures to end the war and stablize the Middle East, Lieberman, Shays and Bush do the opposite, by voting against, or vetoing, withdrawal timelines and advocating wider-scale attacks. Even worse, these men continue feeding the tensions and funding the war with U.S. tax dollars and American lives.
This amount of stupidity is hard to express in words. But Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess champion, does a nice job of it, below the fold...
As we remember the nation's war dead and
veterans today, let's take a look at how
Connecticut's Congressional delegation has honored their service.
Here are the voting scorecard ratings from the Disabled
American Veterans. There are no ratings yet for Chris Murphy
and Joe Courtney, but we can look at those with longer records.
Republicans like to talk a good game with veterans
at this time of year, but their records tell a story of profound
cynicism.
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