Every time a Republican trots out the tired line that whatever happens in Congress “emboldens” terrorists, I realize that its not just beer consumption that kills brain cells, its time spent in the Republican caucus in Congress. Today, after what, 18 trips to Iraq, where undoubtedly Shays has seen first hand that the 2 hours of electricity that Iraqis get is put ot better uses than watching television, Shays delivers another dumb statement.
“It’s almost like my Democratic colleagues want us to fail,” U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays said of a Democratic Iraq war funding proposal Tuesday, “like they got elected because of the war and now they’ve got to have that final blow.”
House Democratic leaders briefed members Tuesday of their majority party on the temporary funding measure that would fund $40 million for the war and other high-priority projects. If approved, Congress would vote on continued war funding mid-summer.
Shays, R-4, said the plan, proposed last week, gives “the terrorists a huge incentive to make things so bad by July that we basically give up.”
First, the Bush administration has failed. It succeeded militarily in 2003, and promptly failed subsequently by failing to identify and execute a plan that would accomplish anything other than the endless occupation that we are now mired in. Not having a plan to measure progress in is the real failure, and that failure falls squarely to the Bush administration. Not all Republicans are stupidly suggesting that we are giving up by requiring that progress be codified. From Juan Cole:
Not only is Republican congressman from Ohio, John Boehner, leaning toward setting benchmarks for progress in Iraq– this approach seems to have been endorsed by Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, as well. The point is that benchmarks for progress imply that a policy can succeed or fail, unlike Bush’s policy in Iraq. For Bush, there are only two settings, “slow progress” and “progress.” 300 hundred people slaughtered in a single day? That’s “slow progress.” Since there are only these two settings, there is never any reason to change policy, since whatever happens yields “progress,” even if it “isn’t as fast as we would like.” That things have for four years been spiralling down into the Night of the Living Dead is precluded by BushRove’s rhetorical strategy, which is almost never challenged by the press. But benchmarks? Then you could get “no progress” or even “things are getting worse.” And the further implication is that there is going to be a plan B. The Republicans in Congress have two choices at this point. Let Capt. Bush take them down to Davy Jones’ locker in 08, or work with the Dems on a plan B.
Yet if you read the Hour article, either Boehner is flip flopping, or there’s the partisan political game that continues to be played out, as if the Bush administration hasn’t managed to make the Harding administration to look like a beacon of responsible government.
From the Hour:
Shays announced last August his support for a timeline to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. Any withdrawal date should be based on the time necessary to train Iraqi security forces, he said.
But the congressman said last fall he was stymied in his efforts to devise a timeline by an uncooperative Pentagon. This year he has said it is not the Congress but President Bush who should set a date for withdrawal.
Speaking from Washington Tuesday, Shays said military commanders need until September to determine whether a surge of nearly 30,000 troops, most in and around Baghdad, is working.
Shays said he is not judging the surge by whether violence is completely eliminated.
“If we still are having to deal with a tremendous confrontation in Baghdad between Sunnis and Shias then we’re not succeeding,” Shays said. “But if they go into a market and blow up a bus, if that were the basis, then you’d be having Israel shut down.”
Well on further comment, Shays has flip flopped on the whole timeline issue too. The reality is that every time significant progress in Iraq has occurred, a deadline was set. Whether it was writing the Iraqi constitution or the election of a the parliment it came because there was a push to a deadline. Even the president has acknowledged this, to a group of conservative reporters last October:
QUESTION: Isn’t the big problem with the Iraqis that they’re so into brinksmanship, that the political breakthroughs we have are when we force deadlines on them, and that they let the deadlines pass and they wait until the train is about to hit them —
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
QUESTION: — and when you say that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, they know you’re not going to abandon the central front in the war on terror, so they think, okay, well, we’ll wait a while.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s that arc that [Gen. George] Casey talks about, about how fast do you push, push them out without us, but if you push too fast, does it not achieve our objective. First of all, part of this is a brand new experience for these guys. I was with the man from the Dominican Republic, President Fernandez, and we were talking about Cuba. And he said, just remember it takes a while for democracy to take hold. And I said, yes, okay, no kidding. We’re used to it. But we are really — we are working through a lot of serious issues, kind of psychological issues with these folks, as well as what it means to actually build consensus. So it’s a relatively new experience for them. The Maliki government has been in office for five months. And one of the troubles I have to deal with is the [Larry] Kudlow impatience factor. [Kudlow was one of the journalists attending] Seriously — not just you, Kuds — but it is a world that is like, instant, things have to happen.
QUESTION: You’ve also got your own term problems.
THE PRESIDENT: Believe me, I understand. Two years is a long time. Last year was a long year. (Laughter.) Believe me, it’s a long time.
But let me finish here. Part of the benchmark is precisely to create that sense of purpose for this government to have something to aim for. There’s nothing worse than to watch the government formation — we thought we had the government in like March, wasn’t it? And then we got it in June. And it was just an agonizing period. I’m sure you head bangers were just unbelievably frustrated with what’s going on, where are you.
And I understand that. And old Zal [Khalilzad] is a great ambassador because he’s patient in the sense that he understands there this dance that they go through. But I believe they’re getting more crisp in their decision-making. That’s one of the interesting things about Maliki, he appears to be a decision-maker. He doesn’t like it when he’s pushed too hard. You see blowbacks occasionally. Today he didn’t like it when there was an action taking place in the Sadr City. He didn’t like it because it caught him by surprise. Presidents don’t like surprises. But he appears to be a crisper decision-maker and a follow-through guy. That’s the whole purpose of the benchmarks, is to have — okay, you said, you’re going to do this now, let’s start getting some decisions made. So, precisely, you picked up the whole purpose of it.
source: The Hour, Shays: Give troop surge time to work, By PATRICK R. LINSEY, May 9, 2007
source: National Review, Should We Be So Dead-Set Against Deadlines? by Byron York, May 8, 2007
