I recently received a survey from the “Republican Senate Leadership” with an enclosed letter from Senator John Ensign which says that I, as a “loyal grassroots Republican,” have been selected as a “representative of ALL REPUBLICANS living in your voting district” and the survey– of which only limited numbers were sent out– must be accounted for within seven days of receipt. It’s just that important. What an honor!
I’m quite pleased to let the Republican leadership know that Republicans in my voting district agree that we should “strengthen the ‘War Against Islamic Jihadists’”– by leaving Iraq as soon as possible. We also want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent– and abolish the income tax and replace it with nothing. While we’re at it, let’s create “a stronger national defense” Reagan would be proud of– by closing most of our 140+ military bases throughout the world and securing our own borders. Let’s help the economy– by abolishing the Federal Reserve to stabilize the money supply. I’ll also tell them that education has no place in legislation at the federal level, and although the survey oddly says nothing about guns, I’m going to mention that guns are important to safety, too.
Senator Ensign writes that he wants to “reconnect with our grassroots base and refocus our policy agenda on the core Reagan Republican principles upon which it was founded– smaller government, cutting wasteful spending, lower taxes, a strong national defense and a belief in our inalienable individual liberties and freedoms.”
Wow, that sounds a lot like what I’m saying, but not what other Republicans are, and not even what the committee is saying in its own survey! It says it wants a “smaller government” and then goes on to ask about increasing Social Security, defense spending, education spending, and foreign aid. If we increase spending on all or even one of these programs, how exactly are we going to have a “smaller government” and no “wasteful spending”?
Ensign goes on to say that ending the “War against Islamic Jihadists” would be “retreat-and-defeat” or “cut-and-run.” This is pretty disingenuous. First of all, there were no Islamic jihadists within Iraq until we came along, as our own government admits. Internationally, jihadist terrorism has increased 600% since we invaded Iraq. So if we’re fighting a war against Islamic jihadism by invading Iraq and staying there indefinitely, we’re really not doing a good job with that. (Sure, that study was published in a left-leaning publication, but if it’s not true, why has there not been a survey done in response finding that terrorism has decreased? If it had, surely a right-winger would by now have come up with a study confirming this.) Indeed, the CIA’s top bin Laden expert for 10 years said Iraq “broke the back of our counterterrorism program.” We would be better off with actually capturing the people responsible for the September 11 attacks, who are not in Iraq but most likely in Pakistan, which is our ally.
Well, Senator Ensign, I’m mailing my survey to you today. I’m sure you’ll be excited to hear from me, a typical Republican Party leader.
Reagan would have increased bases, not closed them, and would have kept at it in Iraq. He also gave amnesty to illegal immigrants, although today he would probably see that the situation is different than it was back then.
Reaganite
February 22nd, 2008
Actually, Reagan did begin to close bases at the end of his term.
libertariangirl
February 22nd, 2008
Iraq was loaded with Jihadists long before 2003. What in the world have you been reading? And where in the hell have you been getting your information from?
Let me guess? Huffington Post, NY Times, Nation, and DailyKos?
Of course, if you read such sites, you’ll swallow the hard left Kool-Aid that Saddam was “secular” and “didn’t harbor terrorists” and “didn’t have WMD.”
Get the facts. I suggest that you start with Rich Miniter’s book from 2006: “The Shadow War – How Bush is winning the War on Terror.”
I also suggest you read Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch on a daily basis, to balance off the blather from the America-hating sites you apparently subscribe too.
FACT: Saddam harbord at least TWO!!! Terrorist Training Camps in Iraq, Salman Pac and Answar Al-Islam long before 2003. Salman Pac, 20 miles south of Baghdad was a known training camp for Al Qaeda operatives. Answar Al-Islam on the border with Iran, in northeastern Iraq, WAS an Al Qaeda training camp. Answar Al-Islam was the Iraqi wing of Al Qaeda. And just as other Al Qaeda wings in other nations use slightly different names, thus did Answar Al-Islam.
FACT: Zarcawi, the third most notorious top leader of Al Qaeda, was in Iraq as far back as 2001. Reports have him getting medical treatment in Baghdad hospitals which he sustained fighting the US in Afghanistan. He even got a home in the suburbs of Tikrit and a pension from Saddam.
Appendix D of Miniter’s book has over 40 specific examples of Al Qaeda’s ties to Saddam Hussein.
Eric Dondero
February 23rd, 2008
Today, now that the Iraqi “insurgence” is virtually quelled, and only Al Qaeda operatives are the only ones left fighting American’s, if you oppose the War in Iraq, you are essentially saying you oppose the War on Al Qaeda.
In essence, you could almost say that you align yourself with Al Qaeda, if you oppose the War in Iraq.
You could be an “Al Qaeda Boy” or in this instance an “Al Qaeda Girl.”
Eric Dondero
February 23rd, 2008
What has the Iraq War done to end al Qaeda? I said in my post that it actually INCREASED al Qaeda’s presence in Iraq, and increased jihadist terrorism worldwide, and gave evidence for that. There were no al Qaeda operatives there to fight before we went into the country.
Since our current presence is being used as a recruiting tool for al Qaeda, it could therefore be said that anyone who aligns themselves in support of the Iraq War is actually supporting al Qaeda and terrorism. So, are you with the US or against us?
libertariangirl
February 23rd, 2008
For a time, you are correct: 2004/2005/2006. Al Qaeda was on a roll. Then it all turned around Pre-Surge in the Anbar Province. Other Iraq leaders saw what happened when the locals turned on Al Qaeda insurgents and copied Anbar.
At the same time, Gen Patreaus’ Surge was starting to kick in.
Al Qaeda has all but been completely defeated in Iraq, by US Surge Forces and the new Iraqi Army.
The only remnents remain in northern hide-outs, and even they are being weeded out.
But once again, you won’t learn any of this from Leftwing news sources, or even Anti-War Libertarians sites like Reason.com, LRC, Doug Bandow, TPW, Knappster and the like.
Just pure silence on the huge success of Patreaus and the Surge.
Doesn’t quite fit the “Bush bad/Republicans bad” template.
Eric Dondero
February 24th, 2008
It is our culture that is being used as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda: Our sex industry, Hollwyood, newspaper cartoons, wealth, ect… Not our military presence in the Middle East.
And Al Qaeda was recruiting throughout the Middle East long before we arrived. And they’re wrath was against the Saudi Royal Family, not the US.
Go back and read Bodansky’s book on Bin Laden.
Eric Dondero
February 24th, 2008
You ask, “what has the Iraq War done to hurt Al Qaeda.”
One word:
Zarcawi
Guess you missed the news a year ago of us bombing the living shit out of him in that Date Palm field, north of Baghdad.
He, along with Sheik Khalid Muhammed, is perhaps the most murderous Terrorist in the history of civilization.
It was Zarcawi he sawed off the head of Nicholas Berg in 2004 in front of those video cameras. It was Zarcawi who ran the Al Qaeda insurgency in Iraq for 3 years, against the US and peaceful Iraqis.
We got Zarcawi. That alone makes the entire War in Iraq well, well worth it.
Eric Dondero
February 24th, 2008
The problem is that many in the new Iraqi army have sympathies with the insurgents– and we’re paying them off and arming them! Whether we leave or not, we’re setting up a situation like we did in Afghanistan in the ’80s, when WE armed bin Laden (and helped him gain power) to get rid of the Soviets.
I’m not an expert on the situation, so I don’t know if the surge is working or not. If it’s working so well, why did we have a higher body count of American soldiers killed last year than ever? Why are we having to pay off Iraqi soldiers to fight with us? Why do 80% of Iraqis say in opinion polls that they want us to leave immediately? It seems the surge has helped in some areas, which is understandable, but those troops are being pulled back beginning this year. Sure, if we keep an indefinite occupied force in Baghdad for the next 100 years, it may prevent some violence, but it also may spark some violence because the insurgents will see us as an occupier, and the civilians don’t want us to be there.
Saddam certainly was not secular. He was a Sunni. He repressed the Shiites and killed many, many of the Kurds, no question. No one’s arguing that Saddam was a good guy. But there’s also no question that he did not have WMD at the time we went into Iraq, and the UN inspector was telling us that. We preferred to listen to Chalabi, who had spent most of his adult life trying to get the US to topple Saddam. He had a reason to fib, and our politicians bought it.
libertariangirl
February 27th, 2008
“He, along with Sheik Khalid Muhammed, is perhaps the most murderous Terrorist in the history of civilization.”
That’s quite a claim. I guess it depends on your definition of “terrorist,” but I think Stalin has pretty much everyone beat. Genghis Khan. Some people have said that Che Guevara was responsible for 100 million deaths, but that includes spinoffs from Cuban communism and not direct or ordered murders, I believe. How many did Zarqawi kill?
“It is our culture that is being used as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda: Our sex industry, Hollwyood, newspaper cartoons, wealth, ect… Not our military presence in the Middle East.”
Have you looked at the reasons Zarqawi gave for attacking people? Murderers often like to brag about why they do it. He didn’t say that he didn’t like how our women don’t cover themselves or that we’re free, he said that he saw the Americans as occupiers in Saudi Arabia and he didn’t like our support of Israel. That’s what he told people when he recruited them to his cause, and in many cases, it worked because those people were upset about that as well. Invading Iraq makes that worse. You may be correct that our wealth spurs them on as well– only a wealthy nation could seem to build an empire.
Perhaps by building 14 permanent bases in Iraq and spending trillions on a war there gives these usually very poor people the impression that we’re quite wealthy, and we’re not spending our wealth in the most productive of ways.
I argue that we could have gotten Zarqawi sooner without the Iraq War– send in some mercenaries/bounty hunters and let them find him. No one said Zarqawi was a focus of the Iraq War. If it had been so, perhaps we would have found him sooner. Why not go after bin Laden if we’re focused on finding these terrorists? Everyone seems to have forgotten all about him. He seems to be having a great time over there in Pakistan (our ally!) hiding out and making videos.
libertariangirl
February 27th, 2008
As a final point, the Iraqi security forces actually caught Zarqawi a few years before we did– and let him go, because they didn’t recognize him. If he really was such a terrorist to the Iraqi people and the reason for us conducting a war there, wouldn’t they have recognized the guy?
If our main goal in Iraq was to find him, wouldn’t we have his picture at every checkpoint and train people in what he looked like? Our main goal was NOT finding Zarqawi, just as our current main goal is not finding Osama bin Laden. We have other things on our minds.
libertariangirl
February 27th, 2008
[...] should be learning in school– and we do have one definite advantage over the D’s and R’s. No libertarian can yet be accused of being a libertarian solely for the sake of gaining power, as [...]
Libertarian Girl » Blog Archive » Calling All Libertarians: Why Can’t We Brainwash Kids, Too?
March 17th, 2008
How many times will Pakistan let us blow their own civilians away in their own county before they start talking nuclear at us?
This policy is a failure. It’s time to find one that works. It is time to bring the military home from out 700 permanent international bases, bring all the troops home and spend their pay on domestic bases, and for once again build a strong national defense in America.
Focus the entire military hair trigger on domestic defense, outlaying from the territories.
Become /again/ the strongest nation in the world as we redevelop our prosperity under the original Constitutional order.
Glen Bradley
July 12th, 2009