Kennedy: Bring Our Troops Home

[cal04]

Outspoken Edward Kennedy will today become the first US senator to publicly call for American troops to return home after the Iraq election. The Massachusetts senator’s call comes a day after Congress members expressed sadness and division as the US military sustained its deadliest day since the Iraq war began, claiming the lives of 37 troops.

“It will not be easy to extricate ourselves from Iraq, but we must begin,” Kennedy will say, according to prepared remarks.Some politicians, mostly Republicans, said the casualties underscored the need to stay the course of establishing democracy and training an Iraqi security force to enable US troops to pull out. Others, primarily Democrats, said that the death toll’s sharp increase raises questions about President George Bush’s exit strategy.

Yesterday, two dozen House Democrats introduced a resolution urging Bush to withdraw troops immediately. The Senate observed a moment of silence for the 31 troops killed when a Marine transport helicopter crashed during bad weather in Iraq’s western desert. Elsewhere, rebels killed six other American troops.

The deaths occurred on the same day defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General John Abizaid, chief of US Central Command, briefed members of Congress on the war. “We should anticipate that after the elections that the people that desire to derail the process of a new future for Iraq will continue to fight and will continue to fight hard,” Abizaid told reporters.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4053035

[burrowowl]

1. About time!

Damn Bu$h and those in the Congress and Senate who rolled over and abdicated their responsibility!
Impeach Bu$h and Company and send them to the HAGUE!

[aquart]

2. Bloody about time!

[TahitiNut]

3. Damned straight it's about time.

There has not been an ounce of analysis that offers any assurance that lives lost in Iraq will accomplish anything at all. You don't throw lives away on a whim or to cover for ineptitude -- at least not in the sane and moral world.

[wildwww2]

7. I`ll double that damned straight. And it is way past time.

This war crime should never have happened. Scott Ritter and Hans Blix both agreed Iraq was no threat. And we even had inspectors there. But Bu$h wanted a quagmire. To cover up his next stolen election. And he got it. Bring them home now. To start the healing. Our military`s duty is to protect us Americans. Not Iraqi`s in a civil war crime we instigated.
Peace
Wildman
Al Gore is My President

[renaissanceguy]

38. We shouldn't have been there to begin with.

The Middle East has historically been a haven of conflict. We have NO BUSINESS being there and imposing our way of life on them.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16472020

[jdj]

20. that 'or' should be 'and'.

it's both in this case unfortunately.

[Straight Shooter]

4. Brace yourself, warmongers. The counterforce has begun.

Go Teddy Go!!

[renaissanceguy]

36. President Kerry would've had a plan.

As much as we all hate it, under BushCo we'll be in the MidEast for the next four years.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues/472476

[Voltaire99]

5. Stand behind Kennedy, GOP-lite Democrats!

It's high time the party's useless GOP-lite segment discovered a set of principles worth defending. With his shining example, Kennedy is showing the way to their redemption.

Having poured lives and billions of dollars down the sewer of right wing imperialism, it's time to bring the troops home before more are needlessly harmed or killed. Once that is done we can talk about post-WWII German-style restitution.

Not coincidentally, and most clearly, Kennedy is also showing the utter uselessness of Kerry's posture of "we'll fight the war against no wmd's...only better!"--an act of moral imbecility that contributed to Kerry losing the election. Invading Iraq was always a lost cause. Democrats who can't bring themselves to admit they've abetted this gigantic waste really should step aside and allow our party to elect men and women of substance.

[codswallop]

6. You make a strikingly subsantive point:

Invading Iraq was always a lost cause. Democrats who can't bring themselves to admit they've abetted this gigantic waste really should step aside and allow our party to elect men and women of substance.

If the Democrats, that didn't have the wisdom or courage to speak out loudly against the war before it was realized, are too spineless to stand up now and admit they allowed this travesty to unfold - they should get the fuck out of town.

[jdj]

21. but they won't, because it ain't about us. It's about their career.

And their egos.

Fuck what's right.

[codswallop]

25. "Fuck what's right" is not an attitude that will get one re-elected

in this climate. It wins Pyrrhic victories and loses wars. But is, sadly, the stuff of politics.

[cal04]

8. Kennedy Calls for Troop Withdrawal in Iraq says "fraud made up in Texas,"

The American military's continued presence in Iraq (news - web sites) is fanning the flames of conflict, and signals the need for a new detailed timeline to bring the troops home, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said Thursday. Just three days before the Iraqi people go to the polls to elect a new government, the Massachusetts Democrat said America must give Iraq back to its people rather than continue an occupation that parallels the failed politics of the Vietnam war.

"The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution," Kennedy said in remarks prepared for delivery at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. "We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces."

While not the first member of Congress to call for a withdrawal of the troops, Kennedy is the first senator to do so. And his remarks continued what has been a long and blistering assault on the administration's Iraq policies.

He has called the war a "fraud made up in Texas," and said the administration mislead the people about the threats leading up to the war. Now, Kennedy said, the United States and the insurgents are both battling for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and the U.S. is losing. "There may well be violence as we disengage militarily from Iraq and Iraq disengages politically from us, but there will be much more violence if we continue our present dangerous and destabilizing course," said Kennedy. "It will not be easy to extricate ourselves from Iraq, but we must begin."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050127/ap_on_go_co/kennedy_iraq_1

[Just Me]

9. Bring Them Home! Bring Them Home! Bring Them Home!

Screw the neoCONimperialists who don't give a damn about any of us or our soldiers or the potentially devastating harm their high-risk, profitteering "visions" will bring to our country and our people and the human race!!!

Remove the barbaric neoCONimperialists!

Bring Our Troops Home!!!

[Jersey Devil]

10. Now being reported on Yahoo via AP

Kennedy Calls for Troop Withdrawal in Iraq

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The American military's continued presence in Iraq (news - web sites) is fanning the flames of conflict, and signals the need for a new detailed timeline to bring the troops home, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) said Thursday.

Just three days before the Iraqi people go to the polls to elect a new government, the Massachusetts Democrat said America must give Iraq back to its people rather than continue an occupation that parallels the failed politics of the Vietnam war.

"The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution," Kennedy said in remarks prepared for delivery at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. "We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces."

While not the first member of Congress to call for a withdrawal of the troops, Kennedy is the first senator to do so. And his remarks continued what has been a long and blistering assault on the administration's Iraq policies.

More - http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050127/ap_on_go_co/kennedy_iraq

[yorkiemommie1]

19. thanks , read and rated

n/t

[gademocrat7]

11. DO IT!!!!!

Yes, bring the troops home. Send rummy and co. over there.

[llmart]

12. Hell, put the whole damn Bush family on a plane......

and send them over. They seem to love killing people but only when their hides aren't in danger.

Good for you, Senator Kennedy! Now where're the other Democrats to stand beside him?

[Rockholm]

13. BRING THEM HOME!!!!!!

NOW. One more American life is NOT worth "bringing democracy" to Iraq.

[ZR2]

28. So we should just let the brownskins

fend for themselves. I guess because they aren't white they don't deserve anything.

[eridani]

42. They deserve a big buttload of money from us--

--and after we give it to them we get the hell out of their way and let them use it the way they see fit.

[shayes51]

14. Gotta love him!

[leftchick]

15. Ted Needs To Bring This up: US Permanent Presence Plans....

and point out that busco** Wants no exit strategy! They plan on being there forever!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2281&ncid=742&e=5&u=/thenation/20050118/cm_thenation/132132

A Permanent Presence

Tue Jan 18,10:02 AM ET Op/Ed - The Nation


Ari Berman

~snip~

Though the media ignored Kerry's statement and failed to do any substantive follow-up research, his comments were well-grounded in reality. On the day of the debate the Christian Science Monitor spotlighted the findings of defense specialist John Pike, whose website, GlobalSecurity.org, located twelve "enduring bases" in Iraq, including satellite photos and names. In March, the Chicago Tribune reported that US engineers were constructing fourteen such long-term encampments--the number Kerry referred to. The New York Times previously placed the number at four.


While the exact figure may change, suspicions of undisclosed US imperial plans--exemplified by permanent military bases--rightfully linger. Before the war, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested moving US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia into Iraq. In October, a survey by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes found that two-thirds of respondents disapproved of a permanent military presence, even though more than half thought the US would build the bases anyway.


Now comes a report in the New York Sun by Eli Lake revealing that the Pentagon (news - web sites) is building a permanent military communications system in Iraq, a necessary foundation for any lasting troop presence. The new network will comprise twelve communications towers throughout Iraq, linking Camp Victory in Baghdad to other existing (and future) bases across the country, eventually connecting with US bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan (news - web sites).


"People need to get realistic and think in terms of our presence being in Iraq for a generation or until democratic stability in the region is reached," Dewey Clarridge, the CIA (news - web sites)'s former chief of Arab operations (and Iran-contra point man), told the Sun.


Edit:
~snip~

A retired military man in Jordan says "the Americans are looking for a way out to withdraw . . . because the morale of the soldiers is very low." Writing in the government-controlled Arabic al-Rai, retired Brig. Gen. Atif al-Rihani says U.S. military bases in the region are enough to secure American political and economic interests.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39432-2005Jan26.html

[Just Me]

16. Hence, the "winning strategy" rhetoric. They plan permanent presence.

They won't admit that the plan is a permanent military presence so they spew: "We shouldn't talk about an 'exit strategy' but rather a 'winning strategy'".

The neoCONimperialist PNACers plan to impose a permanent military presence in the Middle East.

[leftchick]

17. and their plan will never work...

it can't possibly succeed. Those bases and towers they plan for Iraq are nothing more than targets for the resistance as the pipelines are now. The US is not sucking much oil out these days is it? It will take years and many lives before the stupid fucking ameriKans wake up and reaslize they have been hoodwinked by the BFEE.

[goodhue]

18. Bring Them Home Now

[Ms_Mary]

22. It's about time. Good to see the dems are recovering their backbones.

I have something to hope for anyway.

[renaissanceguy]

39. Yeah. More Dems need to get their backbones back.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16472020

[bluestateguy]

23. I too favor an immediate pullout

I used to favor a six month withdrawl process, but I now I believe it should be an immediate pullout after the election. Lock, stock and barrel.

[jmcgowanjm]

24. “It will not be easy to extricate ourselves from Iraq"

Sure it is.

Just get all the Troops in a line and head for the Kuwait border.

The road will be lined with Iraqis, both Sunni
and Shi'ite standing shoulder to shoulder
waving good bye.

Just like that.

IRR012605

Iraqi Resistance command announces start of
“decisive operations,” orders all fighters on leave back to
their units within three
hours.

In a dispatch posted at 7:30pm Wednesday, Mafkarat al-
Islam reported that the General Command of the Iraqi
Islamic Resistance issued a communiqué a short while
before that was broadcast from loudspeakers on mosques
in Samarra’, ar-Ramadi, Mosul, Tikrit, Bayji, Kirkuk, Hit,
Hadithah, ar-Rutbah, al-Qa’im, Hasibah, and Ba‘qubha;
and which was issued as a written leaflet distributed
in mosques in Baghdad, ad-Durah, al-Bayya‘, al-
A‘zamiyah, al-Latifiyah, al-Mansur, al-‘Amiriyah al-
Gharbiyah, al-Basrah, as-Samawah, al-Kut, as-Suwayrah and
a number of other cities of south, central, and northern
Iraq. (You know, this shouldn't be to hard to verify-
Every mosque in Iraq?)

In the communiqué the General Command of the Iraqi
Islamic Resistance proclaimed the beginning of clearly
decisive operations against what it called “the infidel
occupiers.” The communiqué called the new offensive:
the Operations of the Children of Muhammad the Messenger
of God to Break the Back of God’s Enemies.

The communiqué said that “today, Wednesday, 16 Dhu al-
Hijjah 1425H, the equivalent of 26 January 2005 represents
the beginning of the end of the occupation and its
ultimate collapse.” It said that the Resistance fighters
would “turn Iraq into a graveyard for the
occupiers.”

[papau]

26. Kennedy Calls for Troop Withdrawal in Iraq

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4760211,00.html

Kennedy Calls for Troop Withdrawal in Iraq

Thursday January 27, 2005 5:01 PM


By LOLITA C. BALDOR

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The American military's continued presence in Iraq is fanning the flames of conflict, and signals the need for a new detailed timeline to bring the troops home, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said Thursday.

Just three days before the Iraqi people go to the polls to elect a new government, the Massachusetts Democrat said America must give Iraq back to its people rather than continue an occupation that parallels the failed politics of the Vietnam war.

``The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution,'' Kennedy said in remarks prepared for delivery at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. ``We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces.''

While not the first member of Congress to call for a withdrawal of the troops, Kennedy is the first senator to do so. And his remarks continued what has been a long and blistering assault on the administration's Iraq policies. <snip>

[paineinthearse]

27. See related "Meehan calls for troop pullout timetable" thread

In Massachusetts forum.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=158x2581

[Tiggeroshii]

29. We're progressing

...slowly, but it looks like that sentiment to get them back here is climbing up the ladder.

[SuffragetteSal]

30. the day of Iraq elections we should be in the streets

with signs demanding our troops come home!

[Inland]

31. Vote NO CONFIDENCE in Bush

The question isn't whether Iraq is still salvageable in theory. The question is whether this inept president can do any better in the months and years to come than he has to date. The answer is clearly no, since Bush either doesn't know or doesn't care how badly he has mesed up the situation. The man is a boob and an incompetent.

It is time to stop pretending that any course of action presided over by Bush can win in Iraq. No funding for a course destined for disaster: no more good money after bad.

[renaissanceguy]

40. We need to impeach the bastard.

He should be held accountable. I'm sick of this "faulty intelligence" excuse. He's the president, he should know better. I'm sure he was briefed on both sides of the war issue, but he is a warmonger. So he chose war, and would use any excuse to get it. Congress unconstitutionally gave him the power to declare war, when our Constitution specifically says that only Congress itself can declare war.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16472020

[tuvor]

32. Kick.

This should be big news. Damn liberal media.

[leftchick]

33. I agree...

he should be on the morning shows. ha...

[Polemonium]

34. About TIME!

A couple of encouraging signs this month coming out of the Senate. Let's bring our boys home!!!! NOW

[cal04]

35. Address Delivered at the Johns’ Hopkins School

Address Delivered at the Johns’ Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Thank you Dr. Fukuyama for that generous introduction.
I’m honored to be here at the School of Advanced International Studies. Many of the most talented individuals in foreign policy have benefited from your outstanding graduate program, and I welcome the opportunity to meet with you on the issue of Iraq.



Forty years ago, America was in another war in a distant land. At that time, in 1965, we had in Vietnam the same number of troops and the same number of casualties as in Iraq today. We thought in those early days in Vietnam that we were winning. We thought the skill and courage of our troops was enough. We thought that victory on the battlefield would lead to victory in the war, and peace and democracy for the people of Vietnam.



We lost our national purpose in Vietnam. We abandoned the truth. We failed our ideals. The words of our leaders could no longer be trusted.

In the name of a misguided cause, we continued the war too long. We failed to comprehend the events around us. We did not understand that our very presence was creating new enemies and defeating the very goals we set out to achieve. We cannot allow that history to repeat itself in Iraq.


more
http://kennedy.senate.gov/%7ekennedy/statements/05/1/2005127703.html

[Eloriel]

37. Now that it's safe to do so....

Now that the majority of Americans believe that it was NOT worth it to go into Iraq;

Now that the elections ARE going to take place and SOMEONE is going to be elected (presumably);

Now that it's safe from a tactical viewpoint -- after all, isn't that what this is all about, setting Iraq up as a democracy and then leaving;

Now that he's got very little -- uh, NOTHING -- to lose by calling for withdrawal ...

Good work, Teddy. We always knew we could count on you -- sooner or later.

[Glenda]

41. Wasnt Dennis Kucinich the guy who said we should get out of

Iraq? A long time ago? And I wasn't sure then. But now he is looking exceedingly bright

[eridani]

43. He was exceedingly bright a long time ago

Unfortunately, the "UN in" part is going to be really hard now, if even possible.