Happy 11th Birthday Catie - we love you

Demonstrate 'progress' -- Get out of Iraq

I want the U.S. to demonstrate the same progress as England
Tony Snow thinks its ok when England 'cuts and runs' but Democrats are encouraging the enemy with talk of withdrawl.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House said Britain's announcement Wednesday to pull about 1,600 troops out of Iraq was proof of progress.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the move by British Prime Minister Tony Blair "indicates that there's been some progress in Basra," in southern Iraq, where UK troops are deployed.

Pelican Brew Pub: Onion rings & Brew -- More beer art

Congressional Debate on Iraq: Dear Republicans -- let's remember something

I've been listening to CSPAN this week.
I am glad to live in a pluralistic society with varying views.
But I tell you, this Republican jibberish that it is wrong and hurtful to even speak about a different Iraq policy -- or worse, that it hurts the country!
Godamit.
Our sacred founding was based on debate, discussion and dissent.
It is our heritage. It is our right. It is our duty.

Why did Americans die in Iraq?

By chance, I turned to CSPAN yesterday, just as Rep. Jim Moran was speaking on the Iraq resolution:

Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I would like to paraphrase a poem that Rudyard Kipling wrote upon the death of his son in World War I that seems particularly apt to the war in Iraq:
When they ask why the young men died
Tell them it's because the old men lied.
Madam Speaker, when the White House announced 4 years ago the U.S. military would attack Iraq under the guise of the global war on terrorism, there wasn't one single uniformed military officer who believed that Iraq was part of a global war on terrorism. Saddam had had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack.
Saddam wasn't harboring any al Qaeda cells that did attack us. In fact, they understood that starting a new war would distract us and limit us from accomplishing our immediate need to eliminate Osama bin Laden. Saddam was a vicious, secular, despotic dictator, but he saw al Qaeda as a threat to his control, and al Qaeda viewed Saddam as an enemy of their religious extremist world vision.
The U.S. Intelligence Community knew that there was no clear evidence that Saddam was a threat to the United States. There was no failure of our professional Intelligence Community, but there was an abysmal failure of our political leadership.
So how did we get to this point? First we were scared with the threat of Saddam's arsenals or weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda training camps, an Iraqi meeting with the 9/11 hijacker, mobile labs, aluminum tubing, yellow cake uranium. But there were no weapons of mass destruction, Madam Speaker.
The training camps didn't exist. Mohamed Atta never met an Iraqi agent in Prague. The White House knew, before they informed us about the mobile labs, that our experts had determined that they were not in any way related to chemical or biological weapons. Likewise, the aluminum tubing was bogus information. Well before the so-called yellow cake uranium from Niger was cited as evidence at an attempt at nuclear armament, our Intelligence Community had informed the White House that it was a hoax.
Yet we were told repeatedly by the President and the Vice President that Saddam was a threat to global stability, that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda and September 11. We were told in the buildup to the war that our troops would be greeted by the Iraqis as liberators, being offered flowers in the streets. This was propaganda that the State Department warned the White House not to believe, but they nonetheless peddled it to the Congress and to the American people.
We were told that to liberate Iraq was to spread freedom and democracy, to keep oil out of the hands of potential terrorist-controlled states. We were told that the war would pay for itself with Iraqi oil revenues. Yet all we have done is to finance our enemies, the insurgents and Iranian Shiia interests.
After Baghdad fell, we were told that America had prevailed, that the mission was accomplished, that the resistance was in its last throes, that more troops were not needed. As things went from bad to worse, we were told of turning point after turning point, the fall of Baghdad, the death of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, the capture of Saddam, a provisional government, the trial of Saddam, a charter, a constitution, an Iraqi Government, elections, purple fingers, a new government, the death of Saddam, all excuses for triumphant rhetoric while the reality on the ground continued to worsen.
We were told, as they stand up, we would stand down. We would stay the course. Now we are told that there is a new course, but it is in the same misguided direction. Falsehood after falsehood unravels each day, with the morning paper reporting even more deaths.
Now the American people are being asked to put 20,000 more sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives into the line of fire, and into the dead zone between the sectarian sides of a civil war. A message was sent to President Bush on November 7, 2006. This surge of more troops into Iraq defies the will of the American people.
But this is a new Congress. We will no longer be cowed by leaders using 9/11 as a political ploy against sensible people who oppose the administration's failed Iraq policy. Today for the first time since the war began, Congress will go on record opposing the President's failed Iraq policy. Some will argue that it is a nonbinding resolution, that it will not have the impact of a law, that it will not stop a roadside bomb or bring a single soldier home to their family. But the President understands what this resolution means. It is the beginning of the end of this wrong war of choice

Sign me up for hope

http://www.barackobama.com/

Support your troops, help bring them home

I did the least I could today -- I called my two U.S. Senators.
I said that I watched the news in sadness this morning as the President called for cuts to the needy and elderly in order to pay for more war.
My vote -- if I had one: bring them home, all of them, now -- and hold the biggest homecoming we have ever held for returning soldiers.


And if you have an opinion you wish to share with your Senators:
Sen. Gordon Smith
121 SW Salmon Street, Suite 1250
Portland, OR 97204
Phone: 503.326.3386
Fax: 503.326.2900

Sen. Ron Wyden
1220 SW 3rd Avenue
Suite 585
Portland, OR 97204
(503) 326-7525