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Senators can and should still dissent, but not in front of the camera if it involves progress in an ongoing war. Checks still remain and the constitution is not trampled here. If they suspect a problem at Gitmo, they can order an inquiry from Senate chambers. If they think we are losing, they can present their case along with solutions to the appropriate committes, the Pentagon, the President. They still fund the war, they can still impeach.
The experimentation here is the high level of going to the media with complaints during time of war. I do not think our senators did this in WWII.
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-Soren Kierkegaard (as posted by Jato)
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Originally posted by Dan Nixon:
Senators can and should still dissent, but not in front of the camera if it involves progress in an ongoing war. Checks still remain and the constitution is not trampled here. If they suspect a problem at Gitmo, they can order an inquiry from Senate chambers. If they think we are losing, they can present their case along with solutions to the appropriate committes, the Pentagon, the President. They still fund the war, they can still impeach.
Let's look at your proposal:
You say that Congress could still order an inquiry, have a conference with the president, or legislate about the war. But they could not criticize the war in front of the cameras. Your goal is to keep congressional criticism of the war away from the ears of the insurgents.
It's a bad idea, Dan. Your proposal would not acheive your goal, and it would be horribly destructive to our democracy.
First of all, any inquiry or conference or legislation would be on the public record. It would be widely reported in the press, and commented upon by every talking head on the planet (except for our elected representatives, under your proposal). So any congressional opposition to the war would be circulated far and wide, just the same as today. Your proposal might eliminate televised anti-war sound bites by congressmen, but those sound bites would still find their way into the media stream. So I don't see how your proposal would be all that effective at keeping congressional criticism of the war away from the insurgents' ears.
Now look at what you would be sacrificing. Americans would not get to hear their representatives publicly express any negative opinion of the war. The very people we elected to speak on our behalf would be voiceless (at least on television, the most important forum available). That means every voter who opposes the war would also be voiceless.
Your proposal would also restrict congress' ability to influence public opinion. In other words, it would make our leaders less able to lead us. For example: just assume for a moment that some crazy president with beady eyes and dislexic speech patterns (any resemblance to Dubya is stricly unintentional) started an extremely ill-advised war that was harmful to American interests (any resemblance to Bush's war in Iraq is unintentional). Under your proposal, Joe Voter could not turn on his TV and hear his representative say the war was wrong. Given the way Joe Voter relies on TV news, he might never learn the truth.
This is extremely important: our representatives have used their free speech rights before to help curb some of our government's worst mistakes (The Vietnam war, and McCarthyism, just to name two). Yet you would give up this fundamental tool of representative government, and cripple your representative's abilty to do his job, just because you think the insurgents might be encouraged by congressional criticism of the war? Wow, that is true extremism, Dan.
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I'd speculate some senators grumbled during WWII over whether resources were applied effectively, whether priorities were correct, why a 37 mm cannon on that tank chassis instead of a 75, why fighters and not bombers, why not more battlewagons, why not .30 cal MGs on planes instead of .50 cal (Thank you Hap Arnold for getting it right). I'd speculate there were similar minor grumblings among coalitions during Korea. But ever since Truman and MacArthur's frictions were not kept secret so well, media attention IS a fact of life.
When GOP Rep. McCloskey and GOP Sen. Morse spoke against the 'Nam war, did that really make the VC and NVA stronger? Between Ho fighting the Japanese, then the French, and then us, and suffering millions of casualties in the process, is there not some argument that he was a stubborn SOB who did not care if it took him 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, as long as he was alive and kicking he would not care if the other side was united or not? Ho blindly took on the strongest nation on earth. What a nut!
Doesn't this "encouragement to the enemy" angle impute rationality to a bunch of lunatic fringe suicide bombers, a group that is noteworthy for its LACK of rationality? Is OBL less of a nut than Ho was?
Anyway, in retrospect, weren't McCloskey and Morse correct? Why should they have shut up way back when, when it turned out they were correct after all?
Yes, we're stuck in Iraq. Apparently some on this board celebrate that. I hope they are correct and western-friendly democracies blossom in the middle east. But to evangelize that we're spreading freedom and democracy... So now our mission has turned into our being political missionaries. Thank goodness we're NOT doing what Castro pulled in Angola, trying to export his political system and not allowing dissent against his mission within his government or public either.
Bush WILL do troop drawdowns in time for the 2006 mid-term congressional elections. Mostly because of public opinion.
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Originally posted by PDXSVT:
I'd speculate some senators grumbled during WWII over whether resources were applied effectively, whether priorities were correct, why a 37 mm cannon on that tank chassis instead of a 75, why fighters and not bombers, why not more battlewagons, why not .30 cal MGs on planes instead of .50 cal (Thank you Hap Arnold for getting it right). I'd speculate there were similar minor grumblings among coalitions during Korea. But ever since Truman and MacArthur's frictions were not kept secret so well, media attention IS a fact of life.
Bush WILL do troop drawdowns in time for the 2006 mid-term congressional elections. Mostly because of public opinion.
Wow....between you & Caltour so many false assumptions, so little time (must get back to work).
1) No problem with a Senator who says "I think we should use a bigger stick" Not the same as saying "Quagmire". "Gulag" is not a minor grumbling. A huge problem with left in general, complaints without solutions. And in 2008, if your guys are still offering no real solutions..they are toast again.
2) Yes, Bush will probably draw down troups in 2006, because that is the estimated timetable based on trajectory of Iraqi army growth and ability to assume greater responsiblity..and the fact that elections/constitution will hopefully be completed. I have no doubt the left win try and spin this as a "failure of support" or something else to attack Bush..which is a real shame because optimally, we cannot let jihaddits think they kicked us out or outlasted us.
3) Any Senator that spoke out against Vietnam war, saying we should leave would likely have encouraged the Viet Cong to hang in there when things were going badly. Which they basically did. Fortunately, Al Gore had not yet invented the internet and it was a little harder to pump sound bites into the jungle back then..
4)
Quote:
Ho blindly took on the strongest nation on earth. What a nut!
...Maybe he just studied the Korean war and noticed the rather obvious point that we were unwilling to mess with China..Maybe Bin laden just looked at the Soviet/Afgan war and noticed that the might Soviet Union got their butt kicked in the mountains of Afganistan by backwards tribesmen. Maybe Saddam just looked at Gulf War I and said that little Bush will not kick my ass because the UN will not let him do it, just like didn't let big Bush do it a deacde before (despite invading a country and gasing his people). And with the French UN Security counsel telling him..don't worry, we will veto the vote, it was a pretty good bet. These guys were not stupid..they looked at history and picked what appeared to be a solid bet. They just bet wrong.
5) Caltour, I maintain that any Senator who sobs to the press that we are in a Quagmire, we are killing civilians, we are torturing the inocent, we are guilty of war crimes, or in any way implies we are losing with troups in the field is exercising EXTREMELY poor judgement at best and is a discredit to the office.
Oh, and Quote:
Yes, we're stuck in Iraq. Apparently some on this board celebrate that. I hope they are correct and western-friendly democracies blossom in the middle east. But to evangelize that we're spreading freedom and democracy..
...we are not stuck in Iraq. We are doing a job in Iraq and it is for a good cause. I celebrate that our troups have the courage to do it. And spreading freedom and democracy is not a missionary crusade for me but a practical antidote for jihaddism. I heard no better solutions from the left. There is isolationism I suppose...certainly some jihaddits claim that we were attacked on 9/11 because we have troops on the Arabian peninsula..Maybe. But then, the Saudis that flew into the WTC seemed happy in 1991 to have us keep Sadam from running over them after he finished with Kuwait. Maybe we should step back from militant Islam in the Sudan, the Phillapines, Israel and let them run the show. Certainly, Hitler would have let us alone had we stayed away from Europe wouldn't he?
1999 Amazon Green SVT Contour (#554/2760)
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."
-Soren Kierkegaard (as posted by Jato)
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So Dan, your logic convinced me. Let's all all join together to expeditiously invade Syria, Yemen, Morrocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Indonesia and the other hotbeds of islamic extremists in our "good cause" "practical antidote for jihaddism". After all, we gotta stop OBL from being the next Hitler, so we can't idly sit doing nothing about those other hotbeds like a bunch of wimpy Neville Chamberlains.
...OR we are stuck in Iraq because a murdering tin horn two bit dictator thug had too much of an ego to admit he was our biotch, and we took him out, so we're now in place trying to prevent a Sunni/Shi'ite civil war and Kurd secession ON TOP OF dealing with extremists who took W's invite to "bring it on". You can celebrate how that invite means the rest of the world is now safe since we're fighting them all over there and not at home.
Yes, we're STUCK. But I like how your argument sounds.
MSDS, SHO-shop Y, custom 2.5" catback; xcal2; 63mm TB, K&N 3530; Koni struts, Aussie bar; THaines forks, Quaife, SpecII, UR fly; DMD; Nima UD pullies; Stazi brakes; f&r Pole120 mounts. Just a daily commuter car. Silver '98 SVT E0 #3159
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Good, you are starting to get there but not quite yet. Perhaps in next semester's advanced class (Bush Doctrin 201) I will review the concept that military intervention in Iraq and Afganistan, combined with quite diplomatic activity in Pakistan, Libya, Lebannon, and Palestine will help avert the need to "expeditiously invade Syria, Yemen, Morrocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Indonesia and the other hotbeds of islamic extremists" not to mention Iran and N. Korea. 
1999 Amazon Green SVT Contour (#554/2760)
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."
-Soren Kierkegaard (as posted by Jato)
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Al-Qaeda isn't stupid. They know the instant they blew up a nuke in the US that Mecca would be returned to Allah in a pillar of fire.
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