Junior’s Escalation Legacy
19 December 2006 12:37 am by Taylor Marsh
Junior\’s Escalation Legacy –updated below–
Senator Harry Reid made a singularly bad move recently when he stated that
a two to three months escalation would work, as long as the troops would come
out in \’08. It was bad not only because it won\’t solve our challenges, but also
because it goes against everything the military is saying. Now we\’re hearing
that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are in unanimous agreement that escalation
is the wrong way to go. But will Bush listen or is legacy all?
Interestingly enough, someone else is listening.
However, she has never gone as far as some of her potential rivals for the
2008 Democratic presidential nomination — who also voted for the war — and
called her vote a mistake or declared that she would have cast her vote differently
with all the facts presently available to her — until now.This morning on NBC\’s \”Today\” show, Sen. Clinton was asked about
her 2002 vote and offered a slightly evolved answer. \”Obviously,
if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn\’t have been a vote,\” she
said in her usual refrain before adding, \”and I certainly wouldn\’t
have voted that way.\”Hillary
Clinton Says She Wouldn\’t Have Voted For Iraq War (emphasis added)
There\’s a reason Senator Clinton wanted to be on the Armed Services Committee
and it evidently has paid off. She also may have solved
her problem. The other reality is that over this year she has continued
to rethink her rhetoric, as well as her positioning on the war. She stood up
and pushed back against Reid\’s talk of a quick escalation and out, an oxymoron
if ever there was one. But the statement yesterday from Clinton says a lot about
this woman, though it was a long time coming. It says she knows she had to do
something in order to compete in \’08, because Iraq will be an issue and the
people of this country want out. She weighed the reality and made the move.
Pragmatism won out and I mean that in a good way. But I could care less why Senator Clinton made the statement, because all the Dems
who voted for the war ended up finding a way out of that vote. None of it has
been pretty, but the job got done.
This is a fascinating development.
However, it\’s a dangerous one for Clinton\’s challengers, assuming she does
announce a run for president. It\’s also the move I\’ve waited for since I saw
her speak last spring and she got booed
for her Iraq position. I truly believe Senator Clinton has been affected
by the onslaught of criticism she has gotten over the her stance on the war. It\’s been a huge
obstacle for her, which now changed may enable her to move on to the competing. I\’m waiting for the first shot she fires over McCain\’s bow. I expect a direct hit now.
But all the Democrats for \’08, as well as those in Congress, will have to back up their rhetoric in the next Congress by offering a solution for
getting us out of Iraq. Nothing less will do.
But in the meantime, Junior\’s the one with the real problems. He ditched Rummy, and now
he\’s got the military brass at the Pentagon finally able to speak out loud and
proud because they are at last rid of their meddlesome muzzler.
Then there\’s the carnage in Iraq into which Junior and his alter ego, John
McCain, want to send more troops. Putting more U.S. military
into violence that is the worst on record, while defying every military man
around.
The Pentagon said yesterday that violence in Iraq soared this fall to its
highest level on record and acknowledged that anti-U.S. fighters have achieved
a \”strategic success\” by unleashing a spiral of sectarian killings
by Sunni and Shiite death squads that threatens Iraq\’s political institutions.(snip)
\”The violence has escalated at an unbelievably rapid pace,\” said
Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, director of strategic plans and policy for
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who briefed journalists on the report. \”We
have to get ahead of that violent cycle, break that continuous chain of sectarian
violence. . . . That is the premier challenge facing us now.\” …
Is one man\’s legacy worth all the deaths and destruction? I doubt if Marine Maj. Megan McClung\’s family thinks it is.
UPDATE (8:35 a.m.): More good news for Clinton, as another poll has her ahead of McCain and tying Rudy.
