Congress has failed the American citizen
Published: July 6, 2009
Updated: July 6, 2009
Let’s look at the recent performance of Congress as it relates to you, the American citizen. On each one of these issues, they ignored you and you did nothing:
1. Largest spending bill in hstory passed without reading
2. Largest tax bill, called Cap and Trade, passed without reading
3. Failed to secure our borders and enforce immigration laws
4. Gave $300 billion to illegal welfare
5. Bailed out failed business
6. Failed to implement the system-verification
7. Gave U.S. jobs to non-U.S. citizens
8. Failed to drill here and drill now
Now it’s time to act. You can call, write or e-mail your congressional representatives and tell them we have had enough, and if they don’t fix these problems by October we will vote them out in November and:
1. Make all laws apply to Congress
2. Delete congressional privileges
3. Restrict Congress from voting for its own raises
4. Make Congress pay into Social Security, live within their means
5. Stop giving benefits to 20 million illegal immigrants
6. Limit congressional representatives to no more than two terms
7. Get own 401(k) plan and reform congressional medical insurance
8. Throw out all congressional members who vote for bills without reading them
9. Do not reward lawbreakers
10. Start no war unless willing to win
11. Speak only English
12. Defend our borders
13. Balance budget
14. Protect our currency
John J. Callahan
Culpeper
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Reader Reactions
rjma, ah yes. Thanks. “Alleged” attack (0r reported and then accepted attack) is the appropriate term. It seems quite clear now that no attack occurred on the stormy night of August 14, 1964. Forgive me. I am not perfect (but close).
Opa writes:
“on August 4, 1964 the Gulf of Tonkin attack occurred.“
I would respectfully make that “alleged” attack. I’ve never seen any damage to the US ships in question. LBJ later quipped “for all i know they were shooting at whales”. Even James Stockdale, future VP candidate, who was flying over the area that night said there were no NV boats out there.
OW, let me start with my agreements with you. I do not support the Iraq war. I too want it to end. I believe that we need more intel then Bush used.
Now for where we disagree.
First, you are wrong about the Battle for Berlin; i.e. that “Berlin was gone enough for us to walk away before we marched in and re-built them. Their country was in shambles. All we needed to do was go in and have the peace talks after freeing up the prison camps.” The 12-day Battle for Berlin was fought by the Soviet Union from April 20, 1945 to May 2, 1945. It was one of the bloodiest battles in history. Soviet forces lost about 2,000 armored vehicles and sustained at least 81,116 dead (some Western estimates are much higher.) Another 280,251 were reported wounded or sick during the operation. The Soviets estimated German losses at 458,080 killed or wounded and 479,298 captured not including civilians. Soviet troops looted, raped an estimated 100,000 women and murdered civilians for several weeks. That was no cake walk.
I disagree that “Viet Nam is a good example of troops that were only supposed to be there for “advisory” and non-combat.” That was how it started back in December 1961. U.S. backing included new equipment and more than 3,000 military advisors and support personnel. Less than three years later, on August 4, 1964 the Gulf of Tonkin attack occurred. On August 7, 1964 Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving our President the power to take whatever actions he deemed necessary to defend SE Asia. In early 1965, the NLF attacked two U.S. army installations in South Vietnam, and as a result, Johnson ordered the sustained bombing missions over the DRV. In March 1965 Johnson sent the first combat troops to Vietnam. Eight years of full war later, on January 23, 1973 the final draft of the Paris Peace Accord was initialed, ending open hostilities between the United States and the DRV. So, from March 1965 to Jan. 1973 (about 73% of the total time) the USA was engaged in open, full hostilities with North Viet Nam.
I strongly disagree that we “wrongfully” destroyed Japan in WWII. I like speaking English in our free country. Don’t you? That was the issue.
I disagree that we should not rebuild Afghanistan, whether or not it once harbored terrorists. For good reasons, we toppled its government and established another. I think we must help this new government take hold so that the country does not again become a terrorist harboring state.
I disagree that Obama’s “time-table and numbers of troops staying and going has certainly changed.” And, thank you for providing your sources. The first is Media Mouse, a left-wing media group for social change (currently inactive.) The second “even better one” is a collogue by leftist Sarah Meyers, a researcher living in Sussex, UK and member of the BRussells Tribunal Advisory Committee. The BRussells Tribunal are intellectuals, artists and activists who denounce the logic of permanent war promoted by the American government and its allies, affecting for the time being particularly one region in the world: the Middle East. It tries to be a bridge between the intellectual resistance in the Arab World and the Western peace movements. I am skeptical of both right and left groups with agendas. Although I read your cites, they did not persuade me to their agendas nor show me that “the UK also knows that Obama has changed both withdraw timetable, and number of troops.”
Opa, here’s another on combat troops. It’s not 10%, more like 23% to 1/3 of personnel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/world/middleeast/10troops.html?pagewanted=print
We just need to get out, we’ve done enough re-building too.
Well, sorry rjma about nit-pick stuff. I just feel that I’m constantly repeating myself.
I’m not against rebuilding the nations we have wrongfully destroyed, like Japan and Iraq. I’m talking about terrorist harboring countries like Afghanistan. I guess this is where you really have to know the person you’re trying to talk with, like across a room.
I am not for the Iraq war. I just used the intel report to show you that Bush used reports like this to justify going to war. And based on the same reports coming into Obama, and his desire to keep our troops there in greater numbers for longer then he had first said. So if I believe that we need more intel then Bush used, and as stated, if I believe we must be attacked or about to be before we attack, then going out on these limbs with you just seems pointless.
OPA, on going into Iraq, Pakistan etc… I used that example for the intel that Bush and Obama has gotten on real terror threats to us. I know the history that we didn’t have to go into Iraq and we did. I believe I’ve stated that. Things have changed because of our occupancy.
Berlin was gone enough for us to walk away before we marched in and re-built them. Their country was in shambles. All we needed to do was go in and have the peace talks after freeing up the prison camps.
Viet Nam is a good example of troops that were only supposed to be there for “advisory” and non-combat. They still died.
Obama time-table and numbers of troops staying and going has certainly changed. Since you like links, here’s another good one.
http://www.mediamouse.org/news/2009/02/obama-iraq-withdrawal-plan.php
And this ones even better, cause it shows how the UK also knows that Obama has changed both withdraw timetable, and number of troops: http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2009/04/obamas-iraq-no-change.html
OW, read your cite again. It does NOT say that Obama said “all” troops. It says he said all “COMBAT troops.” Combat troops are about 10% of all troops. The other 90% are “support” troops. There has been no change in Obama’s position.
As I said, no one wins any war. All loose.
Re. China, why are you overlooking their occupation of Tibet?
Re. your feeling that Bush had the “’’right’ to do whatever he felt he had to do to keep us safe, including root out real terror threats whether they be in Iraq, Pakistan, or elsewhere,” I disagree. First, that is not what happened. Truthfully, Iraq posed absolutely no real threat to us. The threat to and attack on us was from Al Queda not from Iraq. Al Queda was not in Iraq and Saddam opposed them. Al Queda was in Afghanistan. Face the facts, Bush used false intelligence to precipitate our unjustifiable war on Iraq. Al Queda killed less than 3,000 of us innocents on 9/11. Thus far the Iraq war has cost 733,232 people killed and 1,398,087 people injured. 19,886 people have been killed in Afghanistan and 52,736 people injured in Afghanistan. (See www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html) The vast majority of them were innocent of any attack on us. I am very upset by these numbers. Why kill and injure millions and accomplish nothing? After we terminated all those lives and spent hundreds of billions of our dollars, Bin Laden is still alive and well. I challenge you to please rest my mind.
Finally, early in WWII many generals believed as you do that air power alone could win the war. They were proven wrong. Bombing may damage infrastructure but it heightens resistance. Bombed to ruble, Berlin was taken by ground forces. Think about it.
Since you’ve used the term twice to describe me, I feel obliged to note that it is nit-pick not knit-pick which maybe has something to do with yarn. Nits are the eggs of lice. So the next time you think I’m quibbling, say I’m nit-picking.
Then you say: “if they are bad enough to bomb, then let them re-build their own countries afterward. It’s keep ‘em busy, and save us lots of money and human life”.
So what would you say to the Iraqi civilians who did nothing to us yet we found it necessary to bring years of war to their country. “Keep ‘em busy” rebuilding their country? Brilliant. Do you work in the Al Qaeda recruitment office?
Then you close with: “If we did what we had to do to protect ourselves, then why should we apologize afterward? They killed innocent people too when they came here.“
How exactly did the Iraq war protect us? And who exactly is “they”? It was mostly Saudis that killed Americans so we should kill Iraqis? Or is “they” simply Moslems and we shouldn’t get all technical about which innocent ones we kill, after all “they” killed us first.
Opa, on Changes in Obama’s original proposals:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16896534/ “Obama’s bill would cap troop levels in Iraq at the early January level of around 130,000, when Bush announced he would send 21,500 additional U.S. forces to Iraq. It would require that troops begin coming home on May 1 with the goal of removing all combat brigades by March 31, 2008.“
Obama certainly has said “all”, as of this Jan. 30, 2007 writing. And it has changed since.
You can apply the same rules in war for both sides, but there are no real rules, and never the same situations. We did not win in any occupied war. We simply paid a high price to get what we wanted. We paid in human life and we’ve paid in untold amounts of money, and we truly never changed people. And that goes for Japan and Germany as well. You don’t see China thinking they can police and change the world.
rjma, you are really being knit-picky about this one. I said Bush got the same warning in August of 2001 from the NIE and then Sept 11th happened. Then we attacked back. Obama just got the same NIE briefing, but he felt before he was President that Bush did wrong to go into Iraq on that intel. I say Bush had the right to do whatever he felt he had to do to keep us safe, including root out real terror threats whether they be in Iraq, Pakistan, or elsewhere. And this intel says that Iraq is breeding some.
From there, I took it to tactical differences. I do not believe in attacking using ground forces to root out terrorist. You send a season of planes, bombs and they get the message, or they get more. Why kill thousands and accomplish nothing?
Thus, my earlier postings have said, that if they are bad enough that we have to attack them to be safe, then we better be right on the intel. And if they are bad enough to bomb, then let them re-build their own countries afterward. It’s keep ‘em busy, and save us lots of money and human life.
You may think I’m cold-hearted, but it’s actually the opposite. If we did what we had to do to protect ourselves, then why should we apologize afterward? They killed innocent people too when they came here.
OW, you’re welcome. Re. do I think “Pakistan is going to escalate a war with us to the point they bomb the Pentagon just because we bomb some terrorist training camps or hangouts?” No, but what’s your point. According to your statement, if they did you would say they have the “right” to do so. Rights are universal. If we have the right, so does everyone.
Also, history bears out that “occupied wars” are certainly win-able. Look at WWII (we occupied/still occupy Germany and Japan). Consider our Indian wars. Go back to Rome. Win/loose is not the issue. In the final analysis, no war is win-able. Every party looses, one worse than the other.
Re. change, no it’s not a change. He did not say “ALL” troops. Look again. What he said was all “combat” troops. At the same time he said “A residual U.S. presence may remain in Iraq for force protection, training of Iraqi security forces and pursuit of international terrorists.“ He didn’t say how many. What someone says and what you think they said are not necessarily the same. That is what I mean when I reference “reading comprehension.” Read more carefully.
But wait a minute, you quote the NIE,
“we are again in the midst of a “summer of threat,“ with bin Ladin and many more terrorists determined to strike in the United States.“ Then you write “If this paragraph is true, then Bush had every right to go where ever he could to root out these people, and that should include Pakistan.“
You are very clearly saying “Yes, if there is a perceived threat, root them out”. “Root them out” is of course a euphemism for military intervention.
There you say attack if threatened. But later you say attack ONLY if attacked. Which is it?
I’d like to say that I can conceive of a situation where a preventive attack could be justified. BUT, and it is a big BUT, one better be really , really sure that the threat is real and imminent and cannot be deterred any other way. The consequences for being wrong are grave and I dont’ just mean dead American soldiers.
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