Prominent Democrat Opposes Immediate Withdrawl

[Pangloss]

Bill Nelson is an extremely popular Democratic Senator from Florida, and is considered a shoe-in for re-election next fall. Any flack he might have received from liberals over this is likely to ring hollow, considering that his Republican opponent is likely to be Katherine "Hanging Chads" Harris. (chuckle)

 

Yet... for some reason... I don't think this story will get the same amount of attention that the Murtha story got. Gee, I wonder why!

 

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/sfl-fnelsonnov24,0,618949.story?coll=sfla-news-florida

 

JACKSONVILLE · U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Wednesday he was opposed to the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq because he fears it would allow al-Qaida to take over the oil-rich nation.

 

"We want this thing to end, but it's got to be done in a way that stabilizes so that we don't have an al-Qaida controlling the world's oil supply," Nelson said in a news conference.

 

Nelson's comments came after a fellow Democrat, Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, set off a firestorm last week when he proposed all the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq be pulled out over the next six months.

 

Nelson said the Bush administration had not done a good job selling the war to the American people.

 

"The way to keep the American people behind the war effort is to be open and truthful and up front and to give clear goals of what you are trying to achieve," Nelson said. "When we went in to Iraq, we were not only given misinformation, we withheld information and what we were given was not true."

 

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have defended their administration in recent days from those types of accusations, repeating there is no timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Cheney has said suggestions that the White House twisted information to lead the nation to Iraq were "dishonest and reprehensible."

[ecoli]

And he doesn't want to scare off potential republican votes... Candidates often take on more moderate views because of this.

[john5746]

He isn't the only one, almost all of the Congress and Senate and the rest of the country don't want an immediate withdraw. The country isn't ready to give up, yet. At least the scenario for withdraw is being talked about more clearly and readily. It is good for the administration to feel pressure to get the job done. I bet things are starting to happen behind the scenes to get better results quickly. This is what is important, not any political points. Of course, both sides of the aisle won't agree come election time.

[bascule]

Umm, talk about spin...

 

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Wednesday he was opposed to the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq because he fears it would allow al-Qaida to take over the oil-rich nation.

 

Murtha doesn't support an immediate withdrawl of troops either.

 

In fact, if memory serves I think, oh yes, that the House Republicans introduced a resolution calling for an immediate withdrawl of troops from Iraq, and 98% of Democrats voted it down...

 

So, this thread is really much ado about nothing. 98% of House Democrats oppose immediate withdrawl.

 

I thought this was a fairly good deconstruction of the issue:

 

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8136

 

Democrats Take on Murtha

 

Hillary Clinton was quick to distance herself from Rep. John Murtha's impassioned plea to get us out of Iraq:

 

"The New York Democrat said she respects Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., the Vietnam veteran and hawkish ex-Marine who last week called for an immediate troop pullout. But she added: 'I think that would cause more problems for us in America.'"

 

Aside from the fact that Murtha did not call for an "immediate troop pullout" – his plan calls for an exit after six months – the question is, what sort of "problems" is she talking about? Of course, for Hillary, the Bush tax cuts are a "problem" – and they would be a lot more credible if we were no longer bogged down in Iraq. Another "problem" for the putative Democratic presidential candidate: the pro-war wing of the Democratic Party, which wields a lot of clout – albeit more financial than electoral – would be none too pleased if Mrs. Clinton jumped on board the antiwar bandwagon. Her rationale for continuing the war is indistinguishable from that of the Bush-Cheney gang, although she does her best to make a distinction without a difference:

 

"'It will matter to us if Iraq totally collapses into civil war, if it becomes a failed state the way Afghanistan was, where terrorists are free to basically set up camp and launch attacks against us,' she said. At the same time, Clinton said the Bush administration's pledge to stay in Iraq 'until the job is done' amounts to giving the Iraqis 'an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves.'"

 

With the Clintons, as we all know by now, you have to parse their words very carefully, but if anyone can tease a coherent position out of the above, they are welcome to try.

 

States "fail" when they are defeated in war and occupied by a foreign army. The moment we invaded, Iraq's future as a "failed state" was assured – and who is to blame for that? Not just Bush and the neocons, but all the Democrats who voted to authorize a military strike – including, very notably, Senator Clinton. And for the life of me, I can't imagine what she means by conjuring up a scenario in which "terrorists are free basically to set up camp and launch attacks against us." What does she think is happening in Iraq now? One is forced to conclude that Clinton is merely rephrasing the core argument advanced by the Bush administration in the run-up to war and since: she has bought into the idea that we're fighting them in Fallujah so we don't have to battle them on the streets of Brooklyn.

 

La Clinton is restrained from saying this for fear of alienating her Democratic Party base, but she clearly wants to have it both ways. On the one hand, we can't leave – lest Iraq become a "failed state" – and yet, on the other hand, we can't stay "until the job is done," because… well, because that's what George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are saying.

 

So what does Hillary want? When push comes to shove, she comes out an agnostic on the Iraq question:

 

"Clinton, who is running for re-election to the Senate and is seen as a likely presidential candidate in 2008, suggested that the United States wait for Iraq's Dec. 15 elections for an indication about how soon the Iraqis can take over. 'Until they vote for a government, I don't know that we will have adequate information about how prepared they are,' she said."

 

Translation: Go away and don't bother me, because, amid all this strenuous positioning, I really don't have a position to unveil this early in the game.

 

Unfortunately, the nation can't wait until the Democratic Sibyl is ready to come out with an oracular pronouncement we can make sense of. Americans are dying at an alarming rate over there, and the military is getting chewed up pretty badly – to the point where a man like Murtha, who has the ear of the generals, is speaking for his military constituency when he raises the cry of "Out now!" The Bushies, however, aren't listening, and neither are the Democrats – and I don't just mean She Who Would Be President. Even worse is Sen. Joe Biden, who gave his own presidential ambitions a well-deserved rest a while back, yet still speaks with the diction of a paralyzing caution, as if he has to watch his every word lest an original thought creeps in undetected.

 

(cont'd)

[Pangloss]

Murtha proposed a complete withdrawl within six months. As stated in the article I posted, bascule. I even quoted it in the first post. There's no need to link another article saying exactly the same thing.

 

The use of the word "immediate" was just to distinguish his position from Murtha's. How else would you have me put it on a short subject line? I can't just remove the word "immediate" because Nelson doesn't oppose withdrawl (for that matter neither does Bush).

 

Post something more relevent please.