But I really had to get this off my chest. Kucinich said some things that disturbed me. For those to lazy to click on the link:
...his opening remarks in Thursday's debate bothered me a lot.
SEIB: Turning on Iraq to Congressman Kucinich and Reverend Sharpton, you've both been outspoken critics of the war and have said, in fact, you'd bring the troops home. But the fact is that as of now the troops are there, the United States is committed.
Would you vote--will you vote yes or no on the $87 billion? And if the answer is no, what's the message you would send to the troops who are there today?
KUCINICH: The message is now I will not vote for the $87 billion. I think we should support the troops and I think we best support them by bringing them home.
Our troops are at peril there, because of this administration's policy. And I think that the American people deserve to know where every candidate on this stage stands on this issue, because we were each provided with a document--a security document that more or less advised us to stay the course, don't cut and run, commit up to 150,000 troops for five years at a cost of up to $245 billion.
A matter of fact, General Clark was one of the authors of that document that was released in July.
So I think the American people deserve to know that a candidate--and I'm the candidate who led the effort in the House of Representatives challenging the Bush administration's march toward war, I say bring the troops home unequivocally. Bring them home and stop this commitment for $87 billion, which is only going to get us in deeper.
After a while, we're going to be sacrificing our education, our health care, our housing and the future of this nation.
First, I've been googling since Thursday to find out what this "security document" is Kucinich is talking about, and I can't find it anywhere. Kucinich supporters have grasped at this alleged report as proof that Wesley Clark wants to spend $245 billion dollars for more warfare in Iraq, which is certainly at odds with the General's public statements.
General Clark wasn't given a chance to rebut Kucinich's claim. In the absense of context, it isn't unreasonable to assume that this "security document," if it exists at all, was an estimate of what the war will cost if it continues as it has. We're already up to $166 billion ($79 billion original appropriation plus the infamous $87 billion recently requested). One of these days it'll add up to real money.
It bothered me also that Kucinich glibly brushed off the $87 billion -- no more money to Iraq, just bring the troops home. Kucinich apparently plans to beam them back to North America next week with his Start Trek transporter.
It's morally cheap to be against the $87 billion. Of course, no one wants to spend the $87 billion. This is money that would never have had to be spent if we hadn't gone ahead with the dadblamed invasion. As several candidates said last Thursday, we must demand accountability for that money -- Congress must know exactly what the Bushies intend to do with every dollar. Perhaps a lesser appropriation will do. But to say no money at all is irresponsible.
As I've ranted before, our troops are in Iraq without adequate food, water, and shelter. Soldiers have died because there aren't enough kevlar vests to go around. Just today we learned of a new attempt by the Bushies to save money by risking soldiers' lives:
Even as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made headlines this week by announcing that up to 20,000 fresh troops may be called to Iraq, President Bush and members of the congressional leadership were quietly abandoning a plan to protect troop-transport airliners from missile attack by terrorists or Saddam loyalists.
The measure, first advanced by the Pentagon, would have begun an ambitious program to equip the commercial airliners that are used for troop transport with advanced technology to protect them from the shoulder-fired missiles. Confused by disarray in the administration's plans to protect airliners from missile attack, the House of Representatives slashed the original $25 million request to $3 million. Congressional officials say the Bush administration did nothing to win approval of the full measure -- despite recent missile attacks on U.S. military craft flying near the Baghdad airport. (Paul J. Caffera, "Bush Abandons Troop Protection Plan," Salon, September 27, 2003)
But according to Dennis Kucinich, our troops should just put up with these little hardships until we can bring them home, which in spite of the Congressman's best hopes will not be next week.
When I press them on the matter of how the troops will be brought home, the Kucinichistas tell me brightly that the Congressman has an original plan to turn Iraq over to the UN. Wow, I'm amazed nobody else ever though of that (sarcasm alert).
Still, the UN is not likely to march peacekeepers into Baghdad anytime this year. Perhaps not even next year. But we don't have to spend any more money to support the troops. They can just make do without kevlar vests and bottled water and other little frills.
(Am I still pissed off? You betcha.)
Face it, Kucinich was just plain demagoging this issue. The other candidates gave reasonable, thoughtful answers to the $87 billion question. For the record, I thought the best answer came from Carol Mosley Braun:
MOSELEY BRAUN: I stand with the mothers of the young men and women who are in the desert in Iraq and who right now are in the shooting gallery without even sufficient supplies to sustain themselves.
And so, it is absolutely, I think, critical that we not cut and run, that we provide our troops with what they need and that we just not blow up that country and leave it blown up; we have a responsibility.
Following in on that responsibility means we will have to vote some money. The estimates vary as to what that is.
Almost a year ago, I called on this president not to go into Iraq and I called on the Congress not to give him the authority to go into Iraq, and at the same time asked the question, "Mr. President, how much is this going to cost?" He didn't answer the question then, he's not answering the question now.
But I believe that it's going to be important for us to come up with the money to make certain that our young men and women and our reputation as leaders in the world is not permanently destroyed by the folly of preemptive war.
You say she doesn't want to cut and run? In Kucinich World, that makes Mosley Braun a war monger. For shame.
(There's a lot more, before and after.)
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