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Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Richardson Counters Bush: Surge Has Failed, Withdraw All Troops
There's a big PR push coming from Bush, the White House and their surrogates to convince us that the "surge" is going well and that we are making "progress" towards a "victory." There's even a new Bushie front group called Freedom's Watch, led by Libby trial witness and former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. It's launching a $15 million TV ad campaign targeting Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, to pressure them to stand with Bush on Iraq instead of standing with the nation and our troops -- kind of a Swiftboating of their own. "Freedom Watch's" first ad buy in New Mexico will total $254,190.
And today Bush , drawing exactly the wrong lessons. It wasn't long ago that Bush was demeaning Iraq War critics for bringing up Viet Nam, remember? And the main lesson we learned from Nam? That the last four years of the war brought huge numbers of deaths without affecting the outcome one iota -- while Richard Nixon diddled for political gain. Sound familiar?
Governor Bill Richardson was one of the first out of the box today to call Bush on his distortions, while on the campaign trail in Nevada. He reiterated that he has the most effective plan to end the war and that the surge has failed. He again called for a withdrawal of all our troops leaving no residual forces. Here's his statement:
RENO, NV -- Governor Bill Richardson, campaigning in Nevada, today released a statement in response to a speech by President Bush comparing a withdrawing of U.S. forces from Iraq to America's withdrawal at the end of the Vietnam War.
"The correct conclusion to draw from our experience in Vietnam," said Governor Richardson, "is that dragging out the process of withdrawal will be tragically worse in terms of U.S. lives lost and worse for the Iraqi's themselves in terms of the ultimate instability we will create by staying longer."
In 1968 Nixon ran on a platform of ending the war with honor. It took 7 years to get the last American soldier out of Vietnam. In the meantime, tens of thousands more Americans died. The costs in terms of tragedy in Southeast Asia itself are a matter of historical record. Millions of civilians ultimately died in Vietnam, in Cambodia and the killing fields and millions more ultimately had to flee their homes.
"We have now been in Iraq longer than it took to win World War II," Governor Richardson continued. "My plan for Iraq is designed to end this war with the least possible number of U.S. casualties and with the least damaging effects of Iraqi's reconciliation process. This means getting all of our troops out as quickly and safely as possible. Leaving residual troops in Iraq as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have suggested will only drag out the process to the detriment of all involved. Reconciliation can only occur when the U.S. has completely withdrawn. Everyday, more and more experts are coming to the same conclusion I drew seven months ago. My position has been consistent and unwavering. A fast, safe withdrawal with no residual troops."
In addition, Governor Richardson reiterated his belief that the so-called "surge" in U.S. forces in Iraq has been a failure, and responded to Senator Clinton's change of heart regarding the lack of progress in the war.
"I am pleased that Senator Clinton, today, recognizes that the surge has produced no progress of any long term significance to the Iraq debacle. That is different from what she said yesterday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. But, it is that audience, who has sacrificed more than any of us, who deserves to hear a clear statement that our sons and daughters and mothers and fathers are not going to be sacrificed because of an irrational commitment to a failed strategy.
The President is asking the country to wait for next month's progress report from General Petraeus. The chances are that report will be just another White House spin job and attempt to justify this war. This has been the bloodiest summer yet -- our troops have done an admirable job at trying to make a bad idea work, but the surge has failed, the war has failed, Bush has failed. It is time to end this war and bring all of our troops home as soon as possible. I'm glad Hillary Clinton has retracted her comments yesterday and has declared the surge a failure today -- but I still haven't gotten an answer to my question -- a peace in Iraq will fail as long as we leave troops behind -- how many would you leave behind? Every other major candidate would leave thousands of US troops in Iraq for an indefinite. I will leave no U.S. forces there. Zero.
The only way out of the Iraq mess is to remove all U.S. troops, and to use that leverage to get the warring parties to resolve their differences, and surrounding Muslim nations to help stabilize the country. Any residual U.S. force reduces the chances for success, and exposes our troops as targets. Our brave troops, and the American people, deserve better."
(Photo Credit: AP /Charlie Neibergall)
August 22, 2007 at 08:17 PM in 2008 Presidential Primary, Iraq War | Permalink
Comments
There are 18 candidates for president between the two parties, and Bill Richardson might just be the biggest disappointment of all of them.
If anyone had the makings of a dark horse who could threaten the serious-candidate-tier monopoly of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, it would be Mr. Richardson. Or so the thinking went.
But the hesitant, confused and jarringly inarticulate man the country has met this year is a far cry from the savvy and confident leader that his résumé might lead one to expect. Mr. Richardson struggles—painfully at times—to express himself in public settings, particularly in debates, where he seems to alternate between reciting elementary platitudes and veering into off-the-cuff remarks that invariably raise serious questions about his intellectual habits.
For instance, in the very first Democratic debate—broadcast on MSNBC in April—Mr. Richardson was asked what Supreme Court justice would serve as the model for his own appointments. When it was his turn he cited Byron White—or as Mr. Richardson insisted on calling him in a reference to his brief football career, “Whizzer White.”
It was a revealing moment. White’s court legacy is defined, if anything, by his staunch social conservatism—he authored the dissent in Roe v. Wade and the 1986 ruling that upheld a state’s right to arrest homosexuals for sodomy. And yet Mr. Richardson supports both abortion and gay rights. During the debate, he offered no substantive rationale for naming White as his model, and when confronted days later with an accounting of White’s court tenure, he professed not to have known that “Whizzer” had it in for gay Americans.
Mr. Richardson’s presidential campaign has featured a seemingly unending stream of such little, easy-to-dismiss moments that, considered together, raise the same red flag.
But his candidacy has produced more basic concerns as well.
For one, his transparent ploy to win votes on the antiwar left with an empty “plan” for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq—an idea dismissed as impractical by seasoned voices on all sides of the war debate—threatens the respect and standing he previously won through his impressive foreign policy work.
Mr. Richardson has moved up to high single and low double digits in Iowa and New Hampshire polling, which is more than the other lower-tier aspirants can say. But that’s a testament to the power of the idea of Bill Richardson—the governor with the million-dollar résumé whose emergence on the national stage was anticipated for years by political watchers.
Because the more Bill Richardson says, the less serious his candidacy seems.
Posted by: | Aug 23, 2007 9:26:10 AM
