The way his voice was breaking, I'm pretty sure he hasn't grown a pair. What a crazy rant. For Kennedy to go ballistic over a meaningless, throwaway House resolution written by Dennis Kucinich to demand that the troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan is not "standing up for the troops". It is vanity and arrogance, and insanity.
Now I'm not saying that government-controlled media is doing a good job covering Afghanistan - they are not; in fact, barely covering it at all, with the neglect probably at the direction of the WH. Remember, the Obamists loathe the military. But I do think the media have no obligation to cover the speechifying about this particular resolution.
For real reporting on Afghanistan, go to
michaelyon-online.com
the war powers resolution allows the president to go to war for up to 90(?) days without any congressional authorization. we're going on ten years now, and it's "throwaway" to even debate 50 U.S.C. 1544(c), but wasn't throwaway to get into the war? it's the same set of laws. the US hasn't declared war since june 1942, yet to go to war now you can just do it, then tell congress "go ahead and don't authorize continuing it. see what you get." how is positioning yourself against this not standing up for the troops? do they like it or something? i would think that standing up for the troops entails paying for what they need once you've committed them to fighting, or just
not fighting, considering you are wasting their time and, you know, sending them to their potential deaths. and they're obviously not giving them what they need. ask anyone.
afpak is way out of line in consideration of the history of defensive, authorized US military operations with no declaration of war, specifically the substance of these operations. consider the barbary wars, wherein neither president madison nor congress nor the supreme court had any problem kicking ass in a totally undeclared war out in the mediterranean to protect pirate raids on US merchants and their trading partners. before that was the quasi-war, which was not altogether different. congress never saw fit to utter a word against something so obvious as open war on the high seas -- which nobody owns -- purely for the defense of real, tangible assets of US citizens. who would argue against that? it would be like saying you need to fill out a form before you draw your sidearm in defense.
yet in those cases we're talking about stuff we've already bought or made ourselves. don't recall the US building any north african colonies, either, or trying to set up a centralized state for the countrymen of the barbary pirates after capturing or killing them all. don't recall anyone fighting over a "strategic interest" under the president that authored the bill of rights. would we allow, and be just peachy-keen-content with, communist china coming here to run a 10-year military campaign to fight the millions of gangbangers in the country?
i think it's just a little bit more complicated than you put it. not to mention that suggesting virtually 24/7 coverage of congress should suddenly pull a
damnatio memoriae when kucinich and ron paul are talking is basically like saying nancy pelosi is right about the fairness doctrine, she just picked the wrong colors to side with. they're elected representatives, and i bet they have far closer to the constitutionally mandated 30,000 citizens in their trust than we here in the people's democratic republic of strugglechusetts.
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