Putnam clings to failed Iraq policy

Text of the Resolution opposed by Rep. Putnam

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), that ...

(1) Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and

(2) Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

Adam Putnam, as Chairman of the House Republican Conference, is third in line in the House Republican leadership. He represents special interests of Florida's 12th Congressional District.

Today Congressman Putnam spoke on the Iraq Resolution. My comments follow excerpts from that speech.

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Putnam: "After all the tough talk we heard from the other side, this is a rather toothless 97 words."

Yes, congressman, so toothless it's giving you and your Minority Party conniption fits. Rather than wasting your time criticizing Democrats for their timidity, though, why don't you spend a couple of minutes trying to think of an occasion during the past four years that you dared to raise a serious question on Bush-Cheney's failed policy in Iraq. Talk about a toothless wonder!

Putnam: "Now, the majority has surely studied its constitutional law, and knows that the most direct way it can affect the current strategy is to cut off the funds necessary to win the war. So why are we not having - this week - a real up-or-down vote on troop funding?"

Congressman, why are you, like all the apoplectic Republican leaders on the losing side of the Iraq issue, so desperate to have Democrats cut funding? Whatever the ultimate outcome in Iraq, you will blame them for losing the war anyway. Give it up. The American people have already decided that George Bush - with your unwavering support - lost Iraq a long time ago.

Yet you support the madness still. Perhaps if you had exercised proper oversight of the war when Republicans had an iron grip on Congress, you'd still be in the majority. So sit down and shut up. If in two years Democrats haven't done a better job than you did, I'll join you in protesting their lack of progress.

Putnam: "Actually, the Congress has had one up-or-down vote on the new strategy for victory - well, it more was like up-only, when the Senate unanimously confirmed General David Petraeus as commanding officer in Iraq."

Even a small child would recognize that statement as utter nonsense. In confirming General Petraeus's military appointment, the Senate in no way relinquished Congress's constitutional responsibilities. George Bush was not granted dictatorial powers to use our troops as his personal army, ignoring the will of Congress and the voice of the American people.

Putnam: "Today, al-Qaeda operates in over 60 countries with members in the hundreds and supporters in the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions."

Right. But al-Qaeda terrorists were not active in Iraq until George Bush created the perfect environment for them. "Bring'em on," indeed. How many thousands of new terrorists has your colossal blunder and mismanagement of the war created?

Meanwhile, where is Osama bin Laden? Is he in Iraq now and, like Bush and Cheney, searching for WMD's? That would make as much sense as your pretension of "taking the war to Iraq" because terrorists from Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11. You're not only failing Logic 101, you're flunking geography as well.

Putnam: "The consequences of failure in Iraq read like a far-fetched war game, but I assure you they are quite real -- the inevitable incursion of Iranian and Syrian combatants into the country, the threat to peaceful Arab states, and the further emboldening of Hamas and Hezbollah."

You said it. And that end result became possible the day George Bush embarked upon his invasion of a country that did not threaten US security. If I, along with many other observers, could at the time sit in Lakeland, Florida (your congressional district, far removed from the military geniuses in the White House) and predict the consequences of blowing the doors open to hell, where was your head - and where has it been for four long years? Why should I trust your judgment on anything - especially Iraq? Why should Congress give an idiot free rein to further "surge" the catastrophe he created?

And why, congressman, don't you have the guts to put the blame for failure on those who created and implemented the failed policies - not those who were right all along, and those who have inherited the monumental, perhaps impossible, task of stopping the Middle East from spinning further out of control?

Putnam: "So we have arrived at one of those muddy historical crossroads: will we continue to take the fight to the enemy or will we fall back and hope the enemy does not pursue?"

Name one Iraqi involved in 9/11. There are none, so stop the lies. We invaded their country, remember?

Putnam: "Time was, politics stopped at the water's edge - but no longer it seems."

That time was before the Bush gang and their echo-chamber in the Republican Congress cynically and shamefully politicized foreign policy in every way imaginable - even to impugning the patriotism of anyone with the good sense to question Bush's irresponsible policies.

In your arrogance before last November's elections, you foolishly believed that Republican power was not only absolute, but permanent. How sad for this country that, since 9/11, your party has behaved, for crass political advantage, with flagrant disregard for truth and integrity.

And, with your speech today, the game, as you call it yourself, continues - while better men and women than you continue to shed their blood for your mistakes.

Putnam: "This week's discussion should be about the way through, not the way back."

You're 32 years old, congressman. Men older - and younger - than you are dying every day in Iraq.

Make "the way through" more than idle rhetoric: Put your ass where your ideology is.