The Idiotic Senate Iraq Debate

RUSH: Up next, Dingy Harry Reid late yesterday on the Senate floor.

REID: Mr. President, this war is not worth the spilling of another drop of American blood. As it stands, this emergency legislation before this body tonight will send a signal to our president that it’s time for a new direction.

RUSH: I heard the president, Dingy Harry. I don’t think he got that message. I don’t think he thinks it’s time for a new direction. I think he thinks that you people own defeat. I think he thinks that you Democrats are trying to secure defeat for your own country. You are trying to guarantee we lose this war. He knows that you probably don’t care about that. He knows all you want is him. Have you heard this? The Democrats have gone out and hired a whole bunch of outside law firms to handle all the investigations of this administration that they have planned because their own counsel inside House committees is not going to be enough. They’re going to spend. Each lawyer is going to cost them $225,000.

Have you ever paid legal fees? You go out and hire these top dog lawyers from these big-time law firms. They’re not going to come in there and work for government salaries. They’re going to charge $225,000 is what they say. Yeah, right! That’s like we’re only going to spend five bucks for the spinach farmer. It ends up being $24 million for the spinach farmer out in Carmel, California. At any rate, Dingy Harry is letting the world know and letting our enemies know he’s on their side. The biggest allies that Al-Qaeda has are the Democrats in the United States House, the Democrats in the United States Senate, and the poor, deranged, misguided leftists and Democrats’ average citizens in this country. Now, McCain on the Senate floor yesterday with a bit of a Limbaugh echo here.

MCCAIN: Supporters of this provision said they want a date certain for a US withdrawal from Iraq. But what they have offered us is more accurately described as a date certain for surrender, a date certain for surrender (with) grave consequences for the future of Iraq, (the) stability of the Middle East, and the security of Americans at home and abroad.

RUSH: Yeah, these are the people, don’t forget, that say they care about human rights and so forth. They couldn’t care less about the people of Iraq. They couldn’t care what the people of Iraq are going through then or now or in the future. This is all about their political future, and their calculation is that this action in the House and Senate has launched them to the White House in 2008 and a perpetual majority. That’s what they think they’ve accomplished. They are giddy. They’re very happy. They love it when this country loses. They love defeat. They love the United States surrendering. You know, not even the two senators from Maine — Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — changed their votes on this. They stuck with the Republicans. If you’d expect two to infiltrate the other side, you’d expect those two to be among the list. But it’s Chuck Hagel and Ben Nelson, who is a Democrat anyway but they both changed their minds. Here’s more McCain. He was on the Today Show this morning. Meredith Vieira said, ‘Your thoughts this morning, Senator McCain?’

MCCAIN: Fifty of my colleagues made a very bad decision yesterday, and I believe that there’s no doubt that the president, who is the commander-in-chief, will prevail. We will fund whatever is necessary for these brave Americans that are fighting in Iraq to succeed. Senator Reid said it’s ‘not worth one more drop of American blood.’ If that’s true, then why doesn’t Senator Reid and the Democrats propose cutting off funding and ‘bring ’em home’ tomorrow? Why wait 18 months?

RUSH: Well, that’s a good question, but I’ll tell you why they want ’08. They want it done before the election. They want the withdrawal taking place in the election year during the presidential campaign. He’s actually raised a very good point. They say they’re concerned about the troops, not one more drop of American blood should be lost. ‘Oh, we can lose a lot of Americans, we can lose a lot of blood, but we don’t want this to happen ’til 2008 because these troops and their withdrawal are nothing but a pawn for our political ambitions.’ That’s what the Democrats are saying. They said it loud and clear. Senator Durbin yesterday on the Senate floor…

DURBIN: We have spent $500 billion of our treasure in the Iraq that could have been spent in the United States for the betterment of our people in our country. We have given to the Iraqi people more than any other nation could ask for in the world. We have stood behind them. We have deposed their dictator. We’ve given them free governance. We’ve given them a chance at a constitution and free elections, and now it’s time for us to make it clear to the Iraqis (that) it is their country; it is their war; it is their future.

RUSH: That’s the plan! That’s what the surge is all about, you dingbat! That’s precisely what the plan is. By the way, has he ever heard the Marshall Plan? What did we do for Germany? What did we do for France? What did we do for the UK? What did we do for Japan? This is pure idiocy, and it’s owned by the Democrat Party just as they own surrender and just as they own defeat.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: David in Stanfield, North Carolina. You’re up first. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network.

CALLER: How you doing, Rush?

RUSH: Good. Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Listen, I’m about fit to be tied here. Yesterday I heard Senator Reid on C-SPAN mention that the Iraqi prime minister asked President Bush to remove the troops from Baghdad and that the majority of the Iraqi people wanted us out of Baghdad. What is going on? What is the truth? I am so tired of this.

RUSH: You know, that’s something that Jack Murtha has been spouting for a couple of years, that there are polls showing the Iraqi people want us out of there. It’s the exact opposite. The Iraqi people do not want us to leave yet. We had a picture on Friday. (photo gallery) We put it on my website. The Iraqis are coming back to Baghdad now that the surge is working, and they’re having carnivals. You can see pictures of them eating their version of snow cones and riding on Ferris wheels and so forth. As for Maliki, yeah, he’s gone back and forth. Eventually he wants us out of there, there’s no question. But right now, no. It’s just the opposite. We’re the ones telling Maliki the way it’s going to be. We’re the ones telling him what he’s got to do in order to get control of his country, and that is join forces with us against his own buddies who are the Shiites.

CALLER: What if the sovereign government — this is supposed to be a sovereign government. They don’t want us there. Why are we there? I’m all for taking care of the situation. It’s very complicated. But it makes it even worse when you got the prime minister who can’t get his act together. I’m just really fit to be tied. I’ve got so many thoughts about this whole thing, but you don’t have time to hear it, so I just want to —

RUSH: Let me try to explain. I know what your menagerie of thoughts are. There are many things at work here — and don’t forget, this whole thing is not just about the stability of Iraq. If you think it is, we would have never gone to war just for the ‘stability’ of Iraq. This is about United States national security. This is about protecting us. The president said today, ‘Don’t let the images of 9/11 in your mind die.’ It’s amazing that so many people have forgotten it. I know why it is. It’s easy to forget it. There hasn’t been an attack since. (Bush is so rotten, there hasn’t been an attack since 9/11.) Muslims are at war with us, Chuck Hagel says, yet there hasn’t been an attack since 9/11. I wonder why that is? And because there hasn’t been an attack, because the economy is doing well, we’ve got a bunch people here who, if they choose, can pretend that nothing’s wrong in the world. They can go about their lives, and they don’t have to be concerned about it at all, because other Americans are taking on the responsibility. Fine and dandy. This is no criticism.

But it is an explanation for why people are able to put 9/11 out of their minds and forget that this is all interrelated. The war on terror is going to take us many places: Iraq, Afghanistan, and probably other places eventually. Look at what Iran’s doing with the 15 Brits. Chuck Hagel says that we’re ‘perceived to be at war with the Muslims’ around the world. The whole point here is to create a stable Iraq, an Iraq that is sovereign and governing, and we want that as quickly as possible. Everybody running this war wants that as quickly as possible. But you don’t lie to yourself and say it’s been achieved when it hasn’t been! The problem with Maliki has been that his sect is the Sunnis, and that happens to be what the Iranians are, and he’s been buddy-buddy with Muqtada al-Sadr.

He hasn’t had any guts to go after al-Sadr. We read him the riot act, and he’s done a 180 on this. Al-Sadr is still out of the country. He’s in Iran. Al-Sadr and his Mahdi ‘army’ have sort of fled the scene. Everybody’s waiting for them to come back when they think the time is right. But we can do as much as we can to prevent their return being the day of disaster that everybody expects that it is going to be. If you’re going to listen to people like Dingy Harry as your source authority on this, you’re just going to have to accept the fact that you’re listening to a bunch of political partisan lies in order to advance his (and his party’s) political advantage in 2008. Do you want to sign up for that? It’s your right. Feel free.