“A defense bill amendment to repeal authority for military force that has been in place since right after 9-11, effectively expediting plans for a full withdrawal and ending America’s longest war.”
Massie states the biggest obstacle may be that Democrat House Leader Nancy Pelosi will not allow it to come up for a vote.
ICYMI: I joined @FoxFriendsFirst yesterday to talk about the need to finally end the war in Afghanistan, to not just withdraw some troops, but to withdraw all of the troops. pic.twitter.com/bRmRLKhXf0
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 17, 2020
Originally posted at the Libertarian Institute.
I would not reccomend holding your breath with the twin war parties.
Jul 14, 2020 Afghanistan Bountygate is all about endless war & drug money
Driven by the deep state NYT and WaPo, and how the entire hoax was less about Trump and Russia, and more to do with keeping the US in Afghanistan for the endless war machine profits and global drug trade.
https://youtu.be/Zrziw5HyB2U
Trump is a douche, but he is an impulsive douche. If the country can convince him that pulling the troops might make his penis longer, we might have a sliver of hope to work with. That strange hope doesn’t exist with Biden, as he is merely the Alzheimic marionette of Nancy Pelosi and she is perfectly comfortable with a permanent American presence their. In his rare moments of lucidity, Biden is even worse. We are looking at a sickening rainbow of slightly lesser evils. Vote third party, people. Vote for Jo Jorgensen.
“Trump is a douche, but he is an impulsive douche.”
You are correct, and, unfortunately, most of those impulses are for the bad. But you are also correct that, every once in a while, it leads him to do the right thing. We can only hope that this is one of those times.
The case against Bidens war record is strong. Consider tho, the recent amendments to cut 10% from the entire defense budget.
Senate..
Cut. Dems 23. Gop..0
No cut. Dems 23 Gop 54
House..
Cut. Dems 92. Gop. 0
No cut. Dems 139. Gop 185
Pretty clear…
Always easy to diss the dems, unless compared to the jackbooted gop.
Any 3rd party vote that helps the gop is a direct vote for war.
Third party votes only help third party candidates.
We need an alternative to the liberal and conservative media, a media that will discuss the positions of third party candidates, if that happened, many people that don’t vote would vote Libertarian or other third party and third party votes would do more than help third parties, they would help the Democrats and Republicans to lose.
“Any 3rd party vote that helps the gop is a direct vote for war.”
That is an asinine statement. The vast, vast, majority of third party voters would never vote for either of the two pro-war parties, at least certainly not for President. Your statement seems to assume that each major party candidate “owns” certain voters’ votes, and that when we vote for a third party candidate that candidate is “stealing” our vote. If Democratic party candidates desire our vote, you might suggest to them that they earn it.
We are also thinking long term. Until there is a credible threat to the Democrat/Republican duopoly, NOTHING IS EVER GOING TO FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE. We will continue to elect such “anti-war” candidates as George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Barack Obama. And these people will continue to murder, rape, and pillage the world. You think Trump/Clinton was some type of aberration? Ultimately, the incentives will effectively result in a major party choice between Hitler and Stalin, then how would you vote?
My advice to any voter is to totally ignore the partisan designation beside any general election candidate for any office, and vote your conscience, based on how well that candidate’s positions conform to your views. Or, if all candidates for that office are sufficiently evil so that you can not in good conscience support any of them, withhold your vote from all of them, and leave that place on the ballot blank.
One thing I like about most of the commenters on this site is that most of them are no more than mildly partisan. You, Dave, are an enigma, as I generally find your comments intelligent, and can’t quite figure out where the heavy partisanship came from.
“Always easy to diss the dems, unless compared to the jackbooted gop.”
I don’t see Comrade Nicky’s comment as singling out the Dems at all. She is simply focusing on Biden and Pelosi to illustrate the point. You seem to have missed her multitude of tirades against GOP candidates and officeholders.
Antiwar.com is not a nonpartisan site. It is about ending wars, and reducing war investment. On this policy, we agree. Arguement comes as to how do do it.
Mr Raimondo, RIP, stated Cleary in the mission statement that he wished to create an antiwar faction in the gop. This has not occurred. Antiwar legislation has primarily come from the dems since Vietnam. My case against the “parties are the same” comes from examining congressional war votes. That examination tells me, that if the gop voted the same as the dems, we would never have been engaged in the ME at all.
My opinion, the dems won’t go full on antiwar until the gop has been eliminated as a competitor. Yes, I am a lessor of two evils voter, yet in terms of “lessor”, there is hardly a single reason to vote GOP for reasons of foreign policy.
Why not vote 3rd party ? I have. It is about apportional mathematics. Arithmetic adds quantity, there is no limit to amounts until the oranges are counted. Now, start with a closed set, ie, 10 oranges. If you divide equally, we have 2 groups of 5. If we move 1 orange into the other group, the count is 5 to 3. Changing one, creates a difference of 2. Voters are a closed set. As f’d up as the dems are, the gop has to go.
“That examination tells me, that if the gop voted the same as the dems, we would never have been engaged in the ME at all.”
In 2008, we elected a majority Democrat House of Representatives, Senate, and presidential administration. How did that work out for peace? According to your theory, America would have ended participation in all wars, and started no new ones.
“As f’d up as the dems are, the gop has to go.”
I am not sure what you mean here. Are you suggesting one party rule? Maybe I am being dense, but it seems to me that if that were the state of affairs, the state would not have to even give lip service to “the will of the people,” regardless of what the ruling party called itself. It would simply rule without any perceived need to support ANY degree of liberty and peace.
If the gop were minimized in power, the dems would divide. The gop is conservative no longer. Perhaps you see a better alternative? Status quo is failing.
“Perhaps you see a better alternative?”
Several, ranging from “vote Libertarian” to “burn this motherf***er down.”
Guess so, since you are willing to ignore the antiwar group within the democratic party. The group which sent the 10% reduction in military spending bill thru congress. 100 house members, and 37 senators agreed. Pretty good, considering no gopers voted with them. So, rather than supporting a sizable ongoing antiwar caucus, which needs support, you send your support to candidates that have an (L) on it which will mean nothing for change in 2020.
If that “sizable ongoing anti-war caucus” ever wants to abandon the pro-war party it continually empowers, they know where to find the party whose policies they pretend to support.
“Guess so, since you are willing to ignore the antiwar group within the democratic party”
Although they are elected, sitting, officeholders, in regard to war and peace, they have no more power than the losing LP candidates. The leadership of their party would never actually let them move things in a peaceful direction.
You never responded to my statement above, where I pointed out that the 2008 federal election sweep by the Democrats did not result in any greater movement toward peace in actual policy.
I see, so rather than supporting an existing antiwar caucus, you create a new one with a party that holds how many seats in Congress?
In response to 2008….first, I repeat that the dems are split on war. Gop will support any war actions by a dem POTUS, not the other way. The gop led Iraq war was terminated and withdrawal was completed by 2011, start talks were completed. The administration opened dialogue with Cuba, and Iran. The afghan surge mistake was made again, tho by the end of his tenure, troops levels were lower than at anytime during the current regime.
The 2008 congress was primarily saddled with yet another deep recession created by trickle down GOP economics. Of course, you will reply with Obama’s feckless interventions during the arab spring (once again, caused by GOP wars). If the gop were in power, we certainly would have seen Iraq style invasions of Syria, Libya, and maybe more, giving them the “invade 7 countries in 5 years wetdream”
“I see, so rather than supporting an existing antiwar caucus, you create a new one with a party that holds how many seats in Congress?”
At the moment, one. After November, likely back to zero.
That’s not a good reason to pretend that your preferred pro-war party is an anti-war party.
Was Amash voted in as a Libertarian ?
Note I never stated the dems were an “antiwar party”. There is an existing antiwar caucus within the party. Not much different than the Libertarian party, which continues to define itself. I believe, debate and compromise within a group
to be a measure of the democratic health of that group.
Leaving other votes, for example, the annual Yemen vote, I find the example of 23 Senators voting for the 10% reduction in military spending to be significant in arguement. All 23-1, are dems. That means 0 republicans. Seems the simple “lessor of 2 evils” meme fails under the question of scale.