Senate Confirms Bush Error on Indonesia Military Aid
Earlier this month President Bush said that Congress had “changed their attitude” toward resuming the US program to train Indonesia’s military, and was ready to “go forward with” funding the program.
Last week a senior official said that Bush misspoke.
Today the US Senate voted to block this military aid. Jim Lobe reports.
As a supplement to Bill Kauffman’s excellent “An Empire of Widows and Orphans,” the posting of which at Hit & Run sparked a conflagration of stunning comparisons between moms and dads going to war in Iraq and moms and dads commuting to the office, I offer this article from Stars & Stripes:
AL KUT, IRAQ — Glued to the stock of Army Sgt. Benjamin Kaye’s M-16 is a photograph of his 10-month-old daughter, Brittany.
She has blond hair, blue eyes … and spina bifida, a condition in which her spinal cord is underdeveloped.
“I could have stayed home but I decided to do my duty and deploy,” said Kaye, a nuclear power plant engineer whose Army Reserve unit was activated in December.
Before the war began, Brittany’s condition worsened. Kaye’s wife took the baby from their Buffalo, N.Y., home and went to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. There Brittany had spinal surgery that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Doctors do not know if she will ever walk.
A Red Cross letter arrived in February and Kaye completed the form to return home. But his battalion commander, Lt. Col. Christopher Holshek, denied the request. Despite more queries to return home, intervention by the Red Cross and an end to major combat, Kaye remained in Iraq.
“I would no longer recommend anyone join the Army,” said Kaye, who still has three years’ Reserve duty left. “My commander simply refused to care.”
Pay special attention to that first sentence, and make sure you check out the surreal photo that accompanies the article. Child’s picture on stock of M-16 = child’s picture on desk. Militarism = normalcy.
Linda Chavez on Townhall.com today:
Iraq is not Vietnam, no matter how much Howard Dean, John Kerry, Al Sharpton, and the other Democratic presidential wannabes would like to pretend it is. As despicable as Ho Chi Minh was, he did not pose a direct threat to the United States. The Vietnam War was part of the larger struggle against communism. The ultimate adversary was the Soviet Union. Despite our withdrawal from Vietnam, we won the larger war, vanquishing communism and defeating the Soviet Union without firing a direct shot. History proved we could afford to lose Vietnam no matter how ignoble or humiliating it was. However, we cannot afford to lose Iraq.
Crystal ball, crystal ball, what will the neocons (or postcons, or hypercons, or whatever they morph into next) be writing in thirty years?
China is not Iraq, no matter how much the president’s detractors would like to pretend it is. As despicable as Saddam Hussein was, he did not pose a direct threat to the United States. The Iraq War was part of the larger struggle against Islamofascism. The ultimate adversary was Saudi Arabia…
According to the FBI, 613,986 Americans were arrested in 2002 for mere possession of marijuana. Nathaniel Heatwole faces up to 10 years in prison for demonstrating how porous airport security remains. The National Park Service has blockaded an Alaska family in an attempt to grab their land.
All those who pray for some free country to lead the planet into libertopia (at gunpoint, if necessary) should at least pick a free country to do the leading.
Leave it to our favorite Canuck to look on the bright side of car bombings and missile attacks: See, all the terrorism in Iraq is good, cos it’ll teach the Arabs to hate terrorism.
Just heard a Gen. McInerney on Fox News say that the U.S. has accomplished its primary goal in Iraq, that of ensuring the Iraqi citizens’ Four Freedoms. He couldn’t quite remember what those are, however, so he came up with “freedom of government, freedom of the person, freedom of education, and freedom of communication.” What, no freedom from secondhand smoke?
