U.S. Rep. Coble says Iraq pullout should be considered

[LWolf]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/10604843.htm?1c

<snip>

Associated Press

GREENSBORO, N.C. - U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, a Greensboro Republican and close ally of President Bush, says the United States should consider pulling out of war-ravaged Iraq.

Coble is one of the first members of Congress to suggest a withdrawal publicly.

The 10-term congressman said in an interview with the News & Record of Greensboro that he's "fed up with picking up the newspaper and reading that we've lost another five or 10 of our young men and women in Iraq."

<snip>

Coble, who has represented the 6th District since 1984, says he voted to give Bush sweeping war-making powers assuming the administration had a post-invasion strategy.

"If there was, I wish someone would tell me what it is or show it to me," he said. "I'd like to see it."

"...one of the first members of Congress to suggest a withdrawal publicly."

But not the first.

Dennis Kucinich has had a plan to bring the troops home since the war began.

http://www.kucinich.us/bringourtroopshome.php

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. Good for Rep. Coble

I wonder how he'll be "punished" by the Thug Squatters in the White House.

This is how it begins, though; this is how Vietnam was brought to an end. A small start.

Bless his heart. Thanks for posting this.

[tsuki]

6. If they are feeling brave enough to speak against him, do you think

the HeadReThug can punish? He's lame duck term limits, and he'll be gone. They'll still be up for re-election. And with only a 48% approval rating, they may be opening their eyes.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

11. When..........

......have those thugs ever restrained themselves from doing whatever they please?

And, as a lame duck, why would he give a rat's ass as to consequences?

[tsuki]

27. I'm sorry, I meant Bush is a lame duck. The Repubs will be looking at

2008. At this point, the Repubs may think Bush will not be bringing much to the political table, so speaking out against his policies will help the party.

[Prodemsouth]

8. Yeah and Newt has a book blasting Bush on his handling of the Iraq war.

Repugs who plan to be around after 08 are separating themselves from Bush.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

14. I'll believe it when I see it

These murderers are relentless. They don't just want to win; they want to obliterate people like us.

They're power-mad, see. And they're abusive and angry. They have no limits, no self-discipline, no restraint, and no sense of accountability.

That's what scares me about all of this. How much further do you think they can go? I see the next four years as the most dangerous in our nation's history.

[craiga86]

15. Coble is pretty close with my grandfather....

He's my first cousin twice removed, whatever that means. The thing about him is that he's a traditional conservative. He spoke out against the war at the beggining stages of the war, and because of that I show alittle more respect towards him than other rethugs. He should have known better to give Buch and Co full control over Iraq. We need to be fighting the REAL threat (Al Qaeda), not a self-inflicted quagmire in Iraq.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

17. Well, I say, again,

Good for Rep. Coble.

All true conservatives must be appalled by this so-called "administration" and what they've done to our country.

Yes, a lot of people should have known better, but, then, I've always thought the War Powers Act is an illegal usurpation of the power specifically delineated in the Constitution. Plus, Fuckface lied to everyone, and even John Kerry voted "yes" when everyone believed the lies.

[LWolf]

21. Yes, and how many

Democrats also voted for the IWR? That wasn't just a republican error.

[newscott]

32. They were all playing politics with that vote

and willingly abdicated their power to avoid "responsibility" chickensh*ts.

[calimary]

35. I'll come around to that opinion myself, I'm sure - your "bless his heart"

part. Which is a worthy viewpoint.

But I've gotta admit - my initial reaction to this is "no fuckin' shit, pal. Where the HELL have you been - Fantasyland?"

But you couldn't be more correct - this IS how it starts. This too is a drip-drip-drip, just like it was in Vietnam, which I'm old enough to remember. This is the trim-tab that starts turning the rudder that eventually turns the entire ship.

And I must compliment you - AND others on this thread - for a more patient and reasoned reaction to this, and your nonjudgmental welcoming of it. I'm still just so friggin' angry at republi-CONS in general (even those who start sounding like they're waking up - my first reaction is one of suspicion), and ANY apologists and excuse-makers for this war, in OUR party too, that it's hard for me to accept this at face value without wanting to throw lots of sneers and catcalls back at them.

We DO need more guys like this (and women, too) beginning to wake up to the truth. And it DOES have to be among the republi-CONS and die-hard bush-worshippers. That's the only thing that brought Nixon down - when his own party turned against him. A trillion-bajillion Democrats under EVERY doorstep and around EVERY corner and flowing out of EVERY faucet of EVERY bathroom inside the Beltway won't make a scrap of difference if the republi-CONS all remain in lockstep. But looks like the palace walls may be showing a few cracks in them...

Let's hope so anyway. If we're lucky, this will at least be the beginning of the end of the war, if not the bush nightmare (perhaps that's just a wee bit too much to hope for).

[OldLeftieLawyer]

38. You warm the cockles

of this OldLeftieLawyer's heart.

And you're right about his own having to turn against him. That's why breaking it down into parties doesn't do a thing for our cause. We need people to come out and say what is right and just and true, and it's good if they're Republicans, so keep smiling. It scares them.

You're coming around, child, and learning that getting angry doesn't do much but cloud your judgment. Stay calm, stay cool, and take the fucking palace under cover of darkness when the mofos think they're safe.

Keep smiling, kid. You're on to something.

:yourock:

[Bok_Tukalo]

2. I've always thought America would retreat before a draft

I think we are going to see more of this after the Iraqi "elections."

[0007]

7. I hope your right but I wouldn't hold my breath!

[Bok_Tukalo]

13. Let me know which Senators and Congressmen

will fall on their 2006 swords to enstate a draft?

[TahitiNut]

23. Yup. After the 'elections' and all the contracts are in place ...

... they can blame it on the Iraqis and keep their spoils.

[3days]

3. Aww what the hell

We flattened the country
We captured their leader
We found no WMD
We created more terrorists who hate America
We killed countless innocent people
We caused the death of over 1300 American sevicemen and or women
We caused the injury of many more

Looks like our job is done here.
Packerass brotherman.

[libnnc]

4. Well I'll be damned

The crusty old fart finally said something I agree with.

[jfxgillis]

10. Phuque the sunovabeetch

There's not ONE WORD he said that he couldn't have said, and I GUARANTEE he was thinking it, last October when it counted.

Fuck him and fuck all the isolationist righty Republicans of his ilk.

He's sick of reading about five or ten Americans at time getting killed?

He should take it with a smile. He wanted it, he voted for it, he got it.

[Prodemsouth]

5. Ok make that one of the first in Congress who people take note of

n/t

[Bouncy Ball]

9. NOW he's fed up with reading the reports of US servicemembers killed?

NOW?????

NEVER. SHOULDA. BEEN THERE.

But yeah, stop the killing and insanity. Please.

[Gman]

12. Another shot in the civil war within the GOP

rings out. We will soon find ourselves aligned with moderate Republicans. This has the potential of allowing coalitions to be formed to stop Bush's most evil initiatives.

[LWolf]

18. I hope so.

I want to bring the this war to an end for many reasons.

First, to enact a more profound "stop-loss;" I want to stop the loss of any more lives.

Second, to stop the financial dissolution of my country, by plugging the gaping wound all the funds are flowing to. Not that ending the war will change the rest of the economic policy, but its a damned good start.

Third, it's the first step in refocusing and redefining our international role. Again, not that I expect the current force in power to suddenly become masters of diplomacy. But we have to start somewhere.

If something good happens by forming coalitions, we might see a reduction in polarization, and thus in the demonization of everything not on the corporate agenda list. One could hope.

I say this as someone who is as liberal/progressive as we come; on the vast majority of the issues, I'm not moderate. I'm not even on the chart with moderates, democrat or republican. But I won't let that stop me from working with moderates for positive change.

[Prodemsouth]

26. When will people learn moderate Republicans are still................

Republicans. Don't count on any real opposition from them until Bush is flying back to Crawford second term completed. I can already see these threads on DU:

Jan 21st, 2008 Senator (elected in 2006) Christy Todd Whitman says Bush really sucked..isn't that gal great. Moderate Repug Women are great. Never mind that she helped Jeb get elected.

Jan 30th 2008. After heavy campaigning for his brother Jeb, Governor Arnold Says former President George W. Bush moved to far to the right and made decisions which were not in the country's best interest. Way to go Arnold, sock it to that girly man Bush..

Feb 1st, 2011 As the disastrous economic policy becomes ever more apparent. Lincoln Chafee says he might help Dems out a little more this time, he may even not vote for the Republican President this time around - he still will not support the Democratic candidate as Zell Miller again did for the Republicans with his support of Jeb Bush. Chafee is said to be considering voting for President Jeb Bush's brother the former President.. moderate Republicans are great. I always like Lincoln and considered him to be someone with guts.. A real patriot.

[Florida_Geek]

16. I think you are going to see more and more of this over

the next year.

Bush can not run again, but these House members have to run every two years.

IMHO, Bush down fall is his SSA changes. NOBODY likes them. And the AARP today in the St. Pete Times had their full page Gambling Ad. As people turn off to Bushes SSA changes, the House members will be looking at groups like the Gray Hair set that voted for him last time, maybe not voting for him in 2006.

It sounds like a lot of anti-war people in this person district and the more bodies come home the more votes he is losing.

[StephanieMarie]

19. It's a start

but they need to check their facts -- it's over 1330 dead now.

[Rose Siding]

20. May every single death haunt him day and night

Coble, who has represented the 6th District since 1984, says he voted to give Bush sweeping war-making powers assuming the administration had a post-invasion strategy.

Naked military aggression would have been JUST FINE if only there was a better after plan?

No one who was wise enough to have preferred peace all along is given the respect of the those with catastophically "successful" judgement of falling for the idiot bush. It's disgusting.

[Dawgs]

22. Maybe this is part of a plan by the administration...

Pick out the one republican who was slightly against the war, and have them talk about bringing the troops home just before the Iragi election. Once the elections are over, start to bring the troops home and claim a victory. Get the media to go along with "Iraqi's are free and living in a democratic society", and America might go along with it.

I don't believe that this is the case, but I wouldn't put it past Rove to do anything.

[rodeodance]

24. we bombed the hell of their country and killed thousands and now

we just goona pull out??

[roguevalley]

25. he could be carrying the water for a cut and run. that would free

up the military for invading other countries. I don't trust this. not from a pug.

[AlbizuX]

28. thanks. Rep. Coble

like a pebble in a lake, it always takes one influential person to make a statement, and then suddenly it starts to spread.

Remember when it used to Baathist deadenders, and you couldn't utter the words insurgency, quagmire, or Iraq...now they are commonplace.

let's make "get out of Iraq" commonplace.

[Just Me]

29. Isn't this like Vietnam in "fast-forward"?

One HUGE problem. The neoCONimperialists "learned" from the Nixon era and have done everything criminally possible to do a "stop-loss" in shielding themselves from both discovery and accountability.

They are slithering snakes escaping their constitutional mandates as servants to this great republic. They have only one master: power unto themselves.

[quinnox]

30. Whoa

This is something coming from a republican.

He either really has some balls, or this is the first act in the Bush administration withdrawing and trying to save face.

[newscott]

31. And then we impeach the SOB

* I mean.

[Vox_Reason]

33. Wow!! Real repugnican dissent?

WHAT?!? A repug stalwart from my Tarheel state that I can be proud of?!?!??

In 2003, Coble received an 80 percent rating from the American Conservative Union and his voting record scored a 5 rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action. (http://asp.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/CandidateProfile.aspx?ci=453&oi=H)

I think the room is starting to spin...

[two gun sid]

34. If Rep. Coble thinks he's fed up

he ought to put on a helmet and pick up a weapon and take his old ass over to Iraq and join the troops that have been involuntarily extended. His great awakening that Bushco have no idea what they are doing is a little late. How a lot of lives, US and Iraqi, have been lost while people like him sat around hoping W really wasn't a stupid as he appears.

[despairing optimist]

36. And so it begins. The beginning of the end

Someone mentioned that the situation is like Vietnam in fast-forward. It's also like Watergate in fast-forward, only Nixon actually trounced McGovern in '72 and did get a mandate, which quickly unraveled into a rout less than two years later. There are investigations already under way, and somewhere there's a tentative list of articles of impeachment waiting for the right moment.

This administration is going down. The paleocons don't want fanatics upsetting the apple cart and laying waste to US assets carefully culled from the world's masses over many years. They will find common cause with elites of all political persuasions with just as much wealth at stake. As Deep Throat said to Woodward and Bernstein, follow the money. It will lead the Bushes out of power soon enough.

[AlinPA]

37. The war was success for Bush** (Rove). He was "re-elected". Idiots

voted for Bush** to "support the troops" and to support our "commander in chief". They can pull out now.

[MasonJar]

39. It might just be Karl Rove's way of getting Bush out of Iraq. Now

he wants to destroy America and its people (social security et al). The Stump is probably bored now with killing innocent Iraqis--he has their oil all lined up for the US.

[struggle4progress]

40. kick

[Disturbed]

41. The U.S. will stay in Iraq for at least four more...

years.

US rejects Sunni election offer


US embassy officials held unprecedented talks with influential Iraqi Sunni Muslim clerics at the weekend, but turned down an offer under which Sunni political parties would end their boycott of January 30 elections.

"Senior embassy officials met with them," a US official said today.
"They obviously discussed Sunni participation in the political process." The members of the Committee of Muslim Scholars, which groups 3000 Sunni mosques across Iraq, said they would lift their boycott on voting if the US Government provided, under international auspices, a timeframe for US withdrawal from Iraq, the official said.

"We're not going to do that," the official said.
The influential religious body, founded in the days after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, called for a general boycott of the electoral process after US troops attacked the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah on November 8.

The group has been accused of links to Iraq's insurgency across central Iraq, which is waged mainly by Sunni Muslims, angry at the post-Saddam state of the country.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/...

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[struggle4progress]

46. You are an optimist. I expect an indefinite US presence in Iraq.

The military-industrial complex will get several billion in pork each month, and the good old boys in the oil industry will get a lock on a supply of crude, provided they work hand-in-hand with local kleptocrats. It's too good for our greedy friends in the Ownership Society not to grab.

[katinmn]

42. I think this guy has guts, and I applaud him!

North Carolina Republican -- and a friend of *.

Let's see some more of them -- both Dems and Repugs -- step up to the plate. Show some backbone.

This is great news.

Why is everyone so cynical?

[Disturbed]

44. Here is why I am cynical about the

Bush Junta and Iraq.



The Hand-Over That Wasn't: Illegal Orders give the US a Lock on Iraq's Economy
by Antonia Juhasz

Officially, the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended on June 28, 2004. But in reality, the United States is still in charge: Not only do 138,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the "100 Orders" of L. Paul Bremer III remain to control the economy.

These little noticed orders enacted by Bremer, the now-departed head of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, go to the heart of Bush administration plans in Iraq. They lock in sweeping advantages to American firms, ensuring long-term U.S. economic advantage while guaranteeing few, if any, benefits to the Iraqi people.

The Bremer orders control every aspect of Iraqi life - from the use of car horns to the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Order No. 39 alone does no less than "transition from a … centrally planned economy to a market economy" virtually overnight and by U.S. fiat.

Although many thought that the "end" of the occupation would also mean the end of the orders, on his last day in Iraq Bremer simply transferred authority for the orders to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - a 30-year exile with close ties to the CIA and British intelligence.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0805-07.htm

[katinmn]

45. well, HA! I'm cynical about the * admin, too,

and know they leave disasters everywhere, and Iraq will be one of the biggest.

But I don't know why people take it as such bad news that this Republican rep is calling for a pull-out. This cannot be good news to the White House crew.