Sen Hollings drop rather accurate science on BushAdmin lies on Iraq

Discussion in 'Politics & Current Events' started by Mel Brennan, Nov 7, 2003.

  1. Mel Brennan

    Mel Brennan PLANITARCHIS' BANE

    Paris Saint Germain
    United States
    Apr 8, 2002
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    Senator Fritz Hollings
    Senate Floor Remarks
    November 3, 2003


    "Mr. President, I come to acknowledge my "Cambodian moment" in the Iraq war. I refer to the Cambodian moment that Senator Mansfield experienced after years and years of opposing the war in Vietnam. He had a practice of taking written memoranda time and again to both Presidents Johnson and Nixon, supporting the President openly on the floor of the Senate, but finally at the time Cambodia was invaded under President Nixon, he could not take it any longer and spoke out.

    He went on national TV and said: This war was a mistake from the get go. The next day, he got a letter from an admirer who had just lost her son. She said: I just buried my son and came home and watched you on this program. You said it was a mistake from the get go. Why didn't you speak out sooner?

    She said: My regret is that you did not speak out sooner or loudly enough for me to hear.

    It is time we speak out, because unless we put in 100,000 or 150,000 more United States troops and get law and order in Iraq, in Baghdad, we are going to have operation meat grinder continue, and it is our meat.

    In conscience, I cannot stand silent any longer...

    ...They didn't have nuclear capability. And, of course, there was no democracy. There weren't people yearning for it, as Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz said, meeting us in the streets waving: Whoopee, we finally got democracy.

    Anybody who knows the history of the Mideast knows that is a bunch of nonsense. They don't have democracy in Iraq, in Syria, in Iran, in Jordan, in Saudi Arabia, in Egypt, in Libya -- or go right around the Mideast. Where does somebody think they are going to meet us in the streets and say: Whoopee for democracy?

    I wish the distinguished Chair would pay attention to this one. What did George Herbert Walker Bush, the former President, say in his book, "A World Transformed"?

    I firmly believed that we should not march into Baghdad....To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter day Arab hero...assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war.

    That is what President George Herbert Walker Bush, the President's daddy, said...

    ... I voted for the resolution. I was misled. Now we hear that this is not Vietnam. I read my friends Tom Friedman and Paul Krugman. They say this is not a Vietnam.

    The heck it is not. This crowd has got historical amnesia. There is no education in the second kick of a mule. This was a bad mistake. We were mislead. We are in there now, and I am hearing the same things that the Senator heard in 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971 right on through 1973...

    ...If I went to a funeral this afternoon of a fallen soldier in Iraq, what would I say? Did they fall there for democracy? They are not going to have a democracy. It is going to be the Shiite democracy, like they have in Iran -- at best. That is exactly what Secretary Rumsfeld said we were not going to have.

    Was it for nuclear? No.

    Was it for terrorists? No, they didn't have terrorists there.

    Your son gave his life for what? As their Senator, I am embarrassed. It wasn't for any of those things. Why we went in, the administration has yet to tell us. They keep changing the rules and the goalposts every time. But somehow, somewhere they have to really put the force in there, quit trying to do it on the cheap, put the force in there and clean out that city, so they will quit killing them, or otherwise get out as fast as we can...
     
  2. eneste

    eneste Member

    Mar 24, 2000
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Why does it seem like the senators who don't have to worry about reelection are the only one's saying these sorts of things?
     
  3. Ian McCracken

    Ian McCracken Member

    May 28, 1999
    USA
    Club:
    SS Lazio Roma
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    I thought Democrats believe Senator Fritz Hollings is a racist, seeing as how he's the guy to put the Confederate Flag on the South Carolina statehouse.
     
  4. Nogra Rover

    Nogra Rover New Member

    Mar 30, 2000
    Bethesda, MD
    Solid response to Hollings' floor statement. Why don't you just blame Clinton?
     
  5. Ian McCracken

    Ian McCracken Member

    May 28, 1999
    USA
    Club:
    SS Lazio Roma
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    Why should I respond to a good-for-nothing Senator? He voted AGAINST commending our troops in their actions against terrorism. The vote was 98-1 in favor. He's a fricking ahole.

    Statement of Purpose: To commend the Armed Forces of the United States in the War on Terrorism

    U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 108th Congress - 1st Session

    Vote Summary

    Question: On the Amendment (McConnell AMDT. No. 1795 As Modified )
    Vote Number: 372
    Vote Date: October 2, 2003, 11:03 AM
    Required For Majority: 1/2
    Vote Result: Amendment Agreed to
    Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 1795 to S. 1689

    Vote Counts:
    YEAs 98
    NAYs 1
    Not Voting 1

    Hollings (D-SC), Nay
     
  6. oman

    oman Member

    Jan 7, 2000
    South of Frisconsin
    I bet at least a few of the Iraqi's said "whoopee!".
     
  7. Mel Brennan

    Mel Brennan PLANITARCHIS' BANE

    Paris Saint Germain
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    Apr 8, 2002
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    Wow. what a way to just obliterate content.

    Can anyone here engage the content of the Hollings remarks?

    What's funny is that Hollings is actually advocating the Shinseki position, which is get ALL the way in, with adequate amounts of troops that can protect each other, or get the *#*#*#*# out.

    Why the Ians of the world look forward with glee to spending 87 billion dollars of our tax money towards who-the-*#*#*#*#-knows what, but can't go along with using some of that money, some of any money, to pay for more actual troops on the ground is quite literally beyond me, and an abject failure of those folks over there.

    Then again, if the best you've got is (whiny voice)"I don't like the Senator! He's an ahole!" then maybe we oughta just leave you alone, in the corner...
     
  8. Ian McCracken

    Ian McCracken Member

    May 28, 1999
    USA
    Club:
    SS Lazio Roma
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    Here's how the money is allocated, since you seem to have no fricking idea what it's going towards. You really must pay better attention, this was spelled out all over the media. But, then again, you're paying attention to fricking morons like Fritz Hollings, who VOTED AGAINST COMMENDING OUR TROOPS. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, though, because this guy probably just had a Senior Senile moment and got confused on the language of the bill. Whether you support the war or oppose the war, you can't vote "Yea" on supporting our troops? Fricking 98 other Senators had enough common sense to do that. Hollings is such a coward that he didn't even vote no on the $87 billion. This guy's all over the freaking map. Good riddance. The sooner he retires the better, the drunken old buffoon.

    $64.7 billion for U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

    $51 billion for American troops in Iraq
    $10 billion for U.S. forces in Afghanistan

    The money includes everything from salaries owed reservists called to active duty to buying aircraft parts, missiles and thousands of extra sets of body armor for ground troops.

    $18.6 billion for retooling Iraq's economy and government.

    This included funds for clinics, power and water supplies and training police officers and entrepreneurs.

    $1.2 billion for buttressing Afghanistan
    $500 million for helping victims of U.S. natural disasters, such as Hurricane Isabel and California's wildfires
    $245 million for international peacekeeping efforts in Liberia.

    Money also was included to expand Arabic-language broadcasts into Iraq
    Secure U.S. diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan, Provide rewards for the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden and aid Pakistan and other U.S. allies.
     
  9. Mel Brennan

    Mel Brennan PLANITARCHIS' BANE

    Paris Saint Germain
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    Apr 8, 2002
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    Uh...

     
  10. Mel Brennan

    Mel Brennan PLANITARCHIS' BANE

    Paris Saint Germain
    United States
    Apr 8, 2002
    Baltimore
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    (1) You're right; I pay much less attention to the media than you do.

    (2) Where does this adress my argument, which, to quote, was:

    What's funny is that Hollings is actually advocating the Shinseki position, which is get ALL the way in, with adequate amounts of troops that can protect each other, or get the *#*#*#*# out.

    If your above recollection of what the media has told you that you should know is indeed correct, great. Now you can be certain that my issue and concern, the one I apparently share with Shinkseki and Hollings, remains unaddressed, i.e., we need more troops on the ground, or we need to go home...period.
     
  11. Ian McCracken

    Ian McCracken Member

    May 28, 1999
    USA
    Club:
    SS Lazio Roma
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    Hollings is trying to get the military draft re-instated. Do you support that? Is that what you want? Because that's what it will take to throw another hundred or two hundred thousand troops into Iraq. I tend to trust the judgment of the military leaders on the ground in Iraq, who say more troops are not needed. Having more troops on the ground doesn't necessarily mean less casualties when fighting against guerrilla tactics...it just gives them more targets to shoot at.

    The trouble spots in Iraq are the Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad (Tikrit, Fallujah) and small pockets in Baghdad itself. The vast majority of the country is peaceful and quiet. US forces in Iraq finally began a major offensive yesterday to crackdown on the pain in the SS Sunni areas. Hopefully that will go a long way in securing the remaining Baathists and Al Qaeda infiltrators. Hollings is just a blowhard. He was misled? Huh? He's a fricking United States Senator. He had access to nearly as much classified intelligence as the President did prior to the war. He's just being an disingenuous moron, like he's been the majority of his career.
     
  12. Sardinia

    Sardinia New Member

    Oct 1, 2002
    Sardinia, Italy, EU
    Do you really think that with undefined (in duration and goals) "war on terrorism" going on and neocons ruling military draft won't be reinstalled?

    How much do you bet?
     
  13. BenReilly

    BenReilly New Member

    Apr 8, 2002
    I'd bet any amount of money. Of course, if another 9-11 happens, all bets are off.
     
  14. Sardinia

    Sardinia New Member

    Oct 1, 2002
    Sardinia, Italy, EU
    Ok.

    [​IMG]
     
  15. Ian McCracken

    Ian McCracken Member

    May 28, 1999
    USA
    Club:
    SS Lazio Roma
    Nat'l Team:
    Italy
    I bet infinity amount of dollars. It won't happen in the current climate. Things would have to change drastically worse for a draft to occur.
     

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