Oops. The Republican Emperor has no clothes. All those gigantic gas-guzzling SUV's you see on the highway with the "W 04" or "Re-elect Bush/Cheney" bumper stickers just below that nice little yellow ribbon with the "Support Our Troops"?Well, yesterday we found out how much they really support the troops. Republican Senators stood shoulder-to-shoulder in voting to defeat an amendment that would truly support our troops, rather than support the Chicken-Hawk in Chief. The bill would have required that our men and women in uniform get a 1:1 ratio of "deployment to dwell." In other words, the military would be required to give a soldier at least the same amount of time back home as each of his or her deployments to Iraq (or another theater).
The military's historic ratio has been 1:2--twice the time at home as on the front--so a 1:1 ratio is simply a floor. But even that protection--to truly "support the troops"--was too much for the GOP to stomach, lest it somehow prevent Bush from yet another troop surge.
The sponsors of the amendment, including Senator Jim Webb, whose son IS serving as a Marine in Iraq (in contrast to all those who voted against it, who have no children in Iraq), felt it was vital to the morale and effectiveness of our soldiers, to keep them from breaking from the ever greater strain of a very few doing the dirty work of the very many.
We'd like to see Bush send the twins--Jenna and Barbara--to Iraq. Then he might have a little more than his typical faux sympathy for "the troops." You knew these people really didn't care. Now you've got the proof.
1 comment:
Webb, however, did vote to condemn Moveon.org. For shame. How fast the netroots darling is becoming a blue dog. Maybe our next Senator Warner will do better.
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