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The Forsyth County News
Opinion
This is a page of opinions — ours, yours and others.
Signed columns and cartoons are the opinions of the
writers and artists and may not reflect our views.
Iraq withdrawal
as popular as ever
WASHINGTON — When
U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.)
called for a withdrawal of U.S.
troops from Iraq last week, the
White House quickly denounced
him.
But this week, U.S. military
officials were leaking word of
their plans to withdraw around
50,000 troops from Iraq next
year.
A phased withdrawal of
troops has been talked about for
a long time, even though it is
clear the United States is not
winning the war in Iraq. As
Murtha, the ranking member of
the House Subcommittee on
Defense, pointed out, insurgent
incidents have increased as the
fighting has continued.
“Instead of attacks going
down over time and with the
addition of more troops, attacks
have grown dramatically,” he
said. “Since the revelations at
Abu Ghraib, American casual¬
ties have doubled. An annual
State Department report in 2004
indicated a sharp increase in
global terrorism.”
But that is not the reason we
are planning to withdraw troops
from Iraq next year. We are
withdrawing them because every
member of the House and one
third of the Senate is up for re
election next November, and
Republicans have made clear to
President Bush there has to be
some kind of troop withdrawal
or they may lose control of
Congress.
President Bush denies that
policy in Iraq is tied to politics in
America, but in the modern
White House, politics and policy
are inextricably linked.
Officially, Bush’s policy on
troop withdrawal is very simple.
It is less than 10 words long.
And he likes to repeat it.
June 28,2005: “Our strategy
can be summed up this way,”
President Bush said in a speech.
“As the Iraqis stand up, we will
stand down.”
Aug. 11, 2005: “As Iraqis
stand up, we will stand down,”
the president told reporters.
And just last week, the presi¬
dent said once again, “As Iraqis
stand up, we will stand down.”
Though the White House
spin does fudge (are you
shocked?) at what “standing up”
really means.
According to the White
House, “more than 160,000 Iraqi
security forces are now trained
and equipped.” Some, President
Bush has said, are capable of
operating independently, and
On your payroll
CITY COUNCIL
Mayor, H. Ford Gravitt
P.O. Box 3177, Gumming, GA 30028; (770) 887-4342
Mayor Pro-Tern, Lewis Ledbetter
205 Mountain Brook Dr., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-3019
Ralph Perry
1420 Pilgrim Rd., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-7474
Quincy Holton
103 Hickory Ridge Dr., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-5279
Rupert Sexton
705 Pine Lake Dr., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 8874332
John Pugh
10813th St., Cumming, GA 30040; (770) 887-3342
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Charles Laughinghouse, Post 1
3550 Rosewicke Dr., Cumming, GA 30040
(770) 886-7937; office, (770) 886-2810
BrianTam,Fost2
4410 Dorset Lane, Suwanee, GA 30024
(678)513-5882
Chairman John A. “Jack” Conway, Post 3
6130 Polo Club Dr., Cumming, GA 30040
(770) 886-9226; (770) 886-2807
David Richard, Post 4
8540 Meadow Grove Lane, Gainesville, GA 30506
(678)513-5884
Linda Ledbetter, Post 5
206 Mountain Brook Drive, Cumming, GA 30040
(678)513-5885
V
% Roger
Simon
COLUMNIST
others need our support.
So how many of those
160,000 Iraqi troops are ready to
stand up without our propping
them up?
Some 750 soldiers. More
than two-and-a-half years after
beginning this war, we have
managed to train only a tiny
number of Iraqis to fight on their
own.
Which is why more than
150,000 Americans are in Iraq
fighting for them.
We all know that American
forces were rushed into this war
without adequate equipment for
the occupation of Iraq and many
have died or been horribly
wounded because of inadequate
body armor and inadequate vehi
cle armor.
But while the situation is not
good for American troops, the
situation for Iraqi troops is hor
rendous.
“Unlike the Americans, the
vast majority of Iraqis have nei
ther armored nor unarmored
Humvees, and are still having to
navigate the booby-trapped
roads of Iraq in pickup and
flatbed trucks,” the story said,
“The makeshift armoring opera
tion started in the spring has
managed to reinforce only about
three dozen vehicles. ...
Three dozen vehicles! To
fight a war in which there are
approximately 700 insurgent
attacks each week.
Yes, we are training the
Iraqis to fight. But as Kalev
Sepp, a retired Army Special
Forces colonel and a professor at
the Naval Postgraduate School
who has worked on counterin
surgency strategy in Iraq, said,
“Even the best training won’t
stop an AK-47 bullet or deflect a
blast from a grenade or mine.”
Even though we are spend
ing billions and billions on this
war, we are still trying to fight it
on the cheap, and we are still not
getting the troops the equipment
they need to survive.
President Bush says we will
stand down when the Iraqis
stand up.
But if, when the Iraqis stand
up, they get blown up, what
good does that do?
Roger Simon is a nationally
syndicated columnist.
NATIONAL LEGISLATORS
< U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
■ (202) 224-3643 or (770) 661 -0999 -
bfef j
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss >
416 Russell Senate Office Building B
Washington, (202) D.C. 20510 (770) m
224-3521 or 763-9090
< U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, 10th District
2437 Rayburn House Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20515 GA
Gainesville: RO. Box 1015, Gainesville, 30503
■ (770) 535-2592; (202) 225-5211; Fax: (202) 225-8272
U.S. Rep. John Linder, 7th District > |
1727 Longworth House Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20515-1011
Washington: (202) 2254272; ■
(202)2254696 (202) 2254272; (770) 232 -3005; Fax:
STATE LEGISLATORS
Sen. Eugene “Chip” Pearson, 51 st District >
The State Senate State Capitol, Atlanta, GA 30334
District: P.O. Box 38, Dawsonville, GA 30534
Telephone: (770) 886^971 or (404) 656-9221
l < Sen. Bill Stephens, 27th District
1 JJj 236 State Capitol, Atlanta, GA 30334
f (404) 656-0048;
|] District: P.O. Box 4400, Canton, GA 30114
(770)517-5229
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Dick Durbin’s Senate: How it’s
WASHINGTON — On
Nov. 16, as Congress raced
to adjourn for Thanksgiving,
Senate Democratic Whip
Richard J. Durbin found time
to sit down with Republican
political activist C. Boyden
Gray. It was unpleasant for
Gray, who followed with
what looked like a pre
arranged letter of apology to
the senator. After {hat,
Durbin was reported to have
lifted the “hold” blocking
Gray’s confirmation as U.S.
ambassador to the European
Union (EU).
That very day, Durbin
engaged in public confronta
tion with Republican Sen.
Ted Stevens, the Senate’s
president pro-tem. Durbin
took the Senate floor to
accuse Stevens of making it
easier for oil executives to lie
to Congress. When Stevens
demanded an apology under
the rules, Durbin refused on
grounds the rules did not
a PPly
I have been watching the
Senate for nearly 49 years,
an< i there once was a time
when Durbin’s busy Nov. 16
w °uld have attracted atten
tion. But it went virtually
unnoticed. The Senate has
hardened, and so has Dick
Du rbin. A career politician
f rom downstate Illinois, he
always was partisan, but he
was viewed as an amiable
fellow with a ready smile,
Today, at 61, he leads the'
charge against George W.
Bush and Republicans, firing
m
Robert i*
Novak
all weapons at hand.
Durbin’s opposition
appears to be the reason
Gray’s nomination by
President Bush for the EU
post has languished since
July. Gray, a prominent 62
year-old Washington lawyer
guished pub
lie service,
including
White House
counsel in
the elder
George
Bush’s presi¬
dency, was
blocked by
tors from a
vote in the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. But
Durbin’s opposition was the
key.
The Senate’s arcane pro
cedures do not require a sen
ator to reveal Ttis hold on a
nomination, much less
explain why. Durbin’s oppo
sition stems from his leading
role in fighting Bush judicial
nominations and Gray’s
chairmanship of the
Committee for Justice (CFJ),
an organization pressing for
their confirmation. In 2003,
Durbin asserted the views of
William Pryor on separation
FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS — Thursday, December 1,2005 —
of church and state disquali¬
fied him as a U.S. appellate
court nominee. The CFJ ran
an ad saying opposition to
Pryor, a Catholic, sent a sig¬
nal that “Catholics need not
apply.” Durbin, a Catholic,
took umbrage.
There appeared no way to
get Gray confirmed until
Durbin sat down with him
Nov., 16. Neither side is
describing what was said, but
accounts have leaked out that
it was not pleasant. After it
Durbin's opposition
appears to be the rea¬
son by President Gray's nomination Bush for
the EU post has lan¬
guished since July.
but Gray had
no choice if he wanted to get
past Durbin’s veto. The let¬
ter, which was not given to
me by Gray, said: “As I said
to you, I did not sufficiently
appreciate the way in which
the words used [“Catholics
need not apply”] evoked a
very uncomfortable chapter
in our history.” He added that
“I deeply regret” the mistake.
Gray repeated, “At the risk
of being repetitive, I want
again to say how truly sorry I
am for the discomfort the
CFJ ad has caused you.”
Shortly thereafter, according
to a Senate source, Durbin
< Rep. Tom Knox, 24th District
< 220-A State Capitol, Atlanta, GA 30334
ms (404) 656-6831, or (770) 887-0400, law office
X* *
Rep. Amos Amerson, 9th District > mr~’
Suite 401-G, State Capitol
Atlanta, GA 30334
(404) 657-8443 or (706) 864-6589
< Rep. Jack Murphy, 23rd District
Legislative office Building,
Room 504, Atlanta GA 30334
(404) 656-0188
BOARD OF EDUCATION
Ann Crow
96 Barker Rd., Cumming, GA 30040
(770) 887-9640; acrow@forsyth.k12.ga.us
Tom Cleveland
5225 Millsford Court, Cumming, GA 30040
(770) 844-9901; tdeveland@forsyth.k12.ga.us
Nancy Roche
7840 Chestnut Hill Rd., Cumming, GA 30041
(770) 889-0229; nroche@forsyth.k12.ga.us
Ronnie Pinson /
8310 Browns Bridge Rd., Gainesville, GA 30506
(770) 887-9808; rpinson@fbrayth.k12.ga.us
Luke Haymond
10285 Worthington Manor, Suwanee, GA 30024
(770) 844-0020; lhaymond@forsyth.k12.ga.us
lifted his hold.
Earlier that day, Durbin
went on the Senate floor to
attack Stevens for enabling
oil company executives to lie
to the Senate Commerce
Committee by not putting
them under oath. Stevens,
renowned for his temper,
went to the floor to demand
Durbin’s apology under
Senate-Rule 19, which pro¬
hibits senators from charging
each other with “unworthy”
behavior.
The Senate parliamentari¬
an ruled Durbin need not
apologize because Stevens
was not on the floor to object
when the statement was
made. In a somewhat gentler
time, Durbin might have
apologized to a 37-year vet¬
eran of the Senate who is
two decades his elder
(Stevens celebrated his 82nd
birthday two days later, Nov.
18). But he did not apolo¬
gize, because that is not the
way things are done in Dick
Durbin’s Senate.
Durbin has been forced to
back down on at least one
occasion, when he compared
U.S. treatment of enemy
combatants with history’s
worst genocidal regimes. But
he did not become the
Senate’s second-ranking
Democrat in eight years by
avoiding personal attacks,
either backstage or in public.
Robert Novak is a nation¬
ally syndicated columnist
and a television commenta
tor.
Gray sent —
by both fax
and first-class
mail — a pro¬
fuse apology
for the 2003
ad.
It was a
tough letter
for a proud
PAGE 7A