Elliot S! Maggin for Congress

[snakebitcat]

http://www.maggin.com/maggin/ca24/manifesto.htm

He's already said that "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" is his guiding campaign principle - I can only hope he can use the movie theme in at least one commercial.

Comments

[charlayne.livejournal.com]

I agree with a lot of what was written there but there was one part that got me a bit puzzled as a historian: "He voted to declare the war in Iraq part of an ongoing war on terror without an end date, and against earmarking funds to provide troops in the field either with armor or bomb-safe personnel transports."

I have no problem with the part about no funding for the troops, we should always fund the services we send overseas. I really don't have a problem with the "war on terror" thing, it's a bit of a bulbous term but this seems like a problem we have to meet somehow.

But, the part that made me pause and scratch my head and then shake it was "An ongoing war......without an end date. That is just really a bad concept statement that shows an uninformed/uneducated view of the realities of war.

The patriots who sat and plotted, and then carried out the boarding of a ship and dumping the shipment of tea into Boston Harbor didn't first sit down and say "ok, we're starting this war with George III and England, we need to shut it down by 1778 so we can move on with building the country". There was no end date; they had to wait and fight even under horrible conditions (soldiers with no shoes, thread-bare uniforms, lack of bullets and soldiers who left to go home) and kept fighting until General Cornwallis surrendered in October of 1781. The war was over when it was over.

We have never had an "end date" on any of our wars. I doubt you or Mr. Maggin could name any war that had an end-date declared when the war was started. It's not done.

War is a horrible thing and the whole point is to fight other people to achieve the goal set down by the declaration of the war. I do have a problem with the declaration of this war, it wasn't nailed down very well, we've been left hanging about whether we were just freeing the Iraqi's and Afgani's or whether we were going to establish the presence there to be able to keep the peace until the government was solid and without fighting. But we could not just declare war and say "we will stay until May 2008 and then we are out of there." It's just not the way wars happen.

I would ask Mr. Maggin what the end date was when Roosevelt declared war on Japan and Germany on December 8, 1941. What was the end date given by the United States when they went to war against the Confederate States of America? Did I miss something or did we give an end date for Korea or Viet Nam?

People who prattle on about having an end-date on ANY war are putting the soldiers at risk and are jeopardizing those people that live in the country who are working toward their freedom (in the case of Iraq and Afganistan).

I want our troops home too, I've got friends who are there or who are going back again soon. I'm tired of the lies and the prognostications and outright lies coming out of Washington and I just want the whole pack ousted and new people in. But, they've got to know what is going on.

Sorry, just my .02.

[prodigal.livejournal.com]

But, the part that made me pause and scratch my head and then shake it was "An ongoing war......without an end date. That is just really a bad concept statement that shows an uninformed/uneducated view of the realities of war.

And yet it's still a dmned good description of the war in Iraq - one which the Bush administration assured us as it built the case for invasion "could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months".

When he used the term "end date", I expect that he was referring to the lack of any actual goalposts by which we can declare the mission to have actually been accomplished (as opposed to the President's chance to play soldier on that aircraft carrier years ago), and get our men and women home so that we don't have to keep pouring our blood down the rabbit hole that Bush and his people keep insisting upon digging deeper.