Tuesday, August 30, 2005
mccain and the daily star ed board, part 1
I'm about to cry, and not just because of some of the assinine things this insanely popular politician said. I wrote a lengthy post and then the blogger servers went down and it was all for naught. Let's hope this goes better the second time around...
And now without further ado, McCain redux, part uno:
On immigration:
First off, what undocumented immigrant has $2,000 with which to pay a fine? Presumably if he or she can't pay the fine, the penalty is deportation anyway. This is just a backdoor attempt to make deportation less controversial. "We tried to give them a square deal, but they just wouldn't pay the piper."
People are crossing the border from Mexico because they see the United States as a place of greater opportunities. Paying documented and undocumented immigrants the lowest of the low wages is just helping to create a massive underclass that will forever be scapegoated for every ill facing the nation. If you really want to curb illegal immigration, you have to create incentives for people to stay in their countries of origin. Most immediately, that means helping clean up the massive corruption in the Mexican federal, state and local governments, followed by aid to jumpstart the Mexican economy. When there are worthwhile opportunities in their own country, many border crossers won't see the need to risk life, limb and liberty to get into the U.S. Why does our border policy have to be punitive? Why does it always have to treat the people crossing the border like second-class human beings? Punishing people who hurt others or who damage personal property is one thing; punishing people who are just looking for a better life for their families is quite another.
This passage kind of made me wonder if Senator Kennedy might not necessarily be the best partner from the left on this kind of legislation. I can't really imagine there's much of a problem with undocumented immigrants in Hyannis. But partnering with Kennedy, who is demonized on the right, is part of why McCain gets his ill-deserved "maverick" rep. If he really wanted to pick up credibility from a liberal Democrat, it would have made more sense to partner with Diane Feinstein or Barbara Boxer, two liberal lions who actually represent another border state. It just makes more sense to me.
I laughed out loud at the dictionary-reading line. McCain's a skolur!
On Iraq:
We've paid a heavy price in American treasure, eh? Is that in doubloons or in embezzled, mismanaged taxpayer money paid in exhorbitant sums to corrupt private contractors? Gosh, it sure would be nice if there was something Senator McCain could do about that, being the watchdog of government spending that he claims to be. Oh wait, there is! Congress has the responsibility of deciding how much is spent on this war and in what ways. Congress could demand accoutability and transparency from the corporations it authorizes the DOD to contract with. Congress should be asking the hard questions and being dilligent stewards of our tax dollars. But, as we all know, most of them - particularly those in the majority - are not.
Oh, and also: duh. It's a good thing we have Senator Obvious to tell us we can't afford to lose.
This is classic Republican specious reasoning. News flash: Iraq will be a factionalized nation whether we leave now or in ten years. That's not necessarily a bad thing: having diverse voices speaking in an honest and open dialogue. But that's not the kind of factionalizing Senator McCain means. He's talking about civil war, which is all but inevitable regardless of when we leave.
There are steps we can take to minimize such a civil war and also reduce the continuing number of casualties suffered both by our forces and by the Iraqis. Juan Cole has a pretty solid 10-point plan that Congress can start working on now. I really agree with his first point about partial troop redeployment. Our troops have not been properly trained to wage the war we're asking them to wage. As Cole puts it, "our troops are warriors, not traffic cops." I do have some concerns about point 6, selling or giving arms - including tanks - to the new Iraqi government. We all remember how well that worked out for us with Afghanistan in the 80's.
The real merry-go-round of rhetorical nonsense comes when the Senator compares the terrorist element in Iraq with the North Vietnamese Communists at the tail end of that "conflict." For once a Republican is not conflating Iraq with 9/11 by willfully ignoring the fact that Americans have already been attacked on American soil. He commits this sin of ommission to justify not withdrawing troops early because the terrorists would then supposedly take it as an invitation to attack Americans on American soil. The pre-emptive strike doctrine. Get them before they get us. Except they already got us. And then we got them back. It's circular reasoning. Yes, that policy has really worked wonders so far. Cindy Sheehan gives the best summary: "we have to continue killing American soldiers because so many have been killed already." That's insane troll logic!
That's all for now. Hope this posts this time. Stay tuned for our next exciting episode!
And now without further ado, McCain redux, part uno:
On immigration:
//snip//
Amnesty was tried once in the 1980s, and it didn't work. So we need to make sure that people who have broken our laws by entering our country illegally pay a price for that - we need a $2,000 fine plus having to work for six years before being eligible for green card status. And then it would probably take another five years after that to be able to go for citizenship.
I read the dictionary on occasion and the word "amnesty" does not fit into the proposal that Sen. Kennedy and I have, even though many claim that it does. It is a severe and significant penalty for having broken our laws and come into our country.
//snip//
First off, what undocumented immigrant has $2,000 with which to pay a fine? Presumably if he or she can't pay the fine, the penalty is deportation anyway. This is just a backdoor attempt to make deportation less controversial. "We tried to give them a square deal, but they just wouldn't pay the piper."
People are crossing the border from Mexico because they see the United States as a place of greater opportunities. Paying documented and undocumented immigrants the lowest of the low wages is just helping to create a massive underclass that will forever be scapegoated for every ill facing the nation. If you really want to curb illegal immigration, you have to create incentives for people to stay in their countries of origin. Most immediately, that means helping clean up the massive corruption in the Mexican federal, state and local governments, followed by aid to jumpstart the Mexican economy. When there are worthwhile opportunities in their own country, many border crossers won't see the need to risk life, limb and liberty to get into the U.S. Why does our border policy have to be punitive? Why does it always have to treat the people crossing the border like second-class human beings? Punishing people who hurt others or who damage personal property is one thing; punishing people who are just looking for a better life for their families is quite another.
This passage kind of made me wonder if Senator Kennedy might not necessarily be the best partner from the left on this kind of legislation. I can't really imagine there's much of a problem with undocumented immigrants in Hyannis. But partnering with Kennedy, who is demonized on the right, is part of why McCain gets his ill-deserved "maverick" rep. If he really wanted to pick up credibility from a liberal Democrat, it would have made more sense to partner with Diane Feinstein or Barbara Boxer, two liberal lions who actually represent another border state. It just makes more sense to me.
I laughed out loud at the dictionary-reading line. McCain's a skolur!
On Iraq:
Serious mistakes have been made for which we've paid a heavy price in American blood and treasure - primarily by not getting control in Iraq after initial military success, allowing looting, not having more American troops on the ground, not understanding the people that we have just defeated. We cannot afford to lose. We must prevail.
//snip//
We've paid a heavy price in American treasure, eh? Is that in doubloons or in embezzled, mismanaged taxpayer money paid in exhorbitant sums to corrupt private contractors? Gosh, it sure would be nice if there was something Senator McCain could do about that, being the watchdog of government spending that he claims to be. Oh wait, there is! Congress has the responsibility of deciding how much is spent on this war and in what ways. Congress could demand accoutability and transparency from the corporations it authorizes the DOD to contract with. Congress should be asking the hard questions and being dilligent stewards of our tax dollars. But, as we all know, most of them - particularly those in the majority - are not.
Oh, and also: duh. It's a good thing we have Senator Obvious to tell us we can't afford to lose.
//snip//
I have said for years it's going to be long, it's going to be hard, it's going to be tough. Whether you supported the invasion of Iraq or not, whether in hindsight we should have gone or not, I respect those personal opinions. And I still think we did the right thing. But if we leave now, we will establish Iraq as a factionalized nation, a hotbed of Muslim extremism, and they will follow us wherever we go. When we lost in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and his friends didn't want to follow us to the United States. These people do.
This is classic Republican specious reasoning. News flash: Iraq will be a factionalized nation whether we leave now or in ten years. That's not necessarily a bad thing: having diverse voices speaking in an honest and open dialogue. But that's not the kind of factionalizing Senator McCain means. He's talking about civil war, which is all but inevitable regardless of when we leave.
There are steps we can take to minimize such a civil war and also reduce the continuing number of casualties suffered both by our forces and by the Iraqis. Juan Cole has a pretty solid 10-point plan that Congress can start working on now. I really agree with his first point about partial troop redeployment. Our troops have not been properly trained to wage the war we're asking them to wage. As Cole puts it, "our troops are warriors, not traffic cops." I do have some concerns about point 6, selling or giving arms - including tanks - to the new Iraqi government. We all remember how well that worked out for us with Afghanistan in the 80's.
The real merry-go-round of rhetorical nonsense comes when the Senator compares the terrorist element in Iraq with the North Vietnamese Communists at the tail end of that "conflict." For once a Republican is not conflating Iraq with 9/11 by willfully ignoring the fact that Americans have already been attacked on American soil. He commits this sin of ommission to justify not withdrawing troops early because the terrorists would then supposedly take it as an invitation to attack Americans on American soil. The pre-emptive strike doctrine. Get them before they get us. Except they already got us. And then we got them back. It's circular reasoning. Yes, that policy has really worked wonders so far. Cindy Sheehan gives the best summary: "we have to continue killing American soldiers because so many have been killed already." That's insane troll logic!
That's all for now. Hope this posts this time. Stay tuned for our next exciting episode!
