Brownback just lost my support

Its bad enough when intellectually vacant Democrats make intellectually vacant statements but when Republicans start doing it. I was reading the Washington Times story about Democrats opposing the now-famous SURGE. Things like;

“Escalation of this war is not the change the American people called for in the last election,” Democratic Whip Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois said last night in his party’s response to Mr. Bush’s prime-time presentation of his Iraq strategy changes.
    “Instead of a new direction, the president’s plan moves the American commitment in Iraq in the wrong direction.”

And;

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Americans want to know whether Mr. Bush’s strategy is a “change of course.”
    “Or is this simply more of the same with slightly different rhetoric?” Mr. Schumer said.

And then I ran into this paragraph;

Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican and a favorite of conservatives, last night said Mr. Bush’s troop surge is not the answer.
    “Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution,” he said.

Well, I thought maybe Mr. Brownback had more to say on the subject, because I wasn’t going to impugn him on a one-line quote in a newspaper article, so I went to his website to see what could be missing from the story. I found more, well, word-wise but still intellectually vacant;

“I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer,” said Brownback. “Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution. In the last two days, I have met with Prime Minister Maliki, with two deputy presidents and the president of the Kurdish region. I came away from these meetings convinced that the United States should not increase its involvement until Sunnis and Shi’a are more willing to cooperate with each other instead of shooting at each other.”

Brownback continued, “The Kurdish leadership does not wish to get in the middle of a sectarian fight between the Sunni and Shi’a, and the United States should not either. Instead of surging troops, we must press the Iraqi government to reach a political solution. We cannot achieve a political solution while a military solution is imposed. The best way to reach a democratic Iraq is to empower the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own nation building.”

He sounds like a Democrat. Where have these people been for the last forty years. People in that part of the world don’t understand words. They don’t tell the truth and as soon as your back is turned they’ll run a dagger through your backside.

The only thing people in that part of the world understand is force. No amount of surrender talk, no amount of concession will yield even a moment’s respite from the violence there. The people who are killing each other will only stop when they’re dead, or when they’re backed into a corner, weaponless with a bayonet to their throat.

Brownback is apparently over in the area now and has cutsey blog going about all of the people he’s met and how wonderful they are to him, but I honestly don’t think he’s had his eyes open the entire he’s been there if he can’t get these notions of negotiation and political solutions out of his head.

Lessons of the past are lost on Presidential candidates I guess. When Saddam Hussein was beaten soundly in 1991, Yassir Arafat couldn’t get to the negotiation table fast enough. When Hussein’s defenses were destroyed again in 2003, Qaddafi couldn’t surrender his weapons of mass destruction fast enough. When Sadr and Iran meet the same types of defeat, the rest will come along willingly – maybe fast enough to shut Chavez up for a day or two, as well.

But until Brownback yanks his head from his fourth point-of-contact, he’ll get no support here from me.

Meanwhile REAL Republicans like Mitch McConnell are supporting the President’s plan;

President Bush’s decision to deploy more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq drew fierce opposition Thursday from congressional Democrats, but the Senate’s top Republican threatened a filibuster to block any legislation expressing disapproval of the plan.

“Obviously, it will … require 60 votes,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as senior administration officials made the case for Bush’s new policy in Congress, at news briefings and the morning television programs.

Powerline did an interview with McConnell here.

Category: Politics