Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is the maverick Republican John McCain used to be (and maybe wishes he still was). Chuck Hagel may be running for president. Chuck Hagel may therefore be inclined to position himself farther and farther from the failed presidency of George W. Bush.
Be that as it may, yesterday at a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which voted 12-9 in favor of a Democratic resolution opposing the 21,500 increase in US troop strength in Iraq, Chuck Hagel came down on the majority side and in the process spoke the inconvenient truth. This was remarkable in many ways, the fact that Hagel was the only Republican voting for the resolution being the least among them.
Here are a few excerpts from Hagel's eight minute speech just prior to the Committee vote on the resolution.
There is no plan....there is no strategy. This is a ping-pong game with American lives.
Hagel objects, and rightly so, to sending more troops into a conflict which was never adequately anticipated or planned for and still has not been planned for.
I want every one of you, every one of us, 100 senators, to look in that camera and you tell your people back home what you think [about the troop increase]. Don't hide any more, none of us...if we don't debate this, we are not worthy of our country. We fail our country.
Hagel refers to the fact that there has never been any real debate in the Congress about Iraq.
Stop the impugning of people's motives. Stop the political stuff, all of us.
Anyone who has dared to speak against the Bush administration on Iraq has suffered the most egregious kind of ad hominem attacks. The Bush people have absolutely poisoned the atmosphere on the Hill so as to prevent any civil discourse on the subject.
Are things better in the Middle East today? No, they're more dangerous today in the Middle East than they've ever been. I challenge anyone to question that.
The Bush people and their supporters challenge that on a daily basis, of course. Just yesterday Dick Cheney replied to Wolf Blitzer's statement that "there is a terrible situation" in Iraq by saying "No, there is not. There is not...we have, in fact, accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime..." In today's York, Nebraska, News-Times, the editorialist Brian Bresnahan claims "as of today, the two centers of violence in Iraq, Al Anbar and Baghdad, have momentum heading in the right direction." Bresnahan wants Hagel to run for president, so Nebraska can have "a better option for senator."
We have totally destroyed our standing and reputation and influence in the Middle East, by what we're doing.
Yep, and the longer we stay, the worse it's going to get.
I don't need more troops, I need more jobs.
Hagel was quoting the general formerly in charge of Baghdad. Most of the jobs in the reconstruction effort in Iraq are filled by foreign contractors, not Iraqis.
This is not about terrorists who don't like freedom. Tell that to the Palestinian people, who have been chained down for many, many years. Terrorism is not a strategy, it's a tactic...it's not a belief, like democracy...it's far more complicated than I think what a lot of us are led to believe.
Hagel dares to suggest that perhaps terrorists are not actually "evil men who hate our freedom." This is possibly the most subversive passage in his speech. To even begin to put a human face on "the terrorists" is to undermine the entire BushCo plan for US dominance in the Middle East. It becomes impossible to sell such a plan when the public sees the population over there as living, breathing people and not the objectified, oversimplified targets and straw men they have made them into.
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That a US Senator, a Republican, in this day and age, would speak these truths that directly challenge the Bush administration's world view, credibility and competence, I find remarkable. But it's even more remarkable that I find it remarkable.
We have grown so accustomed to the spin, the lies, the specious arguments, the sophistry, not exclusively but predominantly from the right wing, that when one of theirs, especially at Hagel's level, speaks the plain truth, it is an extraordinary event. Why is it that we don't have more of this? Why shouldn't there be a government in the USA where the truth is not just tolerated, but expected and revered? Chuck Hagel gave us a glimpse yesterday of what that world would be like.