I'll be campaigning tomorrow in my Distrct which runs from the Houston suburbs to the Austin suburbs (TX 10), so I thought I'd post my Independence Day message today, the 3rd of July. When President Bush landed on that aircraft carrier deck some three years ago, to the banner "Mission Accomplished"; he was right. We had won the war in Iraq. Saddam was deposed. The Republican Guard had been defeated. The Kurds were free. We were confirming that there were no weapons of mass destruction. American troops performed superbly. Then, for some reason, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove decided that the US mission was to "Bring Democracy to the Iraqi's".
Well, we did that too, with the help of the UN, when democratic elections were held last year. We even held the two sides in their proto civil war apart for six months so the newly elected Assembly could finally work together long enough to form a Government. During all this, the US presence has changed from that of liberators to an occupying force. I learned in the National War College that it takes a
lot of troops to be an effective occupying force, and we have never had enough for that role. The US Military, with it's superior firepower, can defeat any opposing force on the batlefield. But, it takes boots on the ground to be an occupying force.
No one likes an occupying force, and when there is National armed resistance to an occupier; combined with an incipient civil war among the population, the task is fraught with dangers of the type we are seeing across Iraq. It doesn't have to be this way. We have to stop being an occupying force and become solely the enablers of the Iraqi democracy. We need to take some of our troops in Iraq and send them to Afganistan to finish the job of getting Osama Bin-Laden and help an Afgan Government that is descending into Warlordism. We need to take some of our troops and put them in the large desert bases that Saddam built to train the Iraqi security forces, and put some with Iraqi units as advisors. We need to continue to provide air support and logistics support to the Iraqi security forces. We need to bring the rest of our troops home, where they can do things such as guard our own borders, rather than Iraq's. Above all, we need to get our combat troops out of the Iraqi viliages and cities.
During my first three rotations in Vietnam, I was with US fighting forces and we were doing all the fighting. The South Vietnamese Army mostly stayed in it's barracks or patrolled in "safe" areas. Why wouldn't they, if US troops were willing to do all the fighting? In my fourth, and last, tour; I was an advisor with the Vietnamese forces and they were doing all the fighting, because all US combat troops had left, except for advisors. The same is true in Iraq. I believe that Rumsfeld has it backwards when he says: "when they stand up, we'll stand down". My experience in Vietnam, which none of our leaders have, is that they won't stand up until we stand down.
A further thought on the significance of the Fourth of July and extremism. Our country has always been at it's strongest when we pulled together in common cause for the common good. We pulled together in our Revolutionary War. We pulled together in the Great Depression. We pulled together in World War II and the Cold War. But those times were before computers and the ability of politicians to so finely hone Congressional Districts as to guarrantee that one party or the other would be dominant in a District.
The result is that a candidate need only appeal to one side or the other in an election, with no need to take a centrist position that might have broad appeal. Congress stands in the lowest esteem of any institution in the country, today; and I think that it is a direct result of this polarization. Vote after vote in Congress is on party lines, and favors one group, over the common good. Governor Tom Vilsak of Iowa was in town on the day after the Supreme Court announced it's decision requiring the redrawing of several districts in Texas. He told of the experience in Iowa, which has a non-partisan redistricting process that has almost evenly divided the State Legislature. He said that it had resulted in candidates that had to take more centrist positions, because they could not go down a narrowly partisan route and expect to get elected.
This is the message I am taking to my Republican-majority District. If you elect me, a Democrat, to the US House, I will be unable to take narrowly partisan positions because I will never be reelected. I will have to seek the centrist approach that serves the common good, as contrasted to a Republican; who can adhere to a base with a narrowly-focused agenda that continues to divide, rather than unite the country. My message is: "If you don't like what Congress is doing, send a different person to Congress".
I am a second tier challenger running against a first-term Delay clone who is a multi-millionaire and has voted with the Republican Leadership over 95% of the time (He usually votes "No" on Congressional pay raises). As such, I am not getting any help from the DCCC or other big backers. I am depending on the grassroots contributors in the District and the Netroots. You can visit my website Here and Contribute