Wednesday, April 13, 2005

You forgot Poland


Poland's government decided on Tuesday to withdraw its troops from Iraq at the end of 2005, making official an earlier proposal, Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said.


"At the time of the expiry of the Security Council's mandate -- meaning at the end of 2005 -- the operations of the Polish stabilization mission should be finished," Szmajdzinski told a news conference after a cabinet meeting.


Poland, a close ally of Washington in Europe and one of the few supporters of its war to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003, has about 1,700 soldiers in south-central Iraq, where it runs a multi-national stabilization force.


Szmajdzinski said Prime Minister Marek Belka's government, which opinion polls show losing power in elections due by October, would not commit Polish troops to any other missions.


"Belka's government will surely not make any new military commitments. We are carrying out an exit strategy from Iraq."


Despite popular opposition at home to Poland's military engagement in Iraq, where 17 Polish soldiers have been killed, all mainstream parties have remained committed to finishing the stabilization mission in the Gulf state.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Shays Uprising

Connecticut Republican Chris Shays has always been a moderate voice of reason within the Republican Party and I have long respected his independence and consistency on the issues. And the fact that he co-authored the Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Bill helps put him on my short list of current Republicans who still deserve some respect. So I happily read his comments on Sunday, blasting Tom Delay's hypocritical ethics violations and demanding that Delay step down from his leadership position in order to preserve the bruised integrity of the Grand Old Party. To wit:


"Tom's conduct is hurting the Republican Party, is hurting this Republican majority and it is hurting any Republican who is up for re-election," Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., told The Associated Press in an interview, calling for DeLay to step down as majority leader.

DeLay, R-Texas, who was admonished by the House ethics committee last year, has been dogged in recent months by new reports about his overseas travel funded by special interests, campaign payments to family members and connections to a lobbyist who is under criminal investigation.

A moderate Republican from Connecticut who has battled with his party's leadership on a number of issues, Shays said efforts by the House GOP members to change ethics rules to protect DeLay only make the party look bad.

"My party is going to have to decide whether we are going to continue to make excuses for Tom to the detriment of Republicans seeking election," Shays said.


And there you have it in a nutshell. It's not quite a revolution yet. And, as much as I respect Shays' courage, I think it will take more than the criticism of this soft-spoken conservative to really spark some change in his party's leadership. But this is how it begins. Power-hungry lunatics have taken over the Republican Party and the only ones who can ultimately stop it...are Republicans. Maybe they're enjoying the short-term benefits of power, but power at the expense of your principles can only take you so far. And Republicans need to take a good, long hard look at what the Party has actually become. Not what the paid political hacks say it is, but what it actually is, when all the bullshit is stripped away.

2006 will be the battleground upon which the Republicans will have to decide who they truly want representing them. By sticking with Delay, the GOP is making a conscious decision to stand by a flagrant abuse of power and hypocritical and unethical pattern of corruption, greed, lies, cronyism, and personal vendettas. But if more Republicans show some backbone and adhere to their own Party's (supposedly)core principles, perhaps our democracy stands a chance of surviving. Only when sane, reasonable Republicans decide to come back to the table and start cooperating with Democrats - only then can we move forward as a united country. For Republicans, this is a true test of integrity. This isn't a question of cutting off the nose to spite the face; this is a question of ridding their body of the cancerous plague that is Tom Delay.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Frank Rich on 'The Culture of Death'

As usual, a must read.