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In a great post about how progressives had a superb track record of picking winners last election cycle, overall guru Howie Klein highlights this gem from Vanity Fair -- Alan Grayson describing why he was outspoken in his "no" vote on funding for Afghanistan operations: The reason why I said what I said is because the fundamental goal of our endeavors in Iraq and Afghanistan is supposed to be to protect us. That’s why we call the Defense Department the Defense Department, because it’s supposed to defend America. And whatever the perceived threat may be, whether it’s al-Qaeda or the Taliban or otherwise, only by the most incredibly convoluted Bushian logic could you possibly get to the point where you conclude that as a result of that threat we should spend $100 billion a year and send over 100,000 of our young men and women abroad, 8,000 miles away, and that that is an effective way to accomplish that goal. It doesn’t make any sense.
Life does not consist of a Risk board game, where you try to occupy every space on the planet. There’s no other country that does this, there’s no other country that seeks to occupy foreign countries 8,000 miles from their own border, and believe that that somehow accomplishes anything useful. It doesn’t. If in fact it’s important to our national security to keep al-Qaeda or the Taliban under control, there are far more effective ways of accomplishing that goal, if that is in fact the goal, than to extend this kind of money and this kind of blood.
This is something that Democrats said when they were in the opposition repeatedly, and that truth hasn’t changed at all just because we elected a president. You can always find some kind of excuse to do what you want to do anyway, but I have to wonder why a new Democratic president wants to do something like this. This is a president who has recognized the immorality of torture, and I’m waiting for him to recognize the immorality of war and foreign occupation.
I think that we have to get out. I think that we should have left both these countries a long time ago. In the case of Iraq, the reasons that we were given at the time the war began were all lies, and we all know it, and as a country we should have been willing to learn from that mistake a long time ago. We have conducted wars without paying for them for the past seven years, and the result of that is that we have come close to destroying our national economy.
At this point I’m really not terribly concerned about the well-being of the Shiites, the Sunnis, or the Kurds. What I care about is our surviving these difficult economic times, and when I’m asked to vote for $100 billion to extend occupations that fundamentally served no purpose that could not be accomplished any other way—in lieu of spending for the things that human beings need, at a time when we have schools closing in Orlando, at a time when we are laying off firefighters and police officers-- I have to say, “No, there’s a better use for that money.”
You can agree or disagree with Grayson's "no" vote. But remember: Grayson is an endangered Democrat representing a traditionally-Republican Florida district, a top target of national Republicans who will almost definitely use this vote against him. With that in mind, can you join me in saying, "Holy cow!" With Alan Grayson, we have a tough, principled, thinking-man Democrat in Congress. I'm chipping in a couple bucks to him right now on this ActBlue site set up by Chris Bowers -- how 'bout you?
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