At a wingnut coven last week, Scott Perry (r-Pa.)
said he feels “duty bound” to authorize the use of force against
Islamic State targets, but he’s conflicted. The lunatic fringe moron argued,
out loud, that he fears President Obama may be “working collaboratively
with what I would say is the enemy of freedom and individual freedom
and liberty and Western civilization and modernity.”
It sounded an awful lot like the repugican was
accusing the war-time Commander in Chief of being some kind of traitor.
The Pennsylvania repugican added
that he wasn’t sure how he could vote to give the president the “power
to take action” when he knows in his heart “he won’t.” On the contrary,
Perry said. Obama might use his power “to further their cause.”
A day later, Matt Salmon (r-Ariz.) argued,
“I don’t believe that the president really wants to prosecute a war
that would truly destroy ISIL, I don’t think he has any intention of
doing that it.”
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee lent credence to these bonkers perspectives.
Bob Corker (r-Tenn.) said on Sunday that he doubted the administration’s “commitment to dealing” with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). […]Corker said, “I think there is a lot of skepticism about the administration’s commitment to dealing with ISIS or Daesh or ISIL or whatever you want to call them.”
It’s become increasingly difficult to understand which
reality congressional repugicans have been living in the last several
months.
There is, of course, ample room for debate about the merits
of the White House’s national security strategy, but it seems repugicans have lost sight of the broader dynamic here. On one side we
see President Obama, who launched a military offensive
against ISIS targets last August and who took the lead in assembling an
international coalition to go after the terrorist group.
And on the other side we see the repugican-misled congress, which has done … nothing. The rpugicans seem
eager to cut off funding for the Department of Homeland Security, but
when it comes to policy efforts on national security, Capitol Hill has
been awfully quiet.
Who’s demonstrated an actual “commitment to dealing with ISIL” and who’s done a lot of talking without doing any actual work?
To be sure, it’s entirely possible Obama’s
actions won’t have the desired effect. It’s the sort of thing a
functioning Congress might want to, I don’t know, debate or something.
But that’s not what’s happening. Scott Perry (r-Pa.)
seems to think Obama “won’t” act, even though he already has. Matt
Salmon (r-Ariz.) believes Obama doesn’t have “any intention” of
prosecuting a war against ISIS, even though the military offensive has
been underway for six months. Bob Corker (r-Tenn.) is skeptical of
Obama’s “commitment to dealing with ISIL,” even though it’s only the
White House, not Congress, that’s making any effort to deal with ISIL.
This keeps happening. The repugican rhetorical strategy seems predicated on the assumption that thousands of airstrikes haven’t actually happened.
Even by 2015 standards, this is a bit bizarre. As we discussed
a couple of weeks ago, I’m all for repugicans – and Democrats, and
journalists, and the public, and our allies – asking questions about the
U.S. mission. Is it working? What’s the endgame? Is it realistic?
Should the mission receive congressional authorization? What will it
cost? Who’s likely to benefit?
But the prerequisite to having a credible debate about U.S.
military intervention abroad is acknowledging that U.S. military
intervention abroad exists. It’s on this point that repugicans seem lost.
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