In recent days, President Bush has once again started “talking tough” on Iran as he looks for another excuse for his failed policies in Iraq. And who is right there, ready to do his master’s bidding?

U.S. Congressman Joe Knollenberg.

Knollenberg is one of two sponsors of a new House resolution condemning Iran and Syria for their support of Hezbollah militias in Lebanon. That’s a wonderful sentiment, but the timing is a blatant attempt to help the Bush Administration pave the war for a war against Iran. Otherwise, why push this resolution now, nearly 18 months after the crisis that provoked it?

The resolution demands that Iran and Syria follow two U.N. Resolutions, one passed in 2004 and the other in 2006. It also makes a timely demand for Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, just 473 days after they were taken hostage. Did Joe Knollenberg just hear about this story?

Perhaps Rep. Knollenberg thinks that a meaningless gesture on behalf of the president will distract 9th District Voters from other things - like his recent vote to deny health-care benefits to children. His excuse? The bill might have provided health care for illegal immigrants.

That sums up Joe Knollenberg pretty well, don’t you think? “Children? I’ll worry about them later. Right now, I have to make sure none of those people are getting seen in our emergency rooms!”

Posted: September 28th, 2007 under president bush, iraq, knollenberg watch.
Comments: none

From Representative Knollenberg’s own website:

“I believe Congress should heed the advice of General Petraeus. We all want this war to end as quickly as possible, but our policy decisions must be guided by what is best for America’s national security interests. Defeat in Iraq is not an option I am willing to concede today.

“The key question before Congress now is whether arbitrarily pulling back our troops will force the Iraqi people to assume greater responsibility for the security of their nation or whether doing so will erode the security gains that have been made in recent months and make it impossible for the Iraqi people to assume responsibility for the security of their nation.

“I trust our generals in Iraq more than I trust politicians who seem to be more interested in scoring political points than winning this war. I have faith in our military. I believe we have the best soldiers in the world. The surge is providing important security gains. And I don’t want this progress reversed because we attempt to micromanage the war from the halls of Congress. We should begin pulling down our troops based on the advice of our commanders on the ground in Iraq.

“I have spoken out against the mismanagement of the war effort, but it’s time to look forward instead of harping on past mistakes. I understand that many of my Democratic colleagues are downright hostile towards President Bush. But this is America’s war, not President Bush’s war. It’s time for Republicans and Democrats to stand together behind our soldiers as they fight for a successful resolution in Iraq. There is no disputing that America has a lot on the line in Iraq. There is no disputing that America will be less safe if the terrorists win in Iraq. The stakes for our nation and for our allies in the Middle East are high. That’s the reality we face, and it’s a reality we must address in a bipartisan manner.”

When has Joe Knollenberg ever spoken out about this mismanagement of the war? He has been President Bush’s biggest cheerleader during the whole process, ignoring all of the White House’s dishonesty.

Joe Knollenberg trusts our generals more than he trusts politicians? Where does that leave all the generals who have spoken out against our policies in Iraq? Why does he only trust the generals that have been approved by Republican politicians?

Joe Knollenberg doesn’t want to erode the security gains we’ve made in recent months? Apparently, he hasn’t been paying attention. According to the newest Pentagon numbers, the average number of daily casualties in Iraq has gone up approximately 12 percent since January 2007, the last full month before the surge began.

A national poll of Iraqis showed that only one-third of citizens feel safe traveling outside their own neighborhood. And, while the surge was supposed to give the Iraqi government time to make concrete progress toward national reconciliation, it hasn’t worked. In December 2006, 48% of Iraqis said they had “confidence in the ability of the Iraqi government to protect you and your family from threat”.

Now? After Joe Knollenberg’s “important security gains?”

The number is all the way up to 49%.

So, Congressman Knollenberg, when are we going to hear again about the mismanagement of the war?

Posted: September 18th, 2007 under president bush, national security, iraq, knollenberg watch.
Comments: none

On Sept. 17, the House of Representatives voted down the Regional Economic and Infrastructure Development Act of 2007. This bill was designed “to provide a comprehensive regional approach to economic and infrastructure development in the most severely economically distressed regions in the Nation”.

On Sept. 18, the House passed the Expanding American Homeownership Act of 2007. This act would expand FHA programs to make them more accessible to “low- and moderate-income homebuyers”.

Representative Joe Knollenberg of Michigan’s Ninth District didn’t bother to vote on either bill.

Where is Joe?

Posted: September 18th, 2007 under economy, knollenberg watch.
Comments: none

In the next two weeks, Joe Knollenberg and the rest of Congress will be receiving several reports on the war in Iraq. Is it too much for the people of the Ninth District to ask that our representative in Washington look past the Bush Administration’s propaganda and take some interest in the real facts?

There’s not much hope. Representative Knollenberg is so uninterested in Iraq that he doesn’t have a section devoted to it on his official website. Instead, he lumps it into a “National Security and Immigration” section that spends more time on U.S.-Canadian border security than it does on an ongoing war.

Still, we have to hope that Representative Knollenberg is willing to find the truth and take actions to stop the madness in Iraq.

He’ll hear claims from the U.S. military that sectarian violence is down since the surge began. But will he take that at face value, or will he realize that the numbers are bogus? The military says that, instead of 1,200 Iraqis dying every month in the civil war, there are now only a thousand deaths each month. But to get that result - which isn’t great to begin with - they have to bury their heads in the desert sands and claim that car bombs don’t count as sectarian violence.

Car bombs, you see, are the result of “terrorists”. Of course, the President keeps telling us that we’re in Iraq to fight terrorism, so you would think that it would be important that more people are being killed by terrorists. Hopefully, Representative Knollenberg will think the same way.

Or the congressman could choose to believe the Iraqi government, which says that war-related civilian deaths are up since the surge began, not down. According to the L.A. Times, government sources said there were 1,773 civilian deaths in August, as opposed to 1,646 in February, the month before President Bush escalated the war.

We also need to avoid the trap of letting those numbers become just numbers. According to those same sources, about 15,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the first eight months of 2007. That’s five times more than were killed on 9/11 - and we’re in the fifth year of the war. The Iraq Body Count project estimates that over 70,000 civilians have died since 2003, enough to fill a large football stadium.

And remember, those are civilians. Not soldiers, not terrorists, not “insurgents”. We are talking about tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children who have died for no greater crime than being an Iraqi.

Maybe Congressman Knollenberg could rationalize all of this, if he believed that genuine progress was being made. But he must know that it is not. When Congress allowed the Bush Administration’s surge in the spring, it was with the understanding that the Iraqi government would be held accountable, and that if they didn’t step up, we’d stand down.

They haven’t stood up. The GAO’s official report says that the Iraqi government has met three of the 18 benchmarks that President Bush said would be so important. They’ve missed some of the big ones, too:

• Instead of increasing the number of independent security forces, the number has actually gone down since March.
• Political intervention in security matters continues to be a problem.
• Security forces have continued to commit sectarian abuses.
• Sectarian militias still control local security forces.
• Only one of eight legislative benchmarks - the protection of minority legislators’ rights - has been met, and even that came with no accompanying protection of rights for minority citizens.

At the beginning of this year, many members of Congress, including Joe Knollenberg, said that would not support it after that unless significant progress was made by September.

It is now September. Violence is still high. The Iraqi government is still useless. There has been little or no improvement in Iraqi security forces.

And more than 500 American soldiers have died.

Joe Knollenberg has another chance to prove that his highest priority is the good of the United States, not the wishes of George W. Bush.

Does he have the courage to do it?

Posted: September 4th, 2007 under president bush, national security, iraq, knollenberg watch.
Comments: none