As President Obama responds to the collapse of Iraq by talking to Iran and sending 275 troops to secure the embassy in Baghdad, South Dakota's Democratic candidate for U.S. House Corinna Robinson sees an opportunity to remind voters of her foreign policy experience and ask for their cash. The following fundraising note went out Monday:
As the security of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, is under the threat of an al-Qaida inspired insurgency, please pray for those in harm's way. I was privileged to serve alongside State Department and Interagency personnel there twice. As a Deputy Provost Marshal assigned to 4th Infantry Division, and subesquently as a civilian serving as a Director of Legislative Affairs, I know first-hand how critical it is to protect our national security mission there.
And just as in Iraq, our Nation and South Dakota deserve an experienced leader that will effectively deter risks of violence, terrorism, kidnapping, and human trafficking. This is a time where reckless partisanship in Congress and fruitless attacks on our current administration are not going to ease tensions. We must all come together to support the deployment of 100 Marines and Army soldiers to assist in keeping our Embassy safe. As such, I am committed to representing our Nation and South Dakota in Congress.
To do this, I need your support. I look forward to the challenges ahead during my campaign. My goal, and I hope your goal also, is to restore a strong voice in Congress for all South Dakotans and our great Nation.
Your financial contributions are crucial to this goal. It is an ardurous but enjoyable task to travel across my home state of South Dakota as one sole district. Your contributions enable my team to call voters, knock on doors, disseminate campaign literature, sign up absentee voters, and assist with the "Get Out the Vote" operations.
I am asking for your sincere and immediate support. Every contribution benefits our cause. If you can contribute monthly to help build the campaign’s momentum – even better!
My campaign does not cater to the Tea Party money machine or anonymous donors financing attack ads. That makes your contribution that much more critical in our grassroots effort to have our message reach all South Dakotans. Who knows, this race may be just another Eric Cantor/Kristi Noem defeat. Together you and I can win this election and ensure success in defending America's interests ~ at home or abroad!
In selfless service,
Corinna
Paid for by Corinna for SD
Corinna for SD
P.O. Box 3432
Rapid City SD 57709 United States
I'll be curious to see how much fundraising and vote-getting impact foreign policy will have on South Dakotans. It had zero impact in the GOP Senate primary, where a retired Marine came in third and an active Army reservist came in dead last behind a smiling insurance salesman.
For better or for worse, Congresswoman Kristi Noem does not appear to have issued a formal statement or Tweet or anything else on Iraq. We'll see if she joins her Republican colleagues in urging us to go to war again in Iraq, or if she just focuses on the House GOP leadership contest.
Iraq is just another country "drawn on a bar napkin" by Britain and France as a result of WWI. A large part of the Mideast is likewise. The Iranians and the Turks are the main winners or losers in this, so maybe they need to step up and protect their interests. Our are quite minimal at best, non-existent at worst.
I doubt most South Dakotans (or even most Americans) really care that much about Iraq. We have problems of our own.
COD, well stated! Obama has been flat-footed and disconnected from recent events in Iraq, which seems to be his habit in emergency situations at home and abroad. I hate it when McCain and Graham look like foreign and military affairs geniuses with their Monday morning quarterback hyperbole, but Obama just keeps walking into the trap of his own neglect. If there are 5,000 Americans living and working in Iraq, they need to be removed immediately. And here, again, we see Obama dragging his feet to determine whether there is a threat.
COD's correct. This is lost. It started out as lost when Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz cooked the intelligence books and lied their asses off to push our nation into initiating its dumbest war. The deaths of American service people and innocent civilians and all the ruin are on BCRW and the neo-cons. Further losses on this hoax must be prevented and the United States must step totally out of the picture. There is no graceful, honorable exit to a decade-old farce.
sounds like iraqi-al qaeda, is it, took down a gold reserve? now they are funded. corrina has real knowledge while i suspect naoemi just does what she is told by repub leaders. boehner thinks obama is sleeping but this bush legacy, together with recession, obstruction and whatever other scorched earth policy the repubs and nra and billionaires respond with requires corrina to get in there. the house however is a republican wasteland.
"For better or for worse, Congresswoman Kristi Noem does not appear to have issued a formal statement or Tweet or anything else on Iraq. We'll see if she joins her Republican colleagues in urging us to go to war again in Iraq, or if she just focuses on the House GOP leadership contest."
NOem will only do what she's told to do.
I get a kick out of your blog name, Cranky Old Dude! (it makes me smile :)
It always seems to me like McCain is pro war. Wouldn't a POW be against wars in most situations?
Obama is just being told what to do by the Military Complex. (hate to say that, but it's true, which is also amazingly funny when republicans think he's a big leftist liberal, which he is not at all.).
That flat footed Kenyan just sent the fellers into to capture the head dude behind the Bengayzeeee attack. Damn it, now what is that slick Trey and the the car thief Issa gonna do? I know, restart the war in Iraq. Paging NOem...what is your stance on Iraq and what do you think about us kids working with the Iranians to help solve the problems in the Mid-East?
For once, the Mitchell Daily Republic had an interesting editorial going after national columnist Cal Thomas. They suggested that his saying the lives of soldiers there was a waste insults the work of the soldiers even if the policy was wrong.
Sending more troops on an extension of those fool's errands does not impact the previous soldiers honor, valor or sacrifice. More troops in that tribal cauldron of religious lunacy would certainly be a waste and would do nothing to diminish or increase the sacrifice of those 4400 or so who died there.
I think of my youngest son Mr. Wiken, he suffered a traumatic brain injury due to his Stryker getting hit by an ied. His best friend there was killed in that attack and not only does he still suffer that loss, he still has the headaches, ptsd and the other issues. We loose some 20 American ex soldiers each month to self inflicted gun shots and other forms of suicide. If these war mongers want to go so badly back to Iraq, I will hold their coats and let them go. I want to see Wolfie, Cheney, Bush and the rest of the war criminals in action. Hell, they can bring ole Condi and Rummy with them as well for piano entertainment and just plain soothing bullshit speech. Lets see how that goes.
Iran and the United States will come to an agreement to protect the Shiite Muslim's from the House of Saud and the Sunni's to keep the balance. Joe Bidden was correct in his assessment of creating 3 countries there and to forget about what the cutting up of the Ottoman Empire really did to make the whole place imbalanced.
During Raygun's reign of terror,it was our stated purpose to aid and abet both Iran and Iraq so neither country would become the dominant power in the M.E. How'd that work for ya,dumbass dubya? Wingnuts value the sanctity of all human life so much they are willing to force someone else's kids to die to protect their stock portfolios. Someone please explain how "our" oil came to be under Iraq's sand. Korporate Amerika wants the military to protect their interests abroad,they shoukld willing pay 70 plus percent income tax to that end.
well, they already payin for armies o' lawyers, accountants, doctors and politicians to protect them here on the "home" front. Thankfully, scott prouty's 47% video warned the world that it's not really red v. blue, but between citizens of countries versus the stateless wealthy, in gated communities, tax havens, private schooled, manufacturing transactions rather than products, using massive taxpayer subsidized debt. Rollingstone, 9.13.12
Wars always have un-intended consequences, effects beyond what their instigators can foresee. We won WWII and the Germans still ended up running Europe; the Japanese dominated the Pacific economically for years.
I think W. wanted to "roll a rock into their garden they couldn't get out..." and maybe he did but not in the way he planned (surprise!). Instead of a Democracy, his legacy is the upheaval, dysfunction and civil wars that rack the area today. When you start with something as factional and sectarian as Iraq (or Afghanistan) then you shouldn't be shocked when it refuses to conform to your expectations.
Turkey has now agreed to a unified Kurdistan in the northern sector of the seeming end of the country once known as Iraq. This is huge as it would take the pressure off border issues between the Kurds and the Turks and also allow for a homeland for the Kurds in Iran as well as Syria. A big deal for sure. http://www.cnnturk.com/haber/turkiye/huseyin-celik-kurtler-kendi-kaderini-tayin-hakkina-sahip
Now, all that is needed is a continuing response from Iran and the United States working together on the other issues. That Jedi Kenyan is going to get this mess figured out without firing a shot. Do you think the republicans will bitch and moan? We certainly do not need a dumb cluck like NOem at a time like this, we need someone with an actual world view. If you do not think that this stuff is important to South Dakota, go to some of the graveyards here.
Cranky-wingnuts are taking the opportunity to lay the blame for the Iraq mess on Obie. Tex. Sinator Cornyn said 4500 soldiers gave their lives to free Iraq and Obie screwed all that up. The wingnut coyote kerfluffle is howling their fool heads off about the timing of the capture of Benghazi consulate ringleader's capture,claiming special forces,FBI are working to elect Hillary. What a bunch of whining losers.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jTW0y6kazWM
The Blindman
Like comfort food,Blindman.
Geez Blindman, that song and video is just too good. Hard to watch.
Jerry, that's great news for the Kurds. Just a few days ago I read a commentary about the nation/states in the Middle East, and the arbitrary boundaries drawn up by Britain and France. The writer of the opinion piece described new nations drawn around ethnic and sectarian connections. It's very interesting.
http://www.startribune.com/world/263145881.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue
Indeed Deb, as you read, the lines drawn were after World War I as the spoils of war. Here is an article that asks a very important question, How Many times do the neo cons get to be wrong before we stop asking them what to do in Iraq? Why are those asshats even allowed near a public airway? They have disgraced the United States and are war criminals outside of our border. " Just a reminder of what that 2003 invasion led to: Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes authoritatively priced Bush’s war at more than $3 trillion. About 320,000 US veterans suffer from brain injury as a result of their service. Between 500,000 and 655,000 Iraqis died, as well as more than 4,000 US military members." http://www.thenation.com/blog/180258/where-accountability-iraq
This is just another in a long list of why we need a change in who represents us in the House.
The media seems fascinated with re-hab broadcasts for completely discredited, disreputable, proven liars and scam artists of the GOP persuasion. Gamblers, crooks, and thieves turn up a few years later as experts on morality and ethics...and of course economic and social mythology.
Correct Mr. Wiken, you could not have hit the nail on the head harder. In fact, the liars and scam artists of the GOP persuasion, now want to legalize insider trading. It is so prevalant on republican..er..wall street that they need this to make more moolah off of your retirement account. http://www.cnbc.com/id/101766558
Republicans know this for sure, when you reach retirement age, the nest egg you thought you had will be long gone and there will be menial work for you to afford to put some mayonnaise with your cat or dog food. If you think it is both parties, you would be incorrect. Take a look at the donations that republicans like our own Thune bird and the dust bunny NOem receive along with the 9 million the egg roll Rounds has received.
This is not off topic as the ones who will benefit from the endless wars are the fat cats of wall street.