[Peace-discuss] House Votes Today on Afghan, Pakistan Wars

[C. G. Estabrook]

Come on, David: Obama dangled that "withdraw the vast majority of our troops" 
(just as soon as the job is done) before the voters in the last election.

Your vote in your previous outings has been between 30-40% each time, as I 
recall.  Something near to 33.3% of the vote means that you got one vote for 
every two that went elsewhere.  But maybe it was closer to 3-2.  Good for you.

I'm interested to read your admission that you've "come to the conclusion that 
even leaving a few thousand troops in Afghanistan/Pakistan is unwise" - that is 
quite a change for you - but I'd like to hear more about your change of mind. 
Have you decided that killing people in the Mideast is criminal, or just that 
it's not working very well (in the light of the Wikileaks documents)?

And it's good to hear that you would "support no AfPak military funding other 
than that necessary to bring all of our troops home now."  But what about Iraq? 
Somalia? Yemen?  Can we interpret your remark as the equivalent of Tim's pledge 
to vote against funding for war in the Middle East (with the withdrawal 
proviso)?  He is as you know voting that way.


On 7/28/10 9:05 AM, David Gill wrote:
> "Arrogant refusal"? For many years I've stated that we need to begin to
> immediately withdraw the *vast majority of our troops* from Afghanistan. This
> is not a "parsed" statememt, Mr. Naiman, and it is vastly different than the
>  position of either President Bush or President Obama. I publicly opposed the
> invasion of Iraq *before *it occurred*; had my positon carried the day,
> rather than Tim Johnson's position, millions of people who are dead today
> would instead be alive. Those who deny the truth and importance of that
> statement demean the worth and dignity of each of those human beings.* ** Mr.
> Estabrook appears to have no understanding of the district, and has no grasp
>  of the electoral history of the district. A 57-43 defeat is nowhere near "2
> to 1"-- Carl implies that I previously lost by 33-34 points when in fact it
> was 14-15 points, less than half of what Carl purports. And he appears to
> have little understanding of the *implications of directly providing care to
>  individuals* in the district-- witness that my share of the vote in DeWitt
> County was *three times *the typical Democratic percentage. I've now been
> caring for people in McLean County for three years, and we're seeing that
> same phenomen replicated here. Mr. Johnson's shill, Mr. Estabrook, couldn't
> be any further from the truth when he states that I have "no chance of
> winning"-- we are well on our way to winning in McLean County and handily
> winning the district overall. On top of everything else (increased name
> recognition, relocation to McLean County, increased public understanding of
> Mr. Johnson with regards to term limits lies and initiation of endless wars
> and tax cuts for the wealthy and allowing of Big Pharma to pillage our
> Treasury and on and on), the anti-incumbent fever overtaking thuis region far
> outweighs the national anti-Dem feeling. Or perhaps Carl has talked with a
> different set of 100,000 voters than I have over the past 12-15 months? It
> doesn't help to have people who are purportedly interested in "peace and
> justice" back an incumbent whose votes have produced millions of deaths, but
>  we'll succeed in spite of such foolishness. Over the past several weeks,
> I've come to the conclusion that even leaving a few thousand troops in
> Afghanistan/Pakistan is unwise, and *I would support no AfPak military
> funding other than that necessary to bring all of our troops home now.* And
> yes, Mr. Estabrook, we do indeed need to "plumb the souls" of candidates--
> because *there will be future wars and war votes, and one should try to
> understand the heart of a candidate*-- does he love his fellow human being,
> or does he simply stick his finger up and see which way the wind is blowing.
> My opponent was gung-ho for war when it was supported by 80% of the public;
> now that the majority of the public opposes the war, so does he. Mr.
> Estabrook's gullibility never ceases to amaze me-- in fact, I suspect that he
> actually has agendae other than peace and justice, as he couldn't truly be as
> gullible as he appears to be. When the next invasion is popular, my opponent
> will likely be right there, riding the wave, supporting the war. David Gill,
> M.D.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
*From:* C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
> *To:* Stuart Levy <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu> *Cc:* Brussel Morton K.
> <mkbrussel at comcast.net>; david at gill2010.com; Peace-discuss List
> <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> *Sent:* Wed, July 28, 2010 5:16:08 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] House Votes Today on Afghan, Pakistan Wars
>
> It's not enough to have a Congressional representative vote to defund the war
> - we have to be sure he's doing it for the right reason?
>
> The House votes no more money for war - and we have to plumb the souls of the
> no voters before we approve?
>
> And while we're probing souls, what do we say about that of a candidate who
> arrogantly refuses to tell us how he'll vote? He's supposed to do that so we
> can decide whether to vote for him or not. Instead, he's marketing himself
> like toothpaste. (I admit that's what Obama did.)
>
> And we are spending far too much time on this. David Gill has no chance of
> being elected. It's a gerrymandered Republican district (as he points out) in
> a year when there will be a substantial vote against the administration and
> the Democrats. Under those circumstances, he can't expect even to do as well
> as his 2-1 losses before. Does he think he'll get Tea-party support? There
> isn't even a strong enough pro-war sentiment in the district for his attempt
> to stay to the right of Johnson on the war to garner him many votes.
>
> Let's get back to an issue more serious than David Gill's bashfulness about
> his views on killing people - like dirty T-shirts... --CGE
>
>
> On 7/28/10 4:40 AM, Stuart Levy wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 04:08:04AM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>> I have no idea how you voted, but I'll leave it to the candid member of
>>> AWARE to say whether you "defended Obama" by objecting vigorously to my
>>> news summaries that criticized his candidacy and pointed out his
>>> obfuscation of his position on the war. I recall that you exploded at
>>> one TV taping when I guyed you a bit for offering a "commercial for
>>> Obama."
>>>
>>> I know that our present system is a parody of democracy, but in
>>> principle we're supposed to vote for legislative candidates who will vote
>>> correctly on the issues. There is no issue more important than the war
>>> this year, and it seems that, unusually enough, we have a choice: an
>>> incumbent who is consistently voting against the war, as he promised to
>>> do; and an opponent who refuses to make a similar promise. The choice
>>> isn't hard for anyone opposed to the war.
>>
>> Well... as I mentioned in David Gill's facebook thread, we still don't know
>> why Tim Johnson has flipped on the wars (even though I called him this week
>> to confirm that I'm glad he did). And as I said there, one can imagine
>> several plausible reasons -- including that this war is now being promoted
>> by a President of the opposite party, which could change in a couple years.
>> If a President Palin attacks Venezuela, what would Johnson think of that?
>> Given that uncertainty, I don't think the choice is as clear as you say.
>>
>> It'll mean more if we can see that Gill is taking a position which is
>> opposed to the President of his own party. He's done that on health care,
>> as far as I can see. And Gill commented, just last night, after conferring
>> with Progressive Dems. of America, that he will now issue a position on (I
>> think) war funding, which he had not done before. I look forward to reading
>> it.