hawks

With all the chest thumping over "runaway spending" and the growing deficit, you would think the party that claims to be the fiscal hawks would look at cutting spending in all areas of the budget. Well that's not the case. It turns out the Republicans want to add an additional $17 billion to the defense budget over what President Obama had requested.

But that isn't even that troubling. What really gets me is this:

Legislative language withholds three-quarters of the funds until the Defense and State Department come up with a report to Congress on how the money is being used and what metrics are being used to measure progress by Pakistan in rooting out terrorist and Taliban elements inside its borders.

The requested report would include a discussion of “United States strategic objectives in Pakistan” and a “listing of the terrorist or extremist organizations in Pakistan opposing United States goals in the region and against which the United States encourages Pakistan to take action.”

The administration would be asked to spell out “the gaps in capabilities of Pakistani security units that hampers the ability of the Government of Pakistan to take action against the organizations” and what standards will be used to measure progress by the Pakistan in “combating the organizations listed in clause.”

Does this sound familiar? Well it should. Democrats used to try this same thing when Bush was President. They wanted the details of what the plan was and where the money was going in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Once President Obama announced a timeline to start drawing down troops in Afghanistan we knew that the right would start attacking it. Right on cue we have John McCain telling Good Morning America that the timeline will “embolden” the enemy:

"I trust his [McChrystal's] judgment enormously but I also understand that both our enemies and our friends will hear the message that we are going to be leaving at a certain date. That was unnecessary," McCain said. "I'm confident we can succeed but when you tell your enemies there's a date and you're going to start leaving, it emboldens your enemies and dispirits your friends."

We have heard this same argument time and time again when it comes to trying to end a war. John McCain would rather see us stay in Afghanistan for the next 100 years than try to come home. It’s funny how these so called fiscal-hawks never have any problem throwing away billions upon billions of tax dollars in the name of  war.

It’s also really interesting the way McCain is trying to dance around supporting General McChrystal. Whenever the left criticized one of our commanders, people like McCain would come out swinging. McChrystal has very publically supported President Obama’s plan, so why can’t McCain? Is John McCain trying to undermine the leadership of the military now? It sure sounds that way. We even have General Petraeus saying that this timeline is very ‘realistic’: