Dennis Kucinich vs Rick Santorum on Afghanistan
By Heather Saturday Nov 28, 2009 5:00pm
Dennis Kucinich takes on man-on-dog Rick Santorum on what America should be doing in Afghanistan. Par for the course Santorum has nothing but tough talk and meaningless slogans to offer. Always lots of money to drop bombs on poor people's heads, but heaven forbid don't ask anyone to pay for it by taxing the wealthy, or take care of anyone here at home instead. I think these "Christians", and I use the term loosely for Santorum, forgot about the part of the Bible that includes Christ.
QUESTION: Will the president be ready to roll out a decision in the week after Thanksgiving, or will it take longer?
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There are a series of decisions that have to be made, and the president is working through many of those decisions in order to come to what he believes is the best way forward for our national security. And I think the American people want the president to take the time to get this decision right, rather than to make a hasty decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BREAM: Next Tuesday, President Obama is set to address the nation on his proposed policy for the Afghanistan war, a proposal that may come with a $50 billion price tag. Still with us now, former senator and FOX News analyst Rick Santorum and Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich.
Congressman, I'd love to start with you. You have great concern, I understand it, about how this Afghanistan situation could possibly affect our national security.
KUCINICH: Well, it will have an effect on our national security, and I would suggest that the fight isn't in Afghanistan, it's here in our own country. We're mired deeply in debt. We'll go deeper into debt for this war. Our gross domestic product is down. Savings are down. Bankruptcies are up. Home foreclosures are up. We're doing more foreign borrowing. This war is undermining our nation, and we need to address this issue head on and ask what do we gain from this because I don't see any up side at all.
BREAM: Senator, what do we gain?
SANTORUM: Yes, this is sort of the typical argument of the left, which is we need to just withdraw from all of our engagements overseas and we need to spend an enormous amount of money on bigger government here at home, and we need to raise taxes on rich people to pay for it. I mean, that's -- that's sort of the mantra of the folks on the left, from David Obey to Dennis Kucinich.
And you know, he said this isn't the war we're supposed to fight. Iraq wasn't the war we're supposed to fight. There is no war we're supposed to fight. We're supposed to let the Chinese and the Russians and everybody else sort of run the world and we're supposed to just sort of retreat and build the ever, ever, ever-growing government here in Washington, D.C., and tax people for it.
I don't know that's the vision for America. I think we want to have an activist America to keep our country safe by being a leader in the free world, and that means to go after to the enemy who has attacked us. They were in Afghanistan. They continue to be in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. And we need to continue to go after them, keep them on the defensive, instead of giving them the opportunity to regroup and then project force back here into this country.
BREAM: But Congressman, obviously, you cited -- there is an immense price tag for continuing with this war. Some of your colleagues have mentioned a possible war tax. Are you behind that idea or against any further investment in Afghanistan whatsoever?
KUCINICH: I'm against any further taxes to pay for this war. But I think it has to be pointed out this isn't a left-right issue. I mean, here's the Cato Institute, hardly a left-wing organization, wrote a piece called "Escaping the Graveyard of Empires." And they have a plan -- and I've met with them -- that gets us out of Afghanistan with advisers and a new approach to intelligence and also a new drug policy.
This isn't a left-right issue, and trying to make it that is just the old, stale argument. Our country is on the line here. We've got the middle class getting destroyed. And the bureaucracy we're building up isn't a government generically, it's the Defense Department. And we can't keep paying for these wars. We're going to break the bank here. And it's already being broken. Then we subsidize it.
Look, forget the left-right. That's not what it's about. It's about whether we're right to stay there and whether we're going to leave our troops there and whether we're going to be one of those empires that finds a graveyard in Afghanistan. Let's start thinking about things here at home. That's what I'm concerned about.
BREAM: So Congressman, is it your opinion that we should not follow or the president shouldn't follow the requests of the military leaders there on the ground? Do you think it's time to just completely cut and run?
KUCINICH: Well, here we go again, "cut and run." You know, that's what they were saying about Iraq, when you still haven't found the weapons of mass destruction. We've got to get out of Afghanistan before we destroy our capacity to take care of things here at home.
I mean, what are they thinking about in the White House? You know, they promised a new direction and that direction isn't deeper into Afghanistan with perhaps 35,000 new troops that's going to cost $35 billion more a year. Where are we going to find that money? Who's going to finance this? You're going to tell the taxpayers we're going to borrow more money from China so we can fight a war in Afghanistan? Come on!
BREAM: Well, Senator, the congressman says we can't we afford to stay. Can we afford to leave?
SANTORUM: Well, let me just say the congressmen can afford close to a trillion-stimulus package, about a trillion dollars in health care, another trillion dollars in cap-and-trade. So he can afford all those things at home, but when it comes to protecting the United States of America, somehow or another, we can't find, you know, a couple hundred billion dollars.
And by the way, if you look at defense spending over the course of the last 50 years, about 60 percent of the America's budget, 60 percent of our budget in 1960, JFK's last budget, was defense spending. It's now about 12 percent. So don't tell the American public that somehow or another the defense is soaking up all this money, that this war is putting us into the deficit. That's just simply not true.
KUCINICH: Really?
SANTORUM: Entitlements, the things that Dennis Kucinich and the left have supported and have grown in this country to exorbitant cost is what put -- is putting us in debt, and they want to give us more entitlements, which will put us even deeper in debt.
BREAM: All right, Congressman, let me...
KUCINICH: Well, Dana Rohrabacher...
BREAM: ... give you a chance to respond.
KUCINICH: ... is hardly -- Dana Rohrabacher is hardly a flaming liberal, and he gave a brilliant speech against staying in Afghanistan, as did Jim Duncan, a Republican. You know, again, to try to make this left- right is to lock us into old thinking that keeps us in wars that we shouldn't have fought in the first place, that undermines our national security, that makes it less likely that we'll be able to have our economy rebound. I mean, this is something...
SANTORUM: Are you suggesting...
KUCINICH: ... we should be thinking...
SANTORUM: ... we shouldn't have fought the war in Afghanistan?
(CROSSTALK)
KUCINICH: ... taking care of things here at home. I'm saying that we should have left there after we routed the al Qaeda and their training camps, which I voted for, by the way. And I voted against that environmental legislation you just cited. And I voted against the bail- outs for Wall Street. Don't do a liberal-and-conservative thing here, Rick. You're way off base.
Are we right to stay in Afghanistan? What benefits do we get? And are the American people going to be able to pay the price not only in taxes but pay the price in the blood of our soldiers? I mean, this is something -- we've got to have a real debate on this...
BREAM: Not to mention...
KUCINICH: ... not the phony left-right stuff that means nothing.
BREAM: All right, gentlemen...
KUCINICH: It means zero.
BREAM: ... we got to wrap it up there. I thank you both very much for a spirited debate and giving us your time on this holiday weekend. We wish you and your families the best.
SANTORUM: Thank you, Shannon.
BREAM: Senator Santorum, Congressman Kucinich, thank you very much.
KUCINICH: Thank you.
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Still trying to bait the more simple minded folks with hate.
Hate for his fellow Americans. nice. real patriotic of you rick.
Rick Santorum may be against gay marriage and homosexual behavior but he just got reamed in the butt by Kuchinich in that video. Love the smug look on his face towards the end. Must have creamed in his pants or something.
"Santorum" will always mean something entirely different...
Ya like - ...they sent him to the Santorium for observation...
..and he never came out...
Which one of these is Ram and which one is the Ayatollah?
....gotta love that no matter how smug that s.o.b. looks pretending to know something Kucinich doesn't just to give the impression he won the debate even though he got schooled, he knows deep down that to a large segment of the population he'll be known as the guy that a frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex is named after.
Why does the media continue to trot out this LOSER? At least Pennsylvania voters finally smartened up, voted him out and elected a Democratic senator.
Will Connecticut voters do the same and vote Liebermann out when his term is up?
Notice how Santorum tried guilt-by-association, villianizing liberalism, Democrats and Kucinich while failing to address the Afghanistan argument on it's own merits. No weighing in on al Qaeda, the Taliban or Pakistan? Or a cost/benefit analysis of the last 8 years?
Kucinich brought out the research - credible bipartisan sources that argue the Afghanistan issue on it's merits. This was ignored in partisan smears perfected by the former Senator whose past hoaxes included a desperate and immediately debunked claim WMD were found in Iraq as his 2006 election polling numbers sharply declined.
Most of concern was Santorum's claim that defense spending is now 12% of our overall budget. This is more specious than usual - we know Republicans always mischaracterize past defense spending not yet paid for as "debt obligation" and therefore "non-military" expenditures in current budgets, but that has usually brought this faked figure down to 20% or so.
yep. Santorum is a snake, right out of those books he
readssays he reads in church.A Grand Puba Republisnake, horrifying everyone in the slimy Republisnake-Pit that is furnished every day by today's standing MSM.
Or 58 %?
Colored Chart
Proposed Discretionary Budget, FY2009
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/node/6916
And for 2010 is even Higher (One more war to pay for)
I knew he was a god-damned liar when he said defense spending was only 12%.
Rick sited defense spending as a portion of GDP, which is lunacy. He is right that currently the defense spending is 12%, 12.2% to be exact, of current GDP. Where he is wrong is that it was 60% of GDP during JFK's term. The military budget in 1963 was 44% of the overall budget. He pulled 60% out of thin air. Obama is proposing that 58% of the budget goes to the military. This is hardly liberal spending.
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-rela...
The current GDP of the USA is $14.2 Trillion and the 2010 budget is $3.6 Trillion (proposed). He also sited that JFK spent 60% of GDP on defense. If that were true today, then defense spending would be $8.52 Trillion, which is 2.37 times greater than the current budget proposal. And let us not forget that Pres Bush did not include the wars in his budgets, they were funded through appropriations. Pres Bush added $1 Trillion to the budget, not including the funding of the wars, to his budgets over his 8 years, which is a 33% increase in the budget. His administration was not liberal leaning.
What Rick was missing is why this is important to the US. Republicans love the military, but hate spending money on citizens of the US.
I forgot to mention that the budget of 1963 was $92.5 Billion and GDP was $602.5 Billion.
GDP is no budget, you don't have it in your wallet:
From Wikipedia:
"The gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) is a basic measure of a country's overall economic performance. It is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year. It is often positively correlated with the standard of living,"
GDP is not spendable cash so you can't say it is part of any Dudget.
My point is that from 2001 The TAX payers (Cash) Money have gone higher and Higher to "NATIONAL DEFENSE" UP to 58% IN 2009
From around 100 Billions in 2000 to 680 Billions in 2010.
The WAR on TERROR (wich it is HOAX)is sucking our TAX Dollars and it's root (9-11) is questionable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkYlbpS-vVI
Using this argument, one could point out, that in '63 the Kennedy administration was deeply involved in the embryonic stages of our Viet Nam disaster. A large part of that 44% of Kenneddy's budget would indeed go to escalation and funding to a government of our choosing. Sound familiar?
And now would probably be a good time for Kucinich to point out, that bringing Viet Nam into an argument about troop increases to Afganistan probably won't help his case.
And to think, this guy probably won debates when he ran for the Senate in Pa.
And so are a few folks here, actually. You can talk about military spending relative to GDP, but then the numbers get real muddy because GDP changes over time, the tax base fluctuates, and it's easy to overlook military-related discretionary spending (a famous dodge used by Bush-Cheney and co). Also, Repubs like Santorum can also do a little statistical sleight-of-hand by adding in state expenditures on entitlement programs, which is not exactly the "ever-growing gov't here in Washington DC," now is it?
For clarity, one only need look at where our money (earned or borrowed) is going relative to total US federal spending. Forget the GDP comparison--it's nonsense; Would you talk about your household budget as a percentage of what you think you'll earn this year, even though you buy most of your sh*t with credit cards?
Take a look at the chart about midway down the page here. Yes, it's Wikipedia, but the data are from the CBO. Defense spending is 21% of total federal spending. Now, ADD the proportion of discretionary spending that also goes to the military (that's 58% or the 17% total pie, or roughly 10%), and you get about 31% of our spending. That doesn't include some veterans benefits and other related costs, so this is actually a conservative estimate (not to be confused with 'made-up' estimate).
So what proportion of our federal budget goes to the military? Easily 31%. That's less than what we spend on Medicaid/Medicare and Social Security combined (44%), but it's a HUGE part of our budget. Close to 4 times what China spends on its military, although they have been ramping up in recent years, thanks to cowboy diplomacy and Wal-Mart shoppers.
So Rick is full of F*in' sh*t, bro.
Dennis p0wned santorum
santorum is such a blatant douchebag
Other than man on dog sex (which is his chosen area of expertise) why exactly are they trotting out Santorum to discuss anything. Oh yeah it's Fox. Nevermind.
He's on the A list for the stupidest Republican award. This award is reserved for only the most unscrupulous members of the Republican tribal system.
The most unscrupulous are selected as natural leaders and they sink through the ranks to the bottom of the dung Heep where they emerge as the ranking Republican leadership.
I haven't seen Santorum trotted out anywhere for a while. I figured he was off fucking the dog. ...hyuck hyuck hyuck
stopping at the kennel on the way home?
Santorum is just a straw bag of straw men.
He offered nothing to that conversation - check for yourself...
i know it will be painful to watch but everyone needs to know how to recognize republiScum arguments for what they are, irrelevant to the discussion - pure flack!
To all concerned Republicans are just in the way!
Rick Santorum another hawk that did not serve in the military but is happy to put our young men and women on the line.
The thing about FoxNoise is anyone can go on there and spew any nonsense made up crap and you are not challenged.
–cough– Any conservative. Any blithering idiot. Any malevolent fecalite (petrified turd) who wants Young Americans to die horribly so He can turn his 1 Billion into 5 billion.
to see Rick Santorum shillin' fer' Obama...
...not surprised but...it's sort of "surreal"?
I mean... (I know Arlen Specter is (now a democrat) but this is "twilight zone" shit!!!
what's even more surreal is that our 'liberal' president is such a crony of the military-industrial complex that his policies are defended by an idiot right-wing zealot like santorum.
What is happening to us?
We elected a guy who is on the same page as one of the most nutty and brainless Republicans around.
When will "liberals" come out of their stupor?
Probably when it's too late.
We'll have street demonstrations, people will be herded like cattle by the police, some will be jailed, some will have their heads broken.
Obama will wave the flag and play the victim.
My head is spinning........we've got:
1. obstructionist Republicans who are doing everything they can to undermine heath-care reform, mainly because we 'can't afford it'
2. Tea baggers who are up in arms about spending and bailouts. We're gonna' bankrupt the country!
3. we have Democrats who want to pull troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan mainly because it's not accomplishing anything, and the COST is too high........we simply can't afford it, and we have enough problems at home.
4. we now have Republicans saying they we need to escalate the war in Afghanistan AT ANY COST because we gotta' defeat 'em over there so they don't come over here?
5. and now an ex-Republican senator is quoted as saying '...but when it comes to protecting the United States of America, somehow or another, we can't find, you know, a couple hundred billion dollars.'?
In summary, things are bad at home. Deficits, unemployment, shitty health-care, etc. But Republicans say we can't afford to have the government assist in jump starting our economy or reforming our health-care system. Democrats say we can save billions by pulling back in Afghanistan; billions that we sorely need at home. Republicans say we can spend trillions of dollars at home (which they will fight with their last breath), but we can't spare a few hundred billion to play war and drop bombs on innocent people?
Clear as mud, eh?
Conservatives love sticky Rick. Probably more than Huckabee and Palin. He's been more vocal in past three months which tells you one thing. He plans on a presidential run. Out of all them, Palin, Huckabee, and Romney, he scares me the most. Pennsylvania is a huge prize when it comes to electoral votes and the morons in PA (I'm from PA) will vote for him just because he's from PA. PA is always close but usually votes left when it comes to presidential elections but Santorum could change that. This is someone we need to worry about. We should be scared. 23 electoral votes is huge and could change everything. Fight this bigot and don't take him lightly.
If Santorum decides to run, I wonder how Pennsylvanians will react to his taking his stillborn baby home to introduce to his kids and for him and his wife to sleep with? I hate that they lost their baby, but the voters need to know who they're voting for.
Seriously. Why is Santorum speaking? Maybe all members of Congress should have to serve 8 years in the Army or Marines to be eligible to run for office.
...enlist his girls...(since he didn't serve either)
Bush and Cheney send their girls. Let's be fair about it. Bush served in name only, spent most of his time campaigning for his pops.
Kinda low, Milquetoast.
Santorum is a crafty Republica-Myth-Maker, but he can't even fool most of the people some of the time at this point. He's out of stupid ideas, finally.
It looks like Santorum is now officially null and void. Hey Rick, you know what they say about the people you meet on the way up don't ya? If you don't you're about to find out.
With a silent "P"...
Dennis is really, really, really smart and Santorum is really, really, really stupid.
and unfortunately, Obama is on the same page as the really, really, really stupid one.
.
The cost of Iraq and Afghanistan is totaling ONE TRILLION dollars spent!
... Dennis should have asked Santorum what America has to show for THIS Trillion already being spent through the last 9 years. At least with Universal Health Care the job is about saving peoples lives in that same amount of time and not about stirring the pot of death through wars.
And leave it to a Pravda-Babe to pose the question of ending our occupation with the all too familiar 'Bumper-Sticker' catch phrase of "cut-N-run", NO? However, far leave it be for anyone (ahem, Dennis - this.means.you.) to postulate that there might be "alternative" methods for containing al-CIA-duh.
.
Activist Nation? WTF is that? And I can't believe that stupid bitch Bream dusted off the "cut and run" bullshit phrase. And of course they want to send the despised middle class and poor to fight their criminal profit wars.
And Santorum, the next time you decide to fight someone with a brain as big as Kucinich's, come prepared with an adult diaper...at the end of the debate you looked like you had shat on yourself.
These people are fucking dangerous.
So should the Afghani civilians spend a night sleeping with their dead babies' remains before burying them?
...of that "man on dog" santorum, or whatever the f*ck his name is.
What a dunce. And "cut and run" doesn't resonate with the public any longer, you blond bimbo.
Representative Kucinich is right...as usual. WHAT THE F*CK are we going to get out of staying in this hell hole? What?...a hundred taliban dragging our country into the sewer.
Nice job, OBL. It worked. You brilliant plan of attacking us on 9/11 turned us into babbling idiots who are willing to throw this country into the toilet to flex our muscle in the mirror.
Nation of morons. I really, honestly believe THEY won. They got what they wanted. We have a country divided, a nation under siege from within...and we are bankrupting our future with this f*cked up nightmare.
And the repukes will blame it all on bailing out the auto industry and health care. Nation of F*CKING MORONS!!
Word.
well said Hulk...you've taken it to the 'true bottom line'.
Certainly can't allow the Chinese and the Russians to out kill us. After all, we Americans are the best at anything, right? Devout cowards getting erections at the thought of young Americans(and non-white people) dying worldwide so that they can expand their coffers.
Classic ugly, violent American.
As a Pennsylvanian, I can attest to the disgust that those of us who voted to get rid of ol' man-on-dog felt with him in the Senate (and not even living in PA). I just don't think he understands why he's no longer living on the public dole. So here he is now, just another discredited Repukelican chickenhawk spouting off on the only channel that would consider putting out his mealy mouthed crap.
but the taxpayers of PA paid for the homeschooling of his kids while they were living in their very PERMANENT home in suburban Virginia. He gamed the system, and PA is so much better without his pious, pompous duff.
A FOX news broadcast gave Kucinich the last word. Progress!
I noticed that too. Even Kucinich seemed surprised.
That Rick Santorum's new look makes him look "Oh, so serious."
Changing his looks doesn't change his stance on homosexuality, abortion, or the need to go to war at the drop of a hat.
a dope in glasses, yet a dope nonetheless.
Well listening to Ricky is very confusing as he doesnt make sense.
Here is Rick Santorum, regurgitating Republican talking points and Kucinich expressing progressive values and making sense..
Guess which of these two is in sync with the actions of the brilliant Mr. Obama?
The stomach turns.
This Idiot who backed the worst Supreme Court appointed president, that FAILED to Capture bin Laden.
This from a Clown that backed the pulling our Troops from Afghanistan for the War for for OIL in Iraq.
Does this MORON Santorum have a grasp on reality.
Typical Right Wing Fear and Hate Mongering BS. Does the right have anything to contribute besides BullSH*T.
Let's go to more war. No new taxes. That's great for our economy. Let's move the unemployee to defense industry jobs. Let's produce tanks, jet fighters, hummers, etc etc
I bet the Republicans are happy with kind of talk,
in Cuba, will they try to kill him like they did with Kennedy?
correction
www.talk2action.org/story/2009/11/25/153354/21
Here is the 'new" Christianity and they HOPE we bomb the hell out of everything!
They are not interested in being Christians, they are interested in world domination and Sister Sarah is their prime focus.
Worse then bin laden, worse then the Taliban
In my mind all I can see is him humping some chihuahua in his bedroom. He picked a chihuahua because any of the other breeds would be to big for him.
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness that is killing America!
Santorum and Obama.
God help us.
At least the President weighed every circumstance before making his decision(BTW, a choice I disagree with). Assholes like Man on Dog cavalierly throw the lives of young Americans around and away for profit and to satisfy their creepy and unjust American exceptionalism.
You're an idiot.
Go Dennis! Unfortunately, the financial interests of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex far outweigh the interests of ordinary Americans.
I just love the way they call Rick the Dick "Senator" even
though he lost his seat in 2006.
Vote for RAPTURE: Palin / Santorum 2012
That was a Little Ricky takedown.
Uber chickenhawk
Kucinich was brilliant here! I just love it when the Dems/Progressives/Liberals can express a full thought and get it across strongly-without being interrupted, as Dennis did here.
He is a strong speaker, and gets the points across well. Santorum looked like a fool. I don't think so Youtube teabagger asshole will be posting this on his channel claiming that "Santorum Destroys Kucinich" any time soon!
Thanks-I have been refusing to watch Fox News at all lately so seeing this is like a breath of fresh air!
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