Congressional Republicans: Support the Troops and the Insurgents?

Somebody's going to have to explain the politics of this to me. I can't make any sense of it at all.

It's no surprise that Republicans (and Democrats, for that matter) support the troops, and this week in Congress they made a big show of it. Both Houses voted against a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq in what was an apparent attempt to position Dems who want a responsible alternative to the failed status quo as "soft on terror" and "against the troops." Even a few Republicans saw through it (actually, I suspect they all saw through it, but a few would admit it on the record). Congressman Ron Paul, who represents the suburbs of Houston, Texas, said that the resolution was set up to "to trick as many people as possible into supporting the president's policy." No real surprises so far.

But this started getting weird when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki suggested a possible amnesty for some of the insurgents. He's got his own domestic politics to worry about, and he's concerned with gaining support for his unity government, so this doesn't really come as much of a surprise, either. Although he wasn't interested in offering amnesty to anyone who had attacked other Iraqis, it wouldn't be as much of a problem including those who targeted Americans. You'd think that most Americans would be up in arms over such an idea, but that brings us to the part I don't get. Both Atrios and AMERICAblog have a selection of quotes from Republican senators in support of the idea. Lamar Alexander points out that Nelson Mandela won a Nobel Peace Prize for "just for this sort of gesture." Mitch McConnell suggests that the Senate pass a resolution "commending the Iraqi government for the position that they’ve taken today with regard to this discussion of Amnesty." Ted Stevens reminds us that Confederate soldiers who shot at Union troops were given amnesty. Saxby Chambliss thinks it's OK to forgive insurgents who attacked out troops if they claim to be on our side now. And John Cornyn suggests, "It makes no sense for the United States Senate to shake its finger at the new government of Iraq and to criticize them." No, why would we want to do that?

Just to make sure that I've got all the pieces right, let me sum up. The Republicans vote to support the Prez's strategy of "stay the course" and to keep U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely. Several of these same Republicans then claim to see no problem in releasing Iraqi insurgents who've attacked U.S. troops in the past. How are they effectively doing anything other than putting American soldiers in place to continue to serve as targets for insurgent attacks in the future? Maybe it's just me.

Well, me and AJ in AMERICAblog:

How do we reconcile releasing people who have killed U.S. forces in the past with arresting and detaining those who do it in the future? "Sorry, Joe Insurgent, but you missed amnesty by a day. If you had only blown up that tank yesterday you could go free, but instead it's off to Abu Ghraib."

. . .
Under some circumstances amnesty is understandable, even beneficial. Most notably in a cease-fire agreement. But you can't have a government that both asks America to keep our troops there AND tells its people that it's okay to kill our troops. How is it possible that there are Republicans who don't understand that?

And how is it that the rest of us aren't completely up in arms against them?