It’s amazing that Rep. Mike Coffman’s call for the redeployment of troops in Iraq hasn’t made news beyond this lowly blog, especially when you consider what’s at stake, here at home.

The annual cost to deploy troops in Iraq is roughly $1 million per troop, according to former White House Budget Director Peter Orszag. (That’s beyond the incalculable human cost.)

Using this as a baseline, and assuming Coffman would deploy between 5,000 and 50,000 troops, we’re talking about spending between $5 billion and $50 billion per year on Iraq.

That’s a lot of money, if you compare it to other expenditures of the federal government. For example, the low end of Coffman’s range, $5 billion per year, is more than double what America currently spends on housing for military veterans.

For the amount spent if America kept 5,000 troops in Iraq for three years, the U.S. could more than double the EPA budget. The amount spent in one and a half years would be equal to what we spend on the National Science Foundation.

•  EPA budget is $13 billion,
• National Science Foundation $7 billion,
• NASA $17 billion,
• Humanitarian foreign aid $22 billion,
• Higher education $12 billion,
• Veterans’ housing $2 billion;
• Veterans’ hospital and medical care, $51 billion;
• Veterans education, training and rehabilitation $10 billion

SOURCE: FY 2012 figures, Budget of the United States, Historical Tables, 4.1 and 3.2.

We don’t know the precise number of troops Coffman would deploy in Iraq, but during a recent interview, Coffman said that if the Obama Administration hadn’t rushed troops out of Iraq, then Iraq would have agreed to the Status of Forces Agreement, which initially envisioned a residual force of 10,000 troops, a figure that was later reduced to 5,000.

Coffman said he “certainly” favors deploying “advisory” troops, if invited, so that the U.S. would have “some influence” in Iraq.

Reporters don’t always offer differing views in trivial news stories about a speech or a minor partisan event. It’s nice, but you don’t expect it, like you would in more significant stories.

Such was the case in yesterday’s one-sided Denver Post article about a speech by Republican operatives saying the next two elections will be good for Republicans like them. A surprising claim coming from Republican operatives, but not surprising in a story headlined, “Republican analysts optimistic about future of party.”

Nancy Dwight, former executive director of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, was quoted thusly:

“There has been a maturation in the Republican party since 2012, that we need to win,” Dwight argued, but said to win races going forward the party needed “to represent the 50 plus percent of the country who are concerned about growth in the private sector and agree that there should be limited centralized government.”

I read this, and I thought about an interview I’d just heard on KNUS radio with Dudley Brown, Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. He might not be the most powerful Republican in Colorado, but he’s probably up there. I offer this quote to you for perspective on the news of GOP maturity alleged in The Post piece:

“The Republican Party itself has largely been castrated,” Brown told Peter Boyles, echoing cruder GOP castration comments made by rocker Ted Nugent recently on Boyles’ show.

“And they really can’t do much in the line of elections or politics anymore. And they generally don’t help anytime there’s a conservative involved either… Peter, I’ve never been surprised by the lack of principles from the Republican Party or the leadership of the Republican Party… Whenever they stick the mic in the face of a Republican official, it’s always Ryan Call and some of his predecessors, Dick Wadhams, and none of those people have been conservative allies.  I’ve been doing battle with them ever since I’ve been involved in politics and see no reason that’s ever going to change.”

Listen to Dudley Brown on KNUS Boyles 2-7-14

Despite this, Brown told Boyles he’s ready to fight Democrats during the upcoming election.

“I guess you could say it’s hunting season,” Brown said on air, getting high marks for maturity from Boyles, who said earlier, “in my world” Dudley Brown is a “winner” and “one of our favorites.”

To my way of thinking, Rep. Mike Coffman dropped a bombshell on KNUS’ Dan Caplis show last month, when he said he “certainly” supports re-deployment of advisory troops in Iraq, if invited.

Caplis listened as Coffman said America is “suffering the consequences” of not having troops in Iraq today. This would have given the U.S. “some influence there” to help keep the country from falling apart.

The counter view, omitted on KNUS, was articulated this week on the Huffington Post by Jon Soltz, co-founder of VoteVets.org.

First, there is no such thing as “advisory, or “non-regular troops,” when it comes to Iraq. As soon as an American service member enters Iraq, they are a target. If attacked, they will respond, and thus are combat troops. In a 360-degree battlefield, where any innocent looking person may actually be an insurgent, those troops must always keep a combat posture, for their own defense…

Second, Iraq is in the midst of a civil war and always has been. Interestingly, it’s the same civil war that Syria is now seeing — namely, Sunni versus Shia, fought between proxies, including Iran. That was true when we were there, and is now that we’ve left. That was always going to be the case. What is also true is that this civil war would never end until Iraqis fought it out amongst themselves, either in a political settlement, or in battle. Our troop presence actually delayed that, and kept the cork on the bottle. But now, it is fully raging, as the radical Sunni group, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), has taken Fallujah, and Iraq’s government is poised to take the city back. To put American troops back in at this juncture, on the side of the government, makes them instant participants in Iraq’s and Syria’s Civil War, no matter how “advisory” we want to say they are.

Third, as with the last Iraq war, Congressman Coffman offers up no end-state, and no exit strategy. Just toss troops back in there, and see how it goes. We’ve been there and done that, and I think we all know how it goes. If things go badly, the answer from the right is “more troops.” Ten thousand troops becomes 20,000, and 30,000. And next thing you know, we’re back in conventional war, complete with the “regular troops,” that Coffman says he wouldn’t send.

Soltz calls Coffman’s proposal a “path to a third Iraq War,” and I’m sure a lot of Caplis’ conservative listeners would agree with him–and Caplis should let them hear form Soltz directly. This  issue doesn’t divide along progressive-conservative lines. That’s for sure.

If you’ve been following Tom Tancredo from microphone to microphone over the years, like I have, you know he doesn’t think his position on immigration is a liability for him in getting elected governor of Colorado. He thinks he can win in spite of it.

So it was no surprise to hear Tancredo tell KNUS talk-show host Jimmy Sengenberger Sat. that he doesn’t care if the Democrats hit him on immigration, if he’s running against John Hickenlooper.

Tancredo: Does anyone think I won’t be hit on immigration? I intend to be very, very aggressive about that particular issue.

Sengenberger: Do you want them to bring it to you?

Tancredo: Absolutely.

Tom Tancredo on KNUS says, bring on immigration debate 2-1-2014

Tancredo doesn’t believe most Hispanics care about his extreme positions on immigration, which, presumably, would include his view that immigration reform is “impossible” to achieve in Washington. (His solution is to require businesses to use e-verify to make it impossible to hire undocumented immigrants.)

Instead, the GOP gubernatorial front-runner argued in Saturday’s radio interview that he’ll try to reach Hispanics by talking about the importance of legal immigration as well as fiscal conservatism and such. For details, Tancredo directed listeners to VivaTancredo.com.

But left out during his radio appearance was Tancredo’s core belief about Hispanic voters: Republicans shouldn’t toss their principles out the window in an effort to win them over. It’s a waste of time.

As he said last year, “We’ve seen that trying to woo the Latino is a losing proposition. Latinos vote for Democrats because they want big government. It has nothing to do with immigration.”

On his radio show Saturday morning, Jeff Crank told listeners that when conservatives have an “effort so pure and so true, there always seems to be someone who comes along and tries to steal it for their own personal ambition.”

Who are the ambitious political thieves today?

State Sen. Owen Hill and former Congressman Tom Tancredo, according to Crank.

Crank said those Republican candidates, for governor and U.S. Senator respectively, are using the pure-and-true recall activists to collect signatures to put Tancredo’s and Hill’s names on the primary election ballot.

And then Hill and Tancredo are pointing (through news releases) to their work with the recall organizers to show that they’re running “grassroots” campaigns.

Crank: “Both Tom Tancredo and Owen Hill should be embarrassed that they have… given the impression that the organizers of this patriotic, pure movement to recall Colorado State Senators who voted for gun control, that somehow that movement is now behind their candidacies. It’s frustrating when you see politicians do this, and I just vow that I’m going to call people out when they do this kind of nonsense.”

“The most grassroots way to get on the ballot is to go through the assembly, not to petition onto the ballot,” Crank continued on air. “You petition onto the ballot when you can’t get through the grassroots process in Colorado. That’s the reality of it. When you don’t feel you can go through a caucus or the assembly process in Colorado, and you can’t get 30 percent to get on the ballot, then you go petition. But don’t say it’s grassroots.”

Crank insisted on air that he’s not attacking Tancredo or Hill.

“They are the ones going out and saying that this recall effort is somehow behind their campaign,” Crank told listeners. “It’s not.”

Some recall organizers “may support Owen Hill and Tom Tancredo” but others do not, said Crank, who ran for Congress in 2008 and whose real job is running Aegis Strategic, GOP a consulting firm, linked to the Koch bothers and recently spotlighted in Politico.

Listen to KVOR’s Crank say recall activists co-opted by Tancredo & Hill 2.1.14

Partial Transcript of Comments by KVOR’s Jeff Crank on KVOR Feb. 1, 2014

Crank: “Two politicians trying to use the good work of the recall organizers, some of which may support Owen Hill and Tom Tancredo, and by the way, I’ve always liked Tom Tancredo. Tom supported me when I ran for Congress. I think the world of Tom Tancredo. But he’s being manipulated here. These guys should be embarrassed. Both Tom Tancredo and Owen Hill should be embarrassed that that their campaigns, and by the way they both have the same person behind their campaign who’s organizing these efforts, they should be embarrassed that they have put this issue out there, that somehow that they have given the impression that the organizers of this patriotic, pure movement to recall Colorado State Senators who voted for gun control, that somehow that movement is now behind their candidacies. It’s frustrating when you see politicians do this, and I just vow that I’m going to call people out when they do this kind of nonsense.”

From the moment after KNUS Peter Boyles’ introduced him, rocker Ted Nugent delivered a bizarre series of insults and slurs on Denver radio this morning, saying the “media in this country is basically Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda ministry” and singing his “New American National Anthem,” which consisted only of the cry of a sheep:  “baa-aa—aa—aa, baa-aa-aa.”

“It breaks my heart to have to say these things,” Nugent said. “But we have to say these things. Because if you don’t get rid of the bad and the ugly, the good will continue to be strangled.”

“Ted, what has happened to the Republican Party?” asked Boyles.

“Someone extracted their scrotum with a rusty shiv,” Nugent said. “They have no balls.  I don’t know where this ‘Let’s be Mr. Rogers with a Lawrence Welk soundtrack tie adjusting’ mantra came from, but my god! If there’s a life-support system attached to the GOP, it’s flat-lining.”

Nugent, who’s a leading opponent of gun-safety laws, like those passed in Colorado, said he’s spoiled because he lives in Texas, which, he said, should “not be confused with Colorado, [which is] the suburb of San Francisco.”

“It’s true!” replied Boyles.

“If ever there was a poster child for apathy, disconnect, laziness, and abandonment of We the people, and moral dereliction, it is Colorado,” Nugent said, praising recall activists for sending the state in a better direction.

Here’s a suggestion for Boyles, who has Tancredo on his show all the time: How about playing Nugent’s interview for Tanc, and discussing it line-by-line. And then, at the end, finding out if Tancredo is proud to be endorsed by Nugent.

You knew Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s famous Oops Moment would hurt Perry himself, because it made him look so stupid, but I really thought the substance of Perry’s incomplete thought–that is, which federal departments should be shut down–would become more of a recurrent theme in conservative GOP primary circles.

I mean, it separates you from the crowd: Shut down the Commerce Department! The Education Department!

This comes up, just not so often.

For example, last week on KLZ 560-AM’s new “Wake Up” show with Randy Corporon, Rep. Tom Tancredo, who’s running for governor, boasted about his efforts, when he was a regional director of the U.S. Department of Education, to shut down the Department of Education:

TANCREDO: I was elected to the State Legislature in 1976, re-elected two more times.  I was appointed by Ronald Reagan to run the U.S. Department of Education’s regional office here, in Colorado – six state region.  I did that for him and Bush I [one].  Our purpose was to try and implode the whole thing, because we wanted to get the federal government out of education, as much as possible.  We couldn’t even get a Congressman to introduce the bill to abolish it, so we tried to do it administratively, and, um–.

HOST RANDY CORPORON:   Starve the beast.

TANCREDO:  Starve the beast.

CORPORON:   Cut back the budget.

TANCREDO:  Exactly.  So, I found out that that’s what you had to do.  That’s the only way you could actually get rid of people that were extraneous – let’s put it that way.  [chuckles]  I had 22o people employed at the U.S. Department of Education, in the regional office.  Two hundred and twenty-two.  Now, I emphasize the word ‘employed’.  Some of those people were working there, [but] not many.  And, um, it took me four years – and as I say, I had to go back to Washington every year and ask for a budget cut in order to actually work through the process of reducing the staff.  And I — and there were other reasons why we ended up moving downward, but we got to the point that we had sixty people left, when I left, out of 222.

Left hanging here is, what departments would Tanc cut, wholesale, from state government? That would’ve been a more relevant direction for Corporon to steer the conversation, given that Tancredo is running for governor.

Perry, you recall, had three federal departments he’d shut down. You get the feeling, when it comes to state government, a guy like Tancredo can top that. Maybe we’ll hear about it next time he’s on KLZ.

In an article yesterday, The Denver Post’sKurtis Lee reports Rep. Amy Stephens’ response to Ken Buck’s comment Monday comparing pregnancy with cancer:

“It’s Ken again being Ken,” Stephens, who is among several Republicans vying to unseat U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, insisted Thursday. “Just like in 2010, we have high-heels comments, we have alcoholism and homosexuality, now we’ve got cancer and pregnancy.” Buck in 2010 was the nominee for U.S. Senate against Democrat Michael Bennet. His statement on “Meet the Press” comparing homosexuality to alcoholism was considered the turning point in a campaign he had been expected to win.

Before telling Lee about “Ken again being Ken,” Stephens was on KNUS’ Dan Caplis Show Wed., where she made her opinion of Buck’s candidacy even more clear, saying she does not believe Colorado Republicans will unify around Buck if he wins the nomination, and saying, based on what Buck’s offered so far, it would be the “definition of insanity” to run Buck again.

Stephens @10 min: I am not convinced Ken has given us an argument as to why we should go down this path again. And I call the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over with the same results. …

I also believe nationally, and I have heard this in my travels, that there is not going to be — You know, when somebody wins a primary, people rally, come around. The party goes, whatever. I do not believe that’s going to happen should Ken be the nominee. I do believe this would happen should I become the nominee, because I think  there will be a lot more interest in this race and a lot more support. [BigMedia emphasis]

Listen to Rep. Amy Stephens tout herself as a woman and slam Buck on KNUS 1-15-14

On the radio, Stephens went on to say that she’d be better able to “take on Sen. Udall on issues that they normally love to hit our men with, and I think as a woman, I have a very strong voice to speak about.”

But as Caplis should have pointed out, Stephens’ anti-abortion record, including ten years on the staff of Focus on the Family, sets herself up for  the same criticism Buck has faced.

Stephens voted in favor of last year’s version of an anti-abortion bill that’s under consideration again this year in the Legislature. (This year’s bill has the exact same summary as last year’s.)

In his article about Buck’s pregnancy-cancer comment, The Denver Post’s Lee pointed out that Buck and Stephens both “oppose abortion.” He also reported that Buck’s wife, Perry Buck, is a co-sponsor of this year’s abortion-ban bill, sponsored once again by Rep. Stephen Humphrey, but Lee did not include the fact that that Stephens voted for it last year. In 2012, she also supported a Colorado Right to Life-backed“fetal homicide” bill that could have banned abortion in Colorado.

Asked by Caplis directly whether she thought she had an advantage as a woman in her Senate bid, Stephens cited her position on “the life issue,” saying:

Stephens: “I do. I actually do, because of the time and the year in which were are, and because of the issues that Democrats bring up. I think  I have a unique ability to speak to that. I have a unique ability to speak to the life issue and/or family and other issues such as health care, public safety, all the things I’ve advocated for. So, yes, I do. In this election, I think it’s going to matter.”

But it looks like Buck’s and Stephens’ extreme records on abortion are about the same.

Apparently trying to connect to women voters, who arguably cost him a U.S. Senate seat in 2010, Ken Buck appeared on a Denver radio station Monday and discussed the differences and similarities between pregnancy and his recent bout with cancer.

Asked by 560-AM KLZ talk-show host Randy Corporon about his abortion position, Buck, who’s running again for U.S. Senate this year, said:

Buck: “Yes, I am pro-life. While I understand a woman wants to be in control of her body.–it’s certainly the feeling that I had when I was a cancer patient, I wanted to be in control of the decisions that were made concerning my body–there is another fundamental issue at stake.  And that’s the life of the unborn child. And I hold that life dear and precious and believe we have to do everything we can to protect the life of the unborn.” 

So Buck is saying that his successful battle with cancer is like pregnancy insofar as they both require decisions affecting a human body. But for a cancer patient like Buck, they are personal medical decisions, and Buck was glad to be able to make them. But for a woman who is pregnant, difficult as it may be, she shouldn’t be afforded the same freedom to make decisions affecting her body.

In 2010, Buck made no secret about his strong anti-abortion position, enthusiastically repeating his opposition to all abortion, even for rape or incest. In one radio interview, he expressed his opposition to abortion, even for a girl raped by her teen brother.

Now Buck drives his anti-abortion point home in the starkest of language by saying how happy he is that the government didn’t dictate his health decisions when he had cancer. But pregnant women should have no choice.

I was waiting for Corporon to offer a peep of an opposing view, to bring up the complexities surrounding a decision to have an abortion, and to ask Buck about all the women who don’t see this as a one-size-fits-all issue.

I’m still waiting.

On the political side, Corporon could have asked Buck if he’s worried, by comparing his cancer to a woman’s pregnancy, of looking like Todd Akin, whose thoughts about “legitimate rape” sunk his 2010 bid for a Senate seat in Missouri. But Corporon moved on, leaving listeners wanting more explanation from Buck.

Listen to Buck on KLZ 1-13-14 say he wants state control over women’s bodies but not his body

On a Denver radio show Friday, Rep. Mike Coffman affirmed his opposition to the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq, adding that, even now, he’d deploy U.S. military personnel to Iraq, if they were invited, to serve in an advisory role.

Asked by KNUS talk-show host Dan Caplis if he’d support “boots back on the ground in Iraq,” Coffman replied:

Coffman: Certainly an advisory role, but certainly not anything beyond that. And that’s if requested. I think we have to be very careful once out about reentering that particular conflict. I would say, in terms of regular troops on the gound, absolutely not.”

During the interview, Coffman expressed regret that U.S. troops are not on the ground in Iraq today, to help the Iraqi government confront sectarian violence.

“Some residual force would have maintained at least that military-military, government-to-government ties that we would have had some influence there,” Coffman told KNUS’ Dan Caplis Friday. “Right now we have no influence.”

Listen to Coffman say he favors re-deployment of advisory troops to Iraq.

Coffman didn’t offer details on the size of the “residual force” he had in mind, but back in 2009 he endorsed the Administration’s plan envisioning an American force of up to 50,000 troops remaining in Iraq.

On the radio, Coffman criticized President Barack Obama for withdrawing troops from Iraq. If Obama hadn’t pulled out so many troops, it’s possible a residual force could have been left in Iraq, Coffman said, and the current crisis might have been avoided.

Coffman: “I think the Administration was looking for a narrative that we ended war in Iraq.  And the Iraqi government had requested some kind of residual presence, if anything to be symbolic to the Iraqi people that we were still engaged. And that’s, I think, very important, probably to this day, although the decision has been made… But what the Administration kept doing is lowering the number of troops, and obviously insisting, as they should, that Status of Forces Agreement keep U.S. military personnel under U.S. jurisdiction, as we always insist on. The Iraqi government clearly had to expend the political capital to accept that. And they were willing to until the numbers dropped so low that it wasn’t worth it to them to do that. And so the Administration is now saying, ‘Well, we gave them the opportunity, and they didn’t take it, in terms of the Status of Forces Agreement.’ But the Administration just wanted out. And I think we’re suffering some of the consequences of that today.” [BigMedia emphasis]

Under the Status of Forces Agreement, Obama planned in 2011 on keeping 10,000 troops in Iraq. Later, he lowered the number to about 5,000, before the troops were asked by the Iraqis to leave. Based on this, and his statement above, Coffman appears to have been prepared to leave at least 10,000 troops in Iraq or more, if necessary to make it worth it to the Iraqis politically.

Coffman’s announcement that he favors the re-deployment of advisory troops to Iraq appears to be a reversal of a position he took in 2011, when he stated that he supported President Barack Obama’s decision to remove all troops from the country.