Your Thoughts Exactly

What did we honestly expect the Democrats to do when we voted them into power three months ago about the War? Many dovish peaceniks fantasized about an automatic pull-out of Iraq, although those of us not totally doped up thought. Some, like myself, wanted at least a substantial policy to come out of the change in power, either implementing the suggestions of the Iraq Study Group, or David Harris (a massive troop surge, followed by a phased withdrawal.) At least, I hoped, the Bush Administration would be forced to take a multilateral approach to their policy-making, realizing that the election was a direct rebuke to the reign of Rumsfield.

The Democrats, in the middle of a celebration of their newfound power, allowed The Presidency to draw the line in the sand on the most important issue of our time. While they were busy pushing through their 100 hours reforms, the President, through his primetime speech and the State of the Union laid out the stakes: He would not be accepting the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. He would not be working with Congress on foreign policy. Instead, he would poor some salt on a shit sandwich by sending a token amount of troops into Baghdad and calling it a “surge.” Most importantly, Bush offered no new ideas about acceptable outcomes that would lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

This straight up “Fuck You” to the Democratic Party (and the people who voted them into power,) regarding Iraq was pretty bold, even for Bush. In the face of falling popularity at home and continual failure abroad, he smiled and kept moving forward with what he (or his cronies,) think is the right thing to do (or the most profitable. If this is not a case of morality gone awry for Bush then he is as bad as Stalin.)

In my view, it is the responsibility of the Congress to respond accordingly. While foreign policy is traditionally the realm of the executive branch, what we have here is an administration that’s unwilling to listen to suggestions or alternatives from qualified sources when it’s clear we are involved in an international crisis that has the potential to affect the U.S. for decades to come. The time is now for Congress to step in and utilize the power of the purse.

Instead, we get this non-binding resolution crap. This is the worst of all worlds. It doesn’t even make sense politically. If the troop surge fails, Congress gets to say I told you so about Bush’s foreign policy, but Bush’s foreign policy is already about as unpopular as it can possibly be. If the troop surge succeeds, the Dems look like idiots for coming out against it.

And enough with the “we support the troops.” bullshit which is just the Democrats running scared from Republican accusations about potentially cutting funding. The Democrats need to show some balls and argue that cutting off funding isn’t a fuck you to the troops, it’s a fuck you to the leadership that is getting our troops killed. There has to be some level of accountability in government and this is the power that our forefathers granted to the Congress. Sure this reasoning will piss some people off, but now is the time to do that, 18 months away from the next election, with popularity for the war at an all-time low.

Of course everything the Democrats do in their first two years of power will be done with consideration for its effect on the ’08 election. They will be paralyzed to make any unpopular moves that can be brought back upon them, even if they may be the correct ones. With so much at stake, it will be hard for pols to move away from the influence of their campaign managers and lobbyists, instead they will adapt the John Kerry mode. As Kerry proved, all that gets you is a narrow defeat

I really believe that a politician that can come out and lead a stand against Bush based on taking the moral high ground, ignoring politics, and telling the truth, that this War is wrong, that our troops are dying, that it’s bankrupting our country, that the people of Iraq are suffering, that all that the U.S. stands for is being degraded every day we prolong this doomed conflict, and that our executive leadership is mired in the midst of a swirling vision of false hope and the fear of being wrong that needs to be blown away by the winds of change, he or she will come across as the Champion that the American people know they need in these troubled times. I doubt in the era of non-binding resolutions, that we will see such bravery.

# posted by Marmaniac @ 7:54 PM