15 02 07 When Will It Be Over?
Please, somebody please, please make this meaningless drivel of a debate on a non-binding Iraq war resolution OVER. What is the point? To show that the House and Senate are incapable of doing anything in a timely manner? That they are irrelevant to anything requiring a real firm decision?For five or six weeks now all we hear out of Washington is chatter over the proposed (and partially enacted) Baghdad/Anbar troop surge. They don't like it, they don't like the Iraq war and in the case of the Democrats, they hate Bush too. Wonderful. Why does this take weeks and why is the end result a piece of paper with absolutely no force of law? For what both the House and Senate are doing, an open mic with a television camera could have been set up in the Capitol rotunda and every member could have walked up, said yea or nay on the troop surge, the war and Bush. And we would have been done with this pointless exercise in a day.
As the legislative branch, they have one way to end a war - cut off the money. It would be next to impossible to cut funding just for the limited number of troops involved in this troop surge but Congress could certainly consult with the President and tell him they are reducing funding by 50% or 75% or even 100% effective as of some future date of reasonable duration. If they are not willing to do that then they must fund the current operations.
We have no problem with critics of the war saying its time to move on. But if that is the case, mean it. Stop hiding from your shadow. Its painful to listen too and just shows the al Qaeda's of the world that the US legislative branch is incapable of making tough decisions.
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