I’ve been sounding the alarm on this for some time.
America was forced to flee from Vietnam when the Democrat-controlled Congress at the time cut off funding and resources for the troops fighting in that country even as they continued to die on the battlefield. The Democrats are now, subtly, pushing for the same sort of funding-cuts that will pull the carpet out from under our troops in Iraq. They’re doing it because they want to stick it to the President, and they don’t care if that takes policies which deny our troops the resources they need and causes us to suffer a humiliating military loss that will no doubt embolden our enemies in future plots against our nation.
North Dakota’s own Kent Conrad has been pushing for the inclusion of Iraq war funding in the normal budgeting process (currently the war is funded through emergency supplements). Ostensibly, according to Conrad and his comrades, this is to bring more “transparency” to the funding of the Iraq war, yet I’d ask how that funding is not already transparent? Certainly each bill to provide funding to Iraq goes through no small amount of Congressional debate and media scrutiny. The reality is that Conrad and his fellow Dems are looking for a way to oppose funding the Iraq war without actually having to oppose it directly. By including Iraq war funding in the normal budgeting process that funding can be delayed by the Democrats who will claim that they are simply objecting to other types of spending or amendments to the budget.
It’s just a sneaky way to cut off funding for our troops in Iraq without having to be open and honest with the American people about their intent.
But Conrad’s subtle push to defund our troops aside, other powerful Democrats (including Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel) have been quite open about their intent to defund the war.
And what bothers me about that is this: The Democrats have refused to call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, but have made it clear that they have no intention of giving our troops the resources they need to win the war. They support a “phased” withdrawal over the course of several months, but all that does is keep our troops exposed longer in a war that we aren’t planning to win. If the Democrats had the courage of their convictions they’d be calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. But they don’t have that courage.
They are a bunch of partisan cowards playing political games rather than pushing for sound foreign policy in Iraq.