Article: "House Democrats Set to Retreat From Effort to Cap Troop Levels", Wall Street Journal, 02 March 2007, p. A4
One thing I cautioned my Sailors against was expecting to see much change in Iraq as a result of the November elections. The Democrats may have gained the majority, but it was not enough to override a veto or, as we have seen lately, not even enough to bring bills up for a vote. According to the WSJ apparently the Democrat’s are now beginning to see that as well.
According to the article, Rep. John Murtha has been humbled. I doubt I would go that far but he has certainly run into some roadblocks. I can’t say that I’m bothered by that, in fact I think the roadblocks are good. I, for one, never understood the purpose of a non-binding resolution. What were the Democrats trying to prove? Were they trying to tell the President that they were unhappy? If so, they needn’t have bothered; I’m confident the President Bush knows the Democrats are unhappy with the situation in Iraq.
Perhaps they are simply schizophrenic. They holding hearings before they confirm General David Petraeus and he makes it clear that he supports a surge in troop level. After the hearings, they confirm him by an overwhelming number. Then they want a resolution to keep the surge from happening. It makes no sense to me, but then I’m not in Congress.
House Republican Leader John Boehner is quoted in the article as saying “For seven weeks Democrats have been all over the block. They have no strategy to stop the war. They have no strategy to win the war. They are the majority here on Capitol Hill. It’s time for them to grow up make a decision.” I can’t say that I agree with him because I fear the decision they might make.
The truth is that Iraq is not another Vietnam. It can be if we yield to those who want to cut funds and withdraw troops. On the other hand, if we tough it out, we just might win. It was our weak response to prior acts of terrorism that led Osama bin Laden to believe we were a paper tiger and hence the reason he was willing to stage the attacks of 11 September 2001. Imagine what would happen if we were to pull out of Iraq too soon. The acts of terrorism on American soil would drastically increase and they could well prove difficult to counter. Yes, the Iraqis need to take a more active role in running their country; yes they need to do more to quell the sectarian violence; yes they need to train more troops; but their failure to so should not result in our withdrawal for we, along with the Iraqis, will suffer.
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