In an article about the Water bill veto override in the Washington Post I found this little bit of information about another looming fight over Iraq.

Moreover, the House unveiled a four-month, $50 billion Iraq war-funding bill that would give the president 60 days to present a plan to complete U.S. troop withdrawals by Dec. 15, 2008. The measure would limit the troops’ mission to counterterrorism and the training of Iraqi forces and would extend a torture ban to the CIA.

In short, the long-awaited battle between Congress and Bush over federal spending and the size and reach of government is now on.

If correct, it appears that Speaker Pelosi and the Defeatocrats in the House are gearing up to force a retreat just when things are looking up in Iraq.

Based on the little bit of information contained in the article, (I’m trying to find the actual bill for a more detailed analysis) I see four big problems right off the bat.

First of all, only funding the war for another four months wastes the congress’ time. In four more months they will have to come back and revisit the issue and we will have to have the same discussion again. This also causes trouble for our troops and their commanders in Iraq. They can’t really plan for anything beyond that four month time period.

The second problem is strictly congress’. The article says that the bill would give President Bush 60 days to come up with a plan to have troops out of Iraq by December 15^thof 2008. What’s the problem? Congress doesn’t have the authority to demand a timetable for withdrawl. The only thing they can control is funding. President Bush would be well within his constitutional authority to tell Congress to buzz off. He is commander in chief, and he decides how troops are to be used and when they will come home.

Problem number three is much the same as the last one. The article says that the bill would “The measure would limit the troops’ mission to counterterrorism and the training of Iraqi forces…”. Once again, Congress doesn’t have the constitutional authority to dictate how troops are to be used in combat. The only thing they can control is funding.

Finally, the article says that the bill would extend a ban on torture to the CIA. I don’t know whether or not they can do that. That’s not the problem. The problem is that we. do. not. torture prisoners. Do we make things uncomfortable for them? Yeah, probably so. But, from everything I’ve heard about our interrogations, there is nothing that we do that rises to the level of torture. In this fight against radical Islamofacists we need every tool we can get our hands on. And, quite frankly, if making one of these guys uncomfortable will save American lives I’m not going to lose sleep over it. One of the biggest travesties of the entire Iraq war was Abu Ghraib. Nothing we did there rose to the level of torture, but the media and the many on the left were right out front proclaiming that “Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management.”  (Ted Kennedy D-Mass.). Were the actions of these few bad apples wrong? Yes, they were. But, they do not rise to the level of torture. Furthermore, they were punished for their actions.

You see, that’s the difference between us and the Islamofacists. They do torture people. They have no problem with torturing innocents either. There are stories coming out of both Iraq and Afghanistan of Christians AQ and AQI sawing off the heads of aid workers. Workers who are there to help the people. These workers are not soldiers, and they are usually members of NGOs (Non-governmental Organizations), many of them Christian organizations.

In Iraq, we have the story from Michael Yon titled “Bless the Beasts and Children”. The story recounts the murder of the population of an entire village. They found children that had been beheaded, and one Iraqi man recounted a story of parents being served the body of their child for dinner by Al Qaeda in Iraq (otherwise known as AQI).

The bad apples that used humiliation to interrogate prisoners at Abu Ghraib were  punished for their actions. AQ and AQI celebrate their war crimes.

This will be an interesting fight. President Bush will probably veto any spending bill that puts unconstitutional limits on his powers as C-in-C. And, I don’t think that the defeatocrats will have the votes to override that veto. This of course, means that more time will be wasted rewriting the bill so that it is acceptable to the administration. In the meantime, the troops are the ones who pay for these silly theatrics. The Defeatocrats are holding up crucial funding for body armor, bullets, and mine resistant vehicles to score political points with their radical fringe. That is not only wrong, it should be criminal.

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   I argee with you. The left are only concerned about their own power and not helping anybody else.

   Comment by Isaac — 11/9/2007 @ 18:38

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