Democrats to back down

Reuters reports that "Democrats in the Congress, who came to power last year on a call to end the combat in Iraq" are about to cave and pass the Iraq & Afghanistan never-ending military occupation funding bill with no conditions for withdrawing U.S. troops. The $165 billion new war money injection is assumed to be enough for about a year, and commits troops to "staying the course" well into the next President's first year of office.


This infusion of war money will take the total amount committed to these wars to over $800 billion.


There was a way for the Democrats to have tried to stop the war; to do the job they were elected to office to do. The matter is summarized in the words of Senator Clairborne Pell [D-RI] spoke in 1971 after the conclusion of John Kerry's testimony before Congress.

This war was really just as wrong, immoral, and unrelated to our national interests 5 years ago as it is today

... At that time the word "peace" was a dirty word. It was tied in with "appeasement" and ... that sort of thing ...

The problem is that the majority of the people in the Congress still don't agree with the view that you and we have. As the chairman pointed out, and as you know as a student of political science, whenever we wanted to end this war, we could have ended this war if the majority of us had used the power of the purse strings. That was just as true 5 years ago as it is today.

I don't think it is a question of guts. We didn't have the desire to do that and I am not sure the majority has the desire to do that yet. Whenever we want to as a Congress, we could do it. We can't start an action, but we can force an action with the purse strings.

So, my fellow Americans, ask not what will Senator Obama do, ask not even how Senator Obama will vote. Ask what Senator Obama will do to put a stop to this bill.