Larry Kerschner Writes

  The Democrat's War

    It is time for the Democrats in Congress to step up and do what two-thirds or more of the American public want.  They need to stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring the troops home.  We don't need any of this nonsense about funding the war while asking Bush to please bring the troops home at some time in the future.  This war became the property of the Democrats when they assumed control of the 110^th Congress.

 
    The Democrats are forcing Americans and Iraqis and Afghanis to die when they continue to pay for Bush's delusions at the rate of more than a billion dollars a week.  Two hundred and eighty five American troops and untold Iraqis and Afghanis have died since this became the Democrats war.

    The arguments that Congress should never second guess the military or interfere in military strategy by micro-managing the war do not hold water.  In the past Congress has had the sense to know why the Founders created three equal branches of this government.  The Constitution clearly states that Congress shall have the power to declare war and to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces and to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying out those powers.  Congress hasn't always been the lap dog of the President.

 
    In 1974 Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act in which they applied a personnel ceiling of 4,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam within six months of enactment.  In 1983 Congress passed the Lebanon Emergency Assistance Act which required the President to return and seek the approval of Congress before he could increase the size of the U.S. contingent in the Multinational Force in Lebanon.  In 1993 Congress limited the use of funding for operations of U.S. troops in Somalia.  Expenditures were only allowed after the President sought and received from Congress specific authorization for the mission.

 
    The U.S. military did not fall apart in any of these instances because Congress decided to use its power of the purse.  There will be no constitutional crisis if Congress says it is time to end this foolishness and bring home the young people who are occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.  Nor will there be a crisis if Congress tells Bush that he cannot attack Iran with some manufactured excuse.

 
    The leaders of the Democrats seem to think that by playing both sides they can keep the war as an issue to be used against the Republicans in 2008.  If they do not take the honorable and moral course, the dead will rise up and rebuke them with a pox on both of the political houses.  Bring the troops home now.

 
Larry Kerschner POB 397  Pe ell WA 98572  (W) 291-3946