On one issue, the polls and 2006 elections arrive at an overwhelming majority consensus: Start to Get Out of Iraq. The differences that lie beyond this first step - how many troops and when to finish the withdrawal - does nothing to alter that we must take this non-controversial first step. That the President refuses to agree with the American people and is immovable on this is an accepted reality; but why Congress hasn't acted upon the will of the people, I can't fathom.
With the authority of the voting public behind the, the critical threshold reached, why does Congress act submissively, with an apparent inferiority complex with respect to the office of the Presidency on Iraq? (or any issue is another related matter) Congress is an equal branch to the Presidency. I think its high time to step up and represent the American people.
(The jump includes a bonus trip down Comical Ali memory lane!)
It is a Congressional responsibility to take care of what the Presidential branch and the hallucinatory Vice-Presidential twig, refuse to do. We don't even have to talk about why the 29% will not be convinced that what they are supporting is wrong thing to do. This is simply a matter of, up until now, all of our elected officials dismissing the will of the American people.
And enough of the unwanted and unwarranted sessions listening to defenders chanting "history will bear us out." Look at the track record for goodness sake; Millions of people march against going to war with Iraq and yet the administration forces the invasion through citing an extravagant and outrageous (and ongoing) package of lies: they have them and we know where to find the biological, nuclear and/or chemical weapons; the "overwhelming" link between Saddam and Al Qaeda; the war will be over in at most six months; we will be greeted as liberators with flowers; the yellowcake uranium Iraq sought to purchase; the war will pay for itself; this is not about the oil; this is no Iraqi civil war; the insurgency is in its last throes; the surge will be successful; the surge will be sucessful only if Hillary shuts her mouth. We know they are wrong and will just keep being wrong because they haven't proven once that they are able to tell the truth(1).
In fact the last time I checked, the government official who had made the most correct assertions about Iraq was the much maligned Saddam loyalist, former Minister of Information Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf (2)
"They want to tell the world changes thought - as a matter of fact, they do not respect the world, they want to tell taxpayers and the domestic public to keep them deceived. We will embroil them, confuse them and keep them in the quagmire. They have begun to tell more lies so that they might continue with the perpetration of their crimes. May they be accursed."
and
"I would like to clarify a simple fact here: How can you lay siege to a whole country? Who is really under siege now? Baghdad cannot be besieged. Al-Nasiriyah cannot be besieged. Basra cannot be besieged."
and ominously,
"We have placed them in a quagmire from which they can never emerge except dead." citations desperately needed
We have come full circle from the protests marches "No blood for oil" because in fact, our fellow Americans are shedding their blood for Iraqi oil (3).
Congress has the power to cause change. They must pass bills (vetoes notwithstanding) that inevitably, the Presidency will have to accept a bill that shuts the war machine down or continue hanging our soldiers out to dry.
Webb, Reid, you said it, now do it:
SHOW THEM THE WAY!
(1) A full summary that tracks the reasons we went to war was helpfully put together by American progress although it stops counting in 2004.
(2) Which is not to say that ole "Comical Ali" didn't also say lots of offensive, horrible and untrue things as well as, mildly amusing things like: "The midget Bush and that Rumsfield deserve only to be beaten with shoes by freedom loving people everywhere." Also that several members of Congress and other officials did have it right, just nobody I can think of in the White House.
(3) at least one congressional member has conceded the war is about the oil. Its only a matter of time before people stop referring to Iraq as a democracy, so that leaves oil.
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UPDATE: It appears that Dick Cheney did have right, just back in 1994 when he said getting Saddam wouldn't be worth the American lives it would take, that doing so would lead to a "quagmire" in a "volatile" region. I'm sure he doesn't recall his reasons for saying this back then and believing the opposite in 2003.