A Coming Constitutional Crisis?

[Annie]

While the news out of Iraq continues to improve, even before all the additional troops get there, Murtha et al., are doing everything they can to ensure failure. Perhaps he's been underestimated, in that he does have a very clear idea of what the military is and isn't capable of, depending on politics. I can't help but wonder if his vision on the politics is as clear? It took over 2 decades for the country to pull out of the problems with Vietnam, I don't think we have that long to deal with national therapy:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzVlZmY4ODk1ZTMzOWUyYThkNzZiNDYyODQ3MzE3ZTI=

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Only if one ignores our constitutional scheme. The president, not Congress, is the commander in chief. Congress was never meant to, nor is it suited to, direct tactical military decisions, as Murtha seeks to do with his restrictions.

Arguably, his maneuver will be the most blatant congressional intrusion on the president’s war-making powers in the nation’s history. Congress choked off the Vietnam War in the 1970s, but only after U.S. ground troops were mostly already out of the country and chiefly as a matter of cutting off aid to South Vietnam.

Just as disturbing is Murtha’s cynical reliance on failure in Iraq as a political strategy. The plan aptly has been described by Politico.com as a “slow-bleed” antiwar strategy. The surge is the best chance of turning the war around. By hampering it, Democrats will ensure that the war continues to fail, and thus that domestic political support for it plummets to the point where Democrats feel safe in defunding it.

The subconscious logic of their position on the war has thus taken a subtle turn. It used to be that the war had to end because it was a failure; now it must fail so that it can end.

Democrats don’t see this distinction, since they simply believe the war is irretrievably lost. But they still pay laughably unserious lip service to the notion of success. Murtha says there’s no military solution in Iraq, that we can win in Iraq only through the political process — as if it has no effect on the political process whether Shia militias are murdering Sunnis unchecked or laying low to avoid the surge. In a howler, he maintains that if we leave, “al Qaeda’s going to disappear.” Maybe if we spread pixie dust and close our eyes?

President Bush will have no choice but to reject the Murtha restrictions should they reach his desk. But a veto is problematic. As Murtha points out, a veto means that Bush doesn’t get the continued funding for the war. He might have to sign the bill, take the funding and ignore the restrictions as an unconstitutional trespass on his powers. In that event, a cry to impeach him will go up from the increasingly powerful antiwar Left.

The result of the Democrats’ clever gambit could be a constitutional implosion from which no one — certainly not the country — will emerge a winner.

 

[Bullypulpit]

While the news out of Iraq continues to improve,

Nine US troops killed this weekend, six of them on Monday, some seventy Iraqis killed in car bombings just since Sunday, and "...news out of Iraq continues to improve..." Just what alternate reality are you living in, dear lady?

 

[red states rule]

Nine US troops killed this weekend, six of them on Monday, some seventy Iraqis killed in car bombings just since Sunday, and "...news out of Iraq continues to improve..." Just what alternate reality are you living in, dear lady?

We lost more troops on D Day then the four years of Iraq. Libs would have bben a hoot as the troops were fight at Normandy.

Libs would have been screaming to run off the beaches and talk to Hitler about a ceasefire

 

[Annie]

Nine US troops killed this weekend, six of them on Monday, some seventy Iraqis killed in car bombings just since Sunday, and "...news out of Iraq continues to improve..." Just what alternate reality are you living in, dear lady?

Look around Bully. Gee, there was a war, folks died. There has never been such a war with so few killed. Now one may argue that it shouldn't be fought, but don't use this weekend's numbers to make your case.

 

[Avatar4321]

Nine US troops killed this weekend, six of them on Monday, some seventy Iraqis killed in car bombings just since Sunday, and "...news out of Iraq continues to improve..." Just what alternate reality are you living in, dear lady?

Nice try to falsely appeal to emotion. You've already made it clear that no one is allowed to die in a war or else its a bad idea. This shows incredibly naivety of what we face and what the prices for failure are.

If you have it your way, we will be out of Iraq. and the region will turn into a blood bath the likes of which the world has never seen and may not recover.