Americans are going to die HERE AT HOME if the Democrats win this argument.
Whether they like it or not Iraq is part of the war on Terror. It is not some cowboy revenge Bush came up with because Saddam tried killing daddy. The Terrorists themselves have said that Iraq is the main Battlefield in this war and they have told their followers "just wait America will grow tired and leave, they are weak". The Democrats are hell bent and determined to give the Terrorists that victory.
We have lost 3000 soldiers lives in a war that has lasted longer than WWII. Any loss is egregious true, but guess what, thats what happens in WAR. What the headlines should be celebrating is a war that ONLY 3000 have died in. In less time in WWII 300,000 were lost. The amount of dead we have suffered should be celebrated because the numbers are so low. Soldiers join knowing they may die, and they join anyway. Re-Enlistment in this war is higher than at any other time in history.
As for the Dems saying they support the troops, that claim goes out the window as Kennedy tries to cut the money for Bullets in the field. I would also like to see the tax returns of all those in Congress and in Hollywood that say they support the troops. If they do than surely they have given money or time to the USO it is a non political orginization that does nothing except give Aid and Comfort to the troops. Yet it's coffers are dry.
If the Democrats win this argument and pull our troops home before VICTORY is acheived THIS ENEMY WILL START KILLING US HERE. There are at least 11 known Hamass Cells here in the US. Thousands of Middle Eastern ILLEGAL immigrants have been caught sneeking accross our WIDE OPEN Southern Border. Yet the Dems don't even want those with KNOWN TERRORIST TIES to have their phone calls and e-mails monitored, even if their calling other KNOWN TERRORISTS.
This is Buffoonery that is going to get mine and your children blown up by Suicide Bombers on their School Busses and in the Malls.
Congress must act against Iraq troop rise: Kennedy
By Susan Cornwell Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With the new Democratic-led Congress flexing its muscles in opposition to the unpopular Iraq war, a leading Democratic senator proposed on Tuesday to block President Bush from sending more troops to Iraq unless Congress specifically approves.Bush is expected to announce an increase of up to 20,000 U.S. troops in Iraq on Wednesday and Sen. Edward Kennedy said Congress had the authority to block the move through its power to approve spending.
"We cannot simply speak out against an escalation of troops in Iraq, we must act to prevent it," the Massachusetts Democrat said in a speech to the National Press Club.
The move seemed destined to touch off constitutional debate about the role of Congress and whether it can stop specific orders by the President -- who is the commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces -- once it has authorized the use of force.
"There can be no doubt that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to decide whether to fund military action, and Congress can demand a justification from the president for such action before it appropriates the funds to carry it out," Kennedy said.
Congress in October 2002 passed a resolution authorizing the Iraq war. Since then the war has taken the lives of over 3,000 members of the U.S. military, and Democrats rode the growing public unhappiness with the conflict to majorities in both houses of Congress in November.
Bush on Tuesday continued meeting lawmakers at the White House as he sought to convince them of the necessity of his plan to try and improve the deteriorating situation in Iraq.
Bush indicated to fellow Republicans on Monday that he intended to send about 20,000 more U.S. troops as part of a deal with the Iraqi government. Iraq has pledged to strengthen security in exchange for more American soldiers, said Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, who attended the sessions.
POSSIBLE RESTRICTIONS ON MONEY
Kennedy said Bush's speech on Wednesday must serve as "the beginning, not the end of a new national discussion of our policy in Iraq."
It was not immediately clear whether or when Kennedy's proposal could face a vote.
Some Democrats including House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada have urged Bush to soon begin bringing U.S. troops home.
But others, such as incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden of Delaware, have expressed doubt that Congress can actually block an increase in troops.
Biden, a Democrat, says he will introduce a resolution that would express the Senate's sense of disapproval of any White House moves to "escalate" the war.
Kennedy, who opposed the war from the beginning, said he opposed cutting funding for troops that were already in Iraq.
But he said the mission in Iraq had changed so markedly from the one authorized by Congress that Bush should not be allowed to step up the conflict by sending additional troops, without a new authorization from Congress.
"My bill will say that no additional troops can be sent and no additional dollars can be spent on such an escalation, unless and until Congress approves the President's plan," he said.
Another possibility would be for Congress to attach restrictions to some $100 billion for the war that Bush is expected to request soon, said House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer.
"That's a possibility for us. There has been some discussion about that," Hoyer of Maryland told reporters.
Democrats
Kennedy
Democrats to Challenge Bush's Iraq Plan
By ANNE FLAHERTY Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush is telling lawmakers he will send thousands more U.S. troops to Iraq's two most troubled regions, in a plan that Democrats are resisting as a major escalation of a 31/2-year-old war.
Bush on Wednesday will announce a new war strategy and is expected to call for as many as 20,000 additional troops, according to several senators briefed by the president on Monday.
On Tuesday, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D- Mich., said he expects Bush to announce that up to 20,000 additional troops will be sent to Iraq, but will not say how long the extra forces will be there. Levin, who spoke to reporters a day after meeting with White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley, said he thinks Bush will signal that the overall U.S. commitment in Iraq is not open-ended.
The extra forces would be sent to Baghdad, which has been consumed by sectarian violence, and the western Anbar Province, a base of the mostly Sunni insurgency and foreign al-Qaida fighters, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and others said following the session with Bush.
A day before Bush's nationally televised speech describing his proposal, Sen. Edward Kennedy, a longtime critic of Bush and the war, will propose legislation denying him the billions needed to send more troops to war unless Congress agrees first. Though it was unclear whether the bill would ever reach the full Senate, it could at least serve as a rallying point for the most insistent foes of the Iraq conflict.
Democrats seem divided on whether to block funds for troop increases, but many were not ruling it out. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D- Nev., said Democrats would "look at everything" in their power to curb the war, short of cutting money for troops already in the field.
Levin, said he would only consider an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq if Bush agreed to start withdrawing troops within six months.
"We've got to focus the attention of the Iraqis on their responsibility for their own country," Levin told the Detroit Free Press. "The only way to tell them is that we're going to redeploy our forces in 4 to 6 months."
The bill by Kennedy, D-Mass., is guaranteed to fuel the debate among lawmakers on how far they should go to try to force the president's hand on the unpopular war.
Under the Constitution, the president has broad war-making powers, while Congress controls spending. Democratic leaders have swiftly rejected any suggestion of withholding money from troops already in combat zones.
"The Congress has the power of the purse and what we are saying is before the president sends additional American troops into the civil war, the president has to come back to the Congress and get the authority for that deployment," Kennedy said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show.
"The American people ought to have a voice and a vote and members of Congress should be held accountable. We ought to take this step and stop the surge," Kennedy said.
In prepared remarks he was to deliver later Tuesday to the National Press Club, Kennedy said: "The best immediate way to support our troops is by refusing to inject more and more of them into the cauldron of a civil war that can be resolved only by the people and government of Iraq."
If brought to the floor by Democratic leaders, Kennedy's proposal would force Republicans to put themselves on record regarding the war for the first time since the Nov. 7 elections, when the GOP lost control of Congress to the Democrats in large part because of the war. Most Republicans say they back the president, or are at least willing to hear him out, but a few GOP moderates say there is no indication U.S. troops would make a difference.
According to senators who attended the meeting Monday with the president, a promise to send more troops to Iraq would be conditioned on criteria met by the Iraqi government, such as reaching political deals on sharing the nation's oil resources and dispatching more of its own troops to Baghdad.
Bush told the senators that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki suggested the plan when the two met in late November in Amman, Jordan. The senators said the president expressed confidence that the Iraqi government could meet certain milestones in exchange for additional U.S. support.
But several of the senators remained skeptical.
"We've had these benchmarks before and to no avail," Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said after meeting with Bush. "Why should we increase our exposure to risk?"
But whether Snowe and other GOP skeptics of Bush's plan, including Gordon Smith of Oregon and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, will agree to Kennedy's plan is doubtful.
"It would be a dishonorable thing for the Congress to budget away the bullets at a time when their commander in chief had ordered them to hold their place in the battlefront," said Smith.
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