Strings attached: brain dead on arrival.

[Warren Stupidity]

I'll start right off by stating that in my opinion the only effective option available to the Democratic Congress is to vote no on the next Iraq War appropriations bill.

Now let's move on to what is being proposed instead: a strings attached approval of the appropriations bill. The alternative to this is not vote no to war, it is: write bush another blank check. Thus it is with our timid leadership, thus it has always been.

So what is wrong with attaching strings? The idea here is to force benchmarks and withdrawal on the cabal in the whitehouse.

The strings:

"These include, most notably, that the Iraqi government meet President Bush's benchmarks for reform under penalty of immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, as well as a timeline regardless of benchmarks met for ending all U.S. troop deployment in Iraq.

"No matter what," Pelosi said, "by March 2008, redeployment begins." And by August 2008, it will be completed, according to this bill.

...

The House bill would also require that the Bush administration meet Pentagon standards for troop readiness in terms of unit readiness, length of time they can be deployed in Iraq, and length of time they can stay at home before they are sent back to Iraq. Pelosi's bill, however, grants Bush the authority to depart from Pentagon guidelines if he provides a report explaining why."

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2936129&page=1

I claim that this is a brain dead on arrival half-measure. Suppose that it passes. Suppose further that the cabal either a) ignores all 'strings' via a signing statement or by just not bothering with them, or b) dutifully reports all benchmarks met and all exceptions required.

The criminal occupation continues unabated, refunded for another year and here we are again in March 2008 and another funding bill is sitting there waiting for our 'opposition party' to once again acquiesce in a war crime.

What would we have accomplished? Nothing.

[frogcycle]

1. agree

its a lame effort

i still like Murtha's approach. Aggressive oversight. Nobody goes when not rested, trained, equipped etc., and if anyone tries to bend rules, they are fired. Period. Toe the line. The fact is there is insufficient manpower to sustain this thing. There will be no choice but to change strategery to a non-combat role, perhaps staged "over the horizon". You don't tell them how to run it, you just tell them they have to play with the cards they have, and no cheating. Mission accomplished. Anyone caught trying to do an end-around is in contempt of congress. Don't overdo it - just make it enforce the existing guideline. If bush vetoes it, a mass uprising of military personnel and families would be likely.