Senate takes strongest action yet against Pres. Bush, war
DC
In an aggressive move to counter President Bush’s war plans, the U.S. Senate signed off on a bill Thursday that provides $123 billion to pay for war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The bill, passed 51-47 in the newly Democrat-controlled Senate, orders Bush to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days of the bill being passed.
Most Republicans rejected the bill, refusing to support a bill that imposes a forced troop withdrawal. Bush held a pep rally with members of the Republican Party to help raise support for his plans to continue the war shortly before the bill was passed.
Bush has made it clear that any bill proposed with a timetable will not be passed.
“We stand united in saying loud and clear that when we’ve got a troop in harm’s way, we expect that troop to be fully funded and [when] we’ve got commanders on the ground making tough decisions on the ground, we expect there to be no strings on our commanders,” Bush told the Associated Press.
UW-Madison political science professor David Canon said, “This is the strongest statement made so far about ending the war sooner than later.”
In spite of Bush’s rejection of the bill, Canon said, “Congress has the support of the public and the public does not support the war. An unpopular war can only last so long before it has to end.”
There was a lack of enthusiasm for the bill from the Wisconsin Campus Anti-war Network.
“Proposing a timetable will not be effective because it allows the war to continue. This bill proves that Congress cannot be left to end the war; it’s up to the anti-war movement,” said UW-Madison senior and Wisconsin Anti-war Network member Chris Dols.
The proposed bill was delivered less than four months after Bush’s new plan for continuing the war in Iraq, regardless of the pressures to withdraw from a majority of Americans, according to Canon.
U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has been open about his disagreement with the Bush administration’s plan since the beginning of the Iraq war four years ago.
With the signing of the bill, “today marks an important step toward ending the war in Iraq,” Feingold said in a statement.
“For the first time, the U.S. Senate will pass binding legislation requiring the President to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. While this is long overdue, it is a big step in the right direction and it brings us closer to ending our involvement in this disastrous war,” he said.
Wild Thing’s comment…….
Like a poker game only this one is with the lives of our troops. And the Dems can finish playing it in Hell if I had my wish.
I hope Bush has the guts to veto this bill. This entire Congress makes me wonder if we were fighting for survival on our own land would they throw in the towel and yell King’s X? We know where Bernie Sanders Commies stand and where most of the undeclared CPC members are on national security, some are in Syria kissing up to Assad. The rest just go along to get along as long as there’s pork to be had, we have our own Vichy regime.
Since when does the Congress and the Senate HAVE the right to tell the President what he can and can’t do?
They would have NEVER done that to their buddy, Billy Boy.
I just feel bad that he’ll have to veto the troop funding because those a-holes put bribes into it to get republicans to jump ship on their captain.
I read where after the fall of Paris in 1944, all the Nazi symps. were rounded up. The women, who were friendly to the Nazi occupiers, had their heads shaved, bald, right down to the bone.
I wonder what Plosi, Di Notso’feinstein would look like bald.
I also heard on the Radio, that congress will not NOT fund the troops. All Bush has to do is veto this piece of trechery and be done with it.
They.,the democrats, are of the opinion that they have a mandate to bring the troops home, more precisely, to cut and run before the job is done. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe the American People want our troops to fail in this war. I think what the American People said in the last election is we want to win but need a new direction. We need the President to be more of a leader, not just a mouthpiece for his policies, when there is another election coming up but a full time leader. Who wants to secure the border, prevent another terrorists attack. In other words what he promised on September 12, 2001. This is what, I think, the American People said in the last election.
How soon ( and conveniently) they forget. The Republicans did not want us militarily involved in Bosnia. Bill Clinton put us there and once the troops were committed, the Republicans supported both the troops and the President so we would be united in the effort.
Just thinking about the new congress, and four years ago the dems were really upset that the Terror strike didn’t happen on Clinton watch,(but we all know it really did and he did noting).
Now they keep repeating the same lie, that Bush lied about WMD. This war in Iraq was never about WMD. In fact Bush had a majority in Congress to use force if necessary to remove Saddam, then in the fall of 2002 the UN gave him(Bush) a mandate to use force to remove Saddam. There were 16 UN resolutions that Saddam thumbed his nose at, and kicked the inspectors out. Only in December of ’02 did we start hearing serious rumblings about WMD, this was mentioned in his state of the union message of ’03. The famous 16 words only the dems remember, they don’t remember the other 16 reasons we were headed to Iraq in the first place.
How ironic all of the dems who now claim Bush lied said the same thing about saddam back in ’98 when they all said Saddam had to go, in fact Congress gave Clinton a mandate to change the regime in Iraq.
Seems to me the Democats can not be trusted from year to year because their stance on anything changes like the pervailing winds.
Jack, me too, I can’t believe we have to be in this position to be even hoping this or his having to veto this kind of thing.
Lynn, your right, they just hate Bush more then anything in the world. I can’t imagine that kind of hate.
Mark, I will not believe that either, I will not believe that the 70% they say agree with them is an honest polling for one thing. Polls are way to easy to fix and very easily. Where I live we many of the homes fly the Flag like we do, cars hve stickers on them like My Son is a Marine kind of sticker.
“wonder what Plosi, Di Notso’feinstein would look like bald.”……..LOL I love the thought of this.
Tom, big difference isn’t it. Huge!
Like night and day.
Mark, yes, good one and your comment walked through the past perfectly how it has been happening with them.
We even have all those audio cuts too of all these very same Dems saying how Saddam needed to be delt with and how he had WMD. Now they deny saying it. sheesh