Too Much To Ask?

There has been a lot of debate in the Congress lately about passing a bill forcing a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. Now, I understand that there are a lot of people who are ready to be done with Iraq. They are disgusted with the whole thing, and are ready to just throw in the towel and walk away. Frankly, part of this I can understand, we have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into Iraq, and it's hard to see where we have anything to show for it.

Where I am wanting to call out, "hey, wait just a minute," is with regards to the timing of the Congressional debates over forced withdrawal. When the plan for the surge was enacted there was an agreement that there would be a full report to Congress in September. Right now it's only July. Is it really too much to ask that Congress wait two more months to get that report before making plans to override the president and pull the troops out? At least if they wait for the full report, they will have all the facts that they need to make an informed decision as to how they should vote.

Now it's time for me to do something that I haven't done all that much so far, and that is to take some conservatives to task for something that they have been spouting off about on this subject. I have heard it said, and read it in articles, that the Congress doesn't have the right to force the President to withdraw troops from Iraq. This is about as partisan as an argument can get, if roles were reversed, and the Republicans controlled the Congress, and a Democrat were in the White House, going into the fourth year of a war that the Republicans didn't agree with, you can be assured they would have no problem with Congress forcing a pull out. There is more to it than that however. The fact of the matter is that Congress has every right to pass such legislation if they so choose. Congress (Both Houses) is made up of elected Representatives of the people, and part of their duty is to oversee the Executive Branch, just as the President has the power of the Veto if he doesn't like a piece of legislation that Congress sends to him, and the Judicial Branch has the power to declare a law unconstitutional, even if both other branches have passed it through, this system is called checks and balances, and the point is to keep any one person or group of persons from gaining too much power and taking it away from the people, where it rightfully resides. This is not a Dictatorship, the President is not in charge of the country as some would have you believe, this is a Representative Republic, in which the people have a voice, through their elected leaders, and they absolutely do have the right to force the President to withdraw troops. Whether or not they should do so is another matter entirely, and open to debate, I just think that debate should wait until after they have the full report from the Military Commanders in the field, so that it can be as informed as possible.