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In another of his ever-changing rationales for his
Iraq war, President George W. Bush has bizarrely proclaimed that this
conflagration is like the Vietnam War — a comparison he had spent the
previous four years heatedly rejecting! Well, on at least one point, his Vietnam comparison is
apt: Next year, the Iraq war will pass the $600 billion mark in U.S.
spending, making it nearly as costly as the long Vietnam debacle. Bush has
now requested an additional $173 billion for Iraq-war funding in 2008,
making it the most expensive year yet for his disastrous misadventure. For those of us who want to end Bush’s Big
Mistake, however, the focus of our effort can no longer be on him. George
is who he is: a bonehead. Intent on dumping ever more lives and money into
his war, he is immune to sanity. Rather, the question now is “Where the hell is
Congress?” Yes, I know that the new Democratic leadership has only
slim majorities and that the Bushites use filibusters, veto threats, and
demagoguery to
thwart their efforts to initiate a withdrawal from Iraq. But come on
— it’s time to toughen up! Asserting congressional authority to
check-and-balance a runaway lawless executive is not a mere political
option; it’s a Constitutional obligation. The founders deliberately gave real muscle to Congress
to use in situations like this one, and previous lawmakers were not too
timid to use them. Earlier Congresses have had the guts to show that they
really are a co-equal branch of government.
It’s time for Congress to pull the purse strings
on Bush’s war. It has the power to stop the needless killing and
maiming of thousands more Americans and Iraqi civilians. Failure to use
that power is not just political cowardice — it’s immoral.
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator,
columnist, and author.
This article appears in Oct 11-17, 2007.
