The Pelosi/Reid letter about the surge was a good thing, but can anything stop it?

[Stinky The Clown]

I don't think so. They can even go so far as to stop the funding, and the surge can *still* happen, simply by Il Dunce shifting aleardy approriated money from other budgets. Sure there'd be some wailing and screaming, but there's nothing, really, to stop him if he's hell bent to get his surge on.

I am dead set against this war, and was from before it started. In an idealistic world, I would pull the troops out tomorrow - or maybe tonight. And so, truth be told, would most Democrats. Not all, to be sure, but most.

I think it is pointless and just plain divisive, to castigate our side for not 'stopping the war' or 'preventing the surge'. Even if they were to stop the funding - which they won't do - the war could still go on until the Bush boy is out of office and little more than a shitstain on the shorts of history.

I surely want our side to vote against anything that enables more war, but I am pragmatic enough to know that some things that might *seem* to be war-ending are actually traps. I would hope, however, that any future appropriations that come out of the Democratic House and Democratic Senate are studded with poison pills for the White House. That's about the most they can do, as I see it.

[MasonJar]

1. Murtha indicated that there would be no money if no plan; Nancy

likes Murtha and his ideas. Funding could get very tight is my opinion. I just hope I am right.

[Gregorian]

2. Does the fact that Congress passed the war resolution make it a legal war?

I believe Congress enabled a criminal act.

What I'm getting at is, if the war itself was started due to a lie, can we pass legislature that makes supporting, and profiting from, the war a crime?

I say this because, this could make it so no bullets could be manufactured and put into guns without violation of the law. No bombs could be manufactured and dropped without violating the law.

Look, killing people who aren't an imminent threat is illegal. Stopping something that's illegal should not be impossible, but should in fact be encouraged.

I'm just thinking out loud. There must be people in Congress who have intimate knowledge on the details of this war. The war resolution itself, if I recall, does not allow bush to continue the INVASION without the continued approval of Congress. But that's fine print I probably don't fully understand.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Those are interesting thoughts ......

..... and maybe worth investigating. That being said, I suspect if there was any possibility along those lines, we'd already have heard of it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. They did pass the DoD budget before teh

thugs left DC to us... so the money is already there

They will have to get creative, but it can be done... and in fact I expect them to make war profiteering ilegal, they are alraedy on their way to doing that

The moment that happens, you will see records on companies leaving.

Bechtel for one is alraedy out

[brazos121200]

5. Legally Bush can "surge" in Iraq, but

he is literally running out of troops to do it. He can surge 20 or 30 thousand troops for only a few months, then the soldier pool will literally dry up. Without a draft I don't believe the surge can last very long, and a draft is political suicide for either party. The Army is on the verge of being broken by this war.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. I think the general public should be informed that the surge last year didn't work

they had a surge before and it didn't work why should this one? Wasting money and wasting lives.