All we're doing is pushing the reckoning date down the road and further fanning the flames with our presence in Iraq, at the expense of hundreds or thousands more dead and probably thousands or tens of thousands more injured US troops, and many, many more dead and maimed Iraqis.

It's just a nightmare. And our petulant and cowardly President sends up a General to defend a failed strategy so that he can hide behind a uniform instead of have to answer real questions.

I get more pissed every time these dog and pony shows continue. We may not have the numbers, but dammit the Democrats should be forcing votes as often as possible on legislation that would end this occupation and start removing the troops immediately. The public is way, way ahead of our 'leaders' on this issue.

What a farce.  

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are understandably trying to put a positive spin on the Iraq war -- one of the worst military fiascos in American history.

But one of the questions I would like them to answer is how, when the Iraqi government has over $56 billion of revenue this year, they have the gall to ask the American taxpayer for another $170 billion?

Iraq has $40 billion in reserves from oil being over $100 a barrel. The American taxpayer is paying more than $3.30 a gallon at the pump. And yet Iraq wants another $170 billion?

Iraq has $10 billion in reconstruction funds. Yet, we are paying for Iraqi military training all the way down to their garbage pickup with American taxpayers' money -- while they sit on tens of billions they are simply choosing not to spend.

The Iraq war has been a fiasco. This policy has never been worthy of the sacrifice of our military families.

2) For God's sake, Sen. McCain, get your head screwed on straight.  

[For the umpteenth time in recent weeks, McCain couldn't get the fact that "Al Qaeda in Iraq" is Sunni, not Shia.  The man is clearly incompetent.  If he doesn't have it straight in his mind just who is responsible for what, how can he make foreign policy decisions?]

Finally, military officers do not work for us, the people.  They are sworn to support and defend the Constitution, which makes the President their Commander-in-Chief.  The difference is that we don't recall or impeach military leaders whenever we are displeased with current events.  We wait for the next election and replace their C-in-C.

Yes, he swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution.  He serves at the pleasure of the president.  But he works for us.  We do not owe him a rubber stamp.  Nor does Congress.  

Indeed, Congress is tasked by the Constitution to do oversight.  It alone can declare war.  (Oh, yeh, I forgot, McCain, Clinton et all gave away that Constitutional responsibility with a blank check).

I greatly admired (and still do) General Shinseki.  Ditto many other courageous generals who cared more about their country than their career.  

It was outrageous to listen to McCain try to lead the testimony.  It was clear the whole event was set up to showcase (the admin hoped) John McCain.  McCain showed himself to be the brain dead pol that he is and Petraeus had to play along.

Bush and his many henchmen should be before Congress, but they don't do hearings.  Which brings us to the fundamental question:  Why are things aXX backwards.  Why is Petraeus testifying and not the administration?  Why are Senators deferring to Petraeus (the old "let's see what he will say)when they should demand and end to this.

*The military serves the Commander-in-Chief, not the Congress or the voters who elect the members of Congress.  The Framers specifically intended it to be this way after the experience of watching George Washington trying to fight a revolution against Great Britain with a Continental Congress breathing down his neck and second-guessing his every move and expediture.

*Congress 'foots the bill' because that is part of the system of checks and balances.  If they don't like what the C-in-C is doing, then they can cut off the water.

*Yes, only Congress can declare war.  However, that hasn't been operative since the end of WWII.  If a nuclear-armed ballistic missile was launched against the United Stated, would you really want to wait for Congress to return from their four-day weekend or latest two-week recess to hold hearings?  In the case of Iraq, Congress did not give Bush a blank check.  They voted him a resolution authorizing force and then kept covering the over-drafts.  The Democrats were voted into power in 2006 to stop it and, well, they haven't.

*If the Bush administration is staging these hearings to promote McCain, then why are they happening at all?  Only the chairman of a committee in either the Senate or the House can call hearings.  I believe that those chairmen who called these hearings are Democrats.  See the above bullet.

Your anger should be directed towards the spineless Democratic leadership in the Congress and not towards the clueless Bush administration.    

I promise you, it was never the intention of the Founders and the system of overlapping and blended powers and checks and balances they envisioned that the Congress could empower some types of war powers without declaring war, and then have an unpopular and frankly illegitimate executive use this one-off phrase amongst the entire structure and spectrum of constitutional powers to continue prosecuting a war (and definitely not a foreign occupation) that the people no longer wanted.

The Congress is surely given many, many more powers to effect foreign policy than just the power of the purse.

Now, you are right that the Dems have been craven in their refusal to use every tool granted them by the Consitution to oppose the President and this war -- impeachment being chief amongst them. But we are in a rather unique historical moment, when a secretive and unpopular band of marauders sits at the helm of government, and an entire political party has decided to make it their over-riding mission to protect and enable these marauders. The structure that was written 220+ years ago is in severe danger because of these actors, and it will take much time and energy to repair it.

The only cure is at the ballot box, and the setup of the Senate makes that slow and difficult. So, yes, we should be angry at many Democrats -- but the chief villains here are the Republican elites that have been running the show.

Kathy's base point is absolutely right -- the military works for US, via our elected leaders. Because of the staggered nature of our elections, and because of the overlapping powers of the Constitution, this means that they are supposed to enact policies approved by both the executive and legislative branches. This is not happening because we have reactionaries running the show, people whose spite for the people couldn't be more obvious (see Cheney's recent remarks, amongst others).

Ron, I could go on and on about why the military doesn't work for the Congress.  (For example, did you know that, by law, the military departments are forbidden to lobby Congress?)  But, I suspect that it would be a waste of time.

BTW, go read Federalist 69.  It is much more on point as to the power of the chief executive and commander-in-chief.

And here's what it says:

"The President will have only the occasional command of such part of the militia of the nation as by legislative provision may be called into the actual service of the Union. The King of Great Britain and the governor of New York have at all times the entire command of all the militia within their several jurisdictions. In this article, therefore, the power of the President would be inferior to that of either the monarch or the governor.

Secondly. The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British King  extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies, -- all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the Legislature.

...

The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the people for four years; the King of Great Britain is a perpetual and hereditary prince. ... The one would have the right to command the military and naval force of the nation; the other, in addition to this right, possesses that of declaring war, and of raising and regulating fleets and armies by his own authority. ...

As for your snarky comment about us firing him, I can't tell whether or not you're being willfully obtuse. The point is that the military is not supposed to enact policy -- the people through their elected representatives and through their own consent do so.

As for the law prohibiting military departments (and non-military departments) from lobbying, well -- that law was enacted by Congress, under its plenary authority to make the Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces (see Article I, Section 8), and signed by the President at the time. You might also want to check out that section to see just how many enumerated powers the Congress is given to enact military and foreign policy, versus just the one affirmative power (Commander-in-Chief) given to the President.

The entire point I (and I believe Kathy) was trying to make is, General Petraeus may serve the current President tactically, but the President was never intended to make military policy unilaterally. Even that great proponent of Executive vigor, Alexander Hamilton, makes that abundantly clear throughout his writings in the Federalist (the much more skeptical James Madison even moreso). The United States was the first country ever to make the military subordinate to the will of the people, and the officers in our military generally are proud and dutiful under this structure. I don't fault Petraeus for doing his job, but he is not the king of military policy. Neither, as Hamilton makes clear, is the President.  

The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies -- all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature

The president directs military operations, 'nothing more than the supreme command of the military...forces.'

Once the Congress authorizes and appropriates a military force, the power of the Congress is limited to revoking that authority and appropriation.  There is no sharing of power in military policy making except for Senate confirmation of military officer promotions.

But I disagree that the purse (raising of armies) is the only way the Congress may affect policy. Congress is also given the plenary powers: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States; and To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.

The Congress could essentially mandate withdrawals with the passage of the Webb-Hagel dwell-time amendment -- by exercising its legitimate and explicit power to regulate the length of tours of members of the armed forces. It's probable that in this extra-constitutional environment we find ourselves, the President would simply have ignored this requirement had it passed last year (i.e., had the Democrats played hardball with the war funding) with a signing statement, gotten his money, and then the Republicans would have prevented an impeachment conviction. But we'll never know.

The only cure at this point is via the ballot box. And I want the larger Democratic Congress in 2009 to mandate phased withdrawals via legislation in some manner, by exercising a combination of power of the purse, regulation, AND revoking authority for war in Iraq -- even if the President is a Democrat. We have gone horribly off the rails here.  

John McCain is so wrong on Iraq, he can't even get the basic facts about the situation on the ground correct.

Today, as he was questioning Gen. David Petraeus, he again confused the difference between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

At least five times as a candidate John McCain has stated that Iran (a Shiite nation) is supporting Al-Qaeda (a Sunni group) in Iraq. This is not some minor mistake, but a significant gaffe. He clearly does not understand the sensitive political dynamics in that region of the world.

What's worse is that he's done it at important times when you'd expect him to be at his best -- he did it today in the Senate while questioning the commander of American forces in Iraq, and he did it on a recent trip to the Middle East.

If John McCain can't remember such a simple fact at crucial times, how will he be able to do it as President?

We have to stop John McCain from taking control of the White House, and stop him from taking over George Bush's war in Iraq. Can you write a letter to the editor of your local paper letting voters in your area know just how confused John McCain is?

http://www.democrats.org/gaffes

Once is misspeaking -- five times is a dangerous lack of understanding. John McCain so badly misunderstands Iraq that he's content to stay there for 100 years, something he's said multiple times. He has also failed to explain how he would pay for a war that is now costing you and me $12 billion each month -- money we could be using to help our economy here at home.

John McCain wants us to believe that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead our nation at war with terrorists.

We just can't afford someone who just doesn't understand Iraq -- it's too dangerous.

Thanks for your support.

Howard Dean

However, the purpose of the surge was to buy time for the political process in Iraq to progress.  As has been widely discussed, that has not happened.  The COIN Field Manual states that both the U.S. and the insurgents are in a political struggle: to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate.  Further, the manual states that the military solution in COIN is to leverage all elements of national power (diplomatic, information, military, economic, etc) available to shape behavior, and that the armed forces cannot succeed in COIN alone!  But, where is the surge in other U.S. Government agencies to do their part?  There has been little or no push in diplomacy by State to develop a political solution.  State can't even get enough diplomats to serve at the Embassy.

My concern is that we're still focusing on the military-only option, not the diplomacy, and that Gen. Petraeus is due to rotate out later in the year, possibly to become the EUCOM Commander/NATO SHAPE.  If we get another clueless cold war general in there who doesn't understand COIN, thats not good.

I dunno ... for a guy who's claiming he's "not particularly interested" in the VP slot, he's certainly not being shy about stoking the visibility fire.

Where does he find the time?  He wrote this during his first year as U.S. Senator.  He's certainly got the personal discipline, energy, multitasking skills and sheer brainpower to fill the COO role the office of vice-president has become.  Not to speak of the cleansing wisdom and morality he would bring to an office trashed so thoroughly by Dick Cheney.