When American soldiers are fighting and dying on foreign battlefields thousands of miles away their political leaders in Congress have one of two choices. They must either do everything they can to support the troops and help them accomplish their mission or they must act within their appropriation powers to bring them home. If they lack the will or the courage to do either then at the very least they ought to abstain from any action that could hurt or undermine our men and women in combat.
This Congress conspicuously refuses to follow any of these choices. Majorities in both houses no longer support our mission in Iraq, especially the president’s new escalation strategy, and the preponderance of their rhetoric holds that the United States has no chance of success in Iraq and ought to withdraw "in short order,"as Senator Jim Webb put it.
But instead of enacting the logical action that would extend from this rhetoric, Congress seems intent on taking the politically easy way out by adopting non-binding resolutions which have the effect of expressing disapproval without actually doing anything about it. This is political cowardice in its worst form. As Congressman Dennis Kucinich has correctly opined, "It is simply not credible to maintain that one opposes the war, yet continues to fund it. If you oppose the war, then don’t vote to fund it."
Our troops deserve better than this duplicity. Congress has a clear and unequivocal obligation to make the choice between supporting our troops and their mission or cutting off funding for operations in Iraq and bringing them home. Non-binding resolutions passed in opposition to our mission in Iraq will accomplish little besides sending the message to our troops that their political leaders do not support the mission they are being asked to risk their lives for and that it is doomed to fail. The Congress should not be in the business of cutting our men and women off at the knees at a time when they need the support of their political leaders the most.
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