Support the troops by bringing them home
Lieutenant General William E. Odom was the head of the National Security Agency during the latter half of Reagan's presidency, and was the Army's most senior intelligence officer before that. On the Neiman Watchdog site this week, he calls for supporting the troops by bringing them home, and took both the President and the Democrats to task for not making that happen sooner, albeit for different reasons. Some choice excerpts:
If the Democrats truly want to succeed in forcing President Bush to begin withdrawing from Iraq, the first step is to redefine "supporting the troops" as withdrawing them, citing the mass of accumulating evidence of the psychological as well as the physical damage that the president is forcing them to endure because he did not raise adequate forces. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress could confirm this evidence and lay the blame for "not supporting the troops" where it really belongs – on the president. And they could rightly claim to the public that they are supporting the troops by cutting off the funds that he uses to keep U.S. forces in Iraq....
Congress clearly and indisputably has two powers over the executive: the power of the purse and the power to impeach. Instead of using either, members of congress are wasting their time discussing feckless measures like a bill that "de-authorizes the war in Iraq." That is toothless unless it is matched by a cut-off of funds.
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The final step should be to put that president on notice that if ignores this legislative action and tries to extort Congress into providing funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril, impeachment proceeding will proceed in the House of Representatives. Such presidential behavior surely would constitute the "high crime" of squandering the lives of soldiers and Marines for his own personal interest.
Did he say impeachment? Well, he's not the only one saying it... and there are multiple "high crimes and misdemeanors" the House should be looking at as potentially impeachable offenses for Mr. Bush and his Vice-President (and the Attorney General, for that matter...).
