| Say NO to Bush's $87 Billion Dollar Request.
by Rob Kall
OpEdNews.Com
It is time for honest, tough leadership to show its face in Washington
and in congress. We can no longer afford this charade that the president
can be trusted, or that he is doing what is good for the US and the
soldiers on the front lines.
It's that simple. Say NO. Do not give him the money. Do not allow him
to hand over more gifts to his Haliburton friends. Do not allow Paul
Wolfowitz to privatize the military, creating corporate military
"divisions" as he told congress he wants to do.
Everyone agrees, now that Bush and Rumsfield and the neocon keystone
cops have fraudulently, stupidly and incompetently dragged us into
this Iraqi quagmire without any follow-up plans to the easy military
victory, that we need to finish the job responsibly.
But what people are not saying and they should be screaming is that
Bush has lost the right to be trusted to do the right thing, that his
advisors have proven themselves to be failed incompetents who are totally
untrustworthy, in terms of coming up with solutions to the Iraqi problem.
The Democratic leaders should be stating, in no uncertain terms that they
are one hundred percent in support of the troops and in support of
supporting Iraq, but also one hundred percent diametrically opposed to
letting George Bush and his team handle the money.
There is no reason to trust Bush's competence to take the next steps
and there are many reasons to mistrust Bush-- that he will continue to
lie, dissemble and provide false, fraudulent, misleading information.
The answer is to set up an independent, bi-partisan commission to take
over the decision making on Iraq. This will certainly raise a gallery of
shrieks and nasty remarks from Republicans like Tom DeLay. But we have
seen the power of the filibuster in the judicial appointment process....
and we're talking about $87 billion dollars here, which we all know is
just the next installment on the biggest boondoggle in world
history. We know that Bush will be coming back to the trough in
another six months.... and the numbers have not gotten smaller, the next
time he'll be asking for over $100 billion dollars.
There has to be a "line in the sand" to quote Bush senior,
and it should be drawn now. Say NO to Bush's request for $87 billion and
YES to an independent commission that can not only decide how monies for
Iraq are spent, but can also investigate and run how the post-war
"peace" is being managed.
While Bush has not yet been charged with impeachable offenses, he is
clearly guilty of mismanagement and massive misleading of the congress and
the people. He has failed totally in the use of diplomacy as a leadership
tool. While he is not yet impeached he should at least be restrained from
doing more damage.
Of course, this is one of those easy to suggest, not so easy to do
proposals. When Bush senior drew his line in the sand it was a declaration
of war and this is just as tough, just as strong a position. But back in
'91 it was Saddam who'd already declared the war by invading Kuwait, and
now, in 2003, it is Bush and his neocon handlers who declared war on the
US, by their lies, and frauds-- using the normal faith and trust Americans
have in the office of the presidency to perpetrate a war of choice that
was not necessary, that should never have been initiated.
History will look back on this war as one in a series that were
initiated by leaders who used lies and deceptions to fool the American
public and congress. But there is still the chance for history to record
the outcome of this war as one that was changed by tough, honest
politicians and activists who stood up to the corrupt leaders and forced
the war to turn in a drastically different direction.
It is clear that Bush and his lieutenants are still either lying about
Iraq or deluding themselves, investing more in proving their past lies
than in solving the current problems. The only rational solution to the
Iraq situation is to wrest control of the decision making process out of
the hands of the people currently in charge. If it takes a filibuster that
shuts down the congress, so be it. Fortunately, a new ABC/
Washington Post poll reports that 61% of those polled oppose the
funding, and 71% of women do not support it. That should make it easier
for even the Republicans in congress to stand up to iPOTUS (incompetent
President of the United States.)
Rob
Kall rob@opednews.com
is publisher of progressive news and opinion website www.opednews.com
and organizer of cutting edge meetings that bring together world leaders,
such as the Winter Brain Meeting
and the StoryCon
Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story This
article is copyright by Rob Kall, but permission is granted for reprint in
print, email, blog, or web media so long as this entire credit paragraph
is attached
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