I don't know about that, but I believe it is a prelude to attacking Iran. Wesley Clarke evidently does too. Over in our "other country," Israel, they are expecting it and beating the drums in anticipation.

Jan Knaus

Surging is semantics for stay the course.

J. McCutchen

Have forwarded to your colleague Tim Roemer. Let me know if you run into him!

J. McCutchen

Dems - Listen to Amy Stoddard!!

That must be the UFPJ event. Wish I were there. Wish the ANSWER 3/17 narch on the pentagon had similar follow up planned.

Hope the Demos come away with a long view. Opposing the McCain/Bush/AEI escalation is step 1 and there isn't much time for effective legislative action. Hope they read the Hill

Amy Goddard, "The Hill" today on Hardball discussion of Dem legistive opportunities WRT Iraq:

"appropriations control the Dems know to be too difficult' There is talk emerging about revisiting the War Powers Act and that would put incredible pressure on Bush" (paraphrase)

Revist? No..no...no

REPEAL it

Coincidentally this email exchange today....same concept, more developed than Hardball segment would permit.

Unedited Email exchange follows...apologies for the back of envelope quality.

Ascending order

-1. ------------- Original message from john mccutchen --------------

The problem with an appropriation cut off or even reduction is that the Congress cannot sufficiently restrict the President's spending discretion nor can they legislate through an appropriation bill the incredibly complicated task of stopping a war, at least not competently.


But the DEMS CAN affect troop levels. They can appropriate for 100,000 then 50,000 ...


They also have another, extremely powerful tool (short of impeachment) and it was none other than John Warner who showed the way. They authorzied the war and they can de-authorize.

Simple as:


"The War Powers Resolution of 2002 is hereby repealed effective 1/1/08"


There are some bells and whistles they might add but essentially that is it. Bush figures out the timing because Congress can't appropriate that which isn't authorized.


Should get some attention from Republicans running for their lives next year.

2. [Republican scoffed that War Powers approach as idle an exerciase as was Church Amendment appropriation control}

3. On Jan 5, 2007, at 3:18 PM, john mccutchen wrote:

No it isn't the same. I thought that was evident. I will try childlike


1. A President has discretion NOT to spend appropriated money. He could and probably would cut support for the troops, perhaps Iraq training and equipment, overrun on his troop appropriation and clean it all up in a reconcilliation telling the country that the Evil Dems made him do it because they tried to micromanage the war

2. The War Powers Act is by contrast a scalpel in Bush's hands, across his throat. Give him the drop dead date, let him manage to find his own way out - with advice from Congress to be sure!

He has to decide how to ramp down and exit because once the authority's gone, there's nothing to appropriate. No Dems to blame

4. William Neyman wrote:
Your scalpel idea is interesting, but two questions occur to me:

1) In the absence of the War Powers Resolution, how much authority might the president have to continue operations already underway? The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was repealed in 1970, but Nixon was able to continue in Vietnam for the rest of his term, despite enormous opposition.

2) How much support do you think there is in Congress for setting a date certain for withdrawal? So far I haven't seen any public discussion about revoking the resolution, which, under the War Powers Act of 1973, would require withdrawal within 60 to 90 days of expiration of Congressional authority.

4. John Mcc

War Powers enacted post Noxin. That's one of the bells and whistles. The president has something like 60 days to kill as many as he can for any reason, anywhere, any time.

1) INteresting constitutional law case considering that in the first place the Congress has exclusive War Making Power - good law except in in Roberts' s court.. Give him days after to clean up any loose ends in his exit plan

2) I am not terribly confident that there is enough time for enough D's and R's to grow sufficient spine. That's where the Dem hearings are key. If they use agenda visiblity well through aggressive oversight, well publicized and if Iraq continues to stay the course...The US public is already there. The WPA repeal has the extra added benefit that it would perforce pick up the pre-war narrative developed in planned hearings. Easy to make an election year issue but that will scare off some Republicans if in 2008 Silly Season. Vulnerable to delay game. Has to be done by Fall but worth playing as far as it goes or no.

The 100,000+ mercenaries who are doing jobs formerly done by the military, only without oversight and at exorbitant cost, are almost never mentioned, as you say, Phelicity, just as the 25,000 wounded American soldiers are almost never mentioned. We don't hear how many mercenaries have been killed or wounded. We don't hear how many of the coalition of the willing have been killed or wounded, or even how many are left in country. We don't hear the truth about how many Iraqis have been killed or wounded, except that the number of dead, alone, might be somewhere between 50,000 and 650,000.

We don't know what the mercenaries are doing, do we? We remember that four of them were killed and horribly mutilated in Fallujah, so we destroyed the city. We know they provide critical security protection -- to someone or several someones. We know they cook and wash dishes and drive trucks. Beyond that, it's a black box. Something's going on in there, but we don't know what. But we should have expected that. Dick Cheney told us that most of the important work would have to be done on the "dark side."

We don't know how much it costs, either. In January, 2003, the White House chastised Larry Lindsey for saying it might cost $100-$200,000,000,000 and announced instead that it would cost $50-$60,000,000,000. Some say now the number is $300,000,000,000. Others say almost $1,000,000,000,000. (Forgive me, I love seeing the actual zeros.) But the cost doesn't matter because we're not paying it. Our grandchildren are.

Mitch McConnell is right, this is Mr. Bush's war and it is being fought by his tactics and will continue to be, unless he is impeached and convicted. The likelihood of that is vanishingly small, and in the time required to do it, if it could be done, things would likely get much worse in Iraq.

McConnell hasn't been very visible on the national stage in a while and I've kind of missed him, because he can be counted on to officially state the Wing-Nut position on almost everything. It's refreshing to hear it straight from the mouth of the Senate Minority Leader. Let's you know where things stand with those folks.

Speaking of our children, NBC reported (yes, really the MSM), that we could vaccinate every child in the US for the amount it is costing us every 16 days in Iraq but the Congress has refused to fund that.

The Democrats need to relentlessly hit home how much the war is costing and what is being traded off. If they do, old Hillary might even find herself back in that village.

Obviously an immediate withdrawal from Iraq is not the proper course of action. Similarly, promoting the status quo is also not an option.

What does that leave us with? The Surge campaign seems to be less about Iraq and more about Iran. Granted, the eradication of Al Sadr's army (which is more or less the mission of the Surge) will bolster the depleated Sunni's, but it is more of a shot at Iran.

It almost seems as if the Bush administration has admitted strategical defeat in Iraq and is now using that country as a catalyst to deal with Iran.

I just want to tell you that I rated you a 4 and, as is becoming usually the case, it didn't register. Very frustrating.

J. McCutchen

Ladies, Gentlemen, Boys, Girls, CafeDenizens, My Fellow Americans...

What if "Surging" is a Plan???

Lest you forget = The Game is Three Card Monty, The Man From Texas is still your Dealerget the Dealer is still The Man from Texas...

Place your bets watch your wallets...keep your eyes on the cards..T

wo weeks ago, I warned the Cafe..Things are never what the they seem.... Perceptive Analysis-White House Rhetoric

Could Bush really be so dense, insane even, to believe that the Surge will bring victory, stability? What if he's sharper than his critcs give him credit for?

Joe Biden gets it. What if the Surge makes some plausible sense - Leave the helicopter skids to the Successor? What if the real goal is NEast of Baghdad - Divide and Conquer the Shiites in IraQ, Good Morning Tehra?
Testosterone surging...policy fixed not made?

Item: New York Times -Bush Plan Details -

Officials said a larger American troop commitment to Iraq also would be used to illustrate Washington’s increased resolve to deter adventurism by regional adversaries, especially Iran.

Item: The real Iraq Study Group
Forget Jim Baker's crew. The neocon hawks who sold the war, joined by John McCain and Joe Lieberman, unveiled their new plan for "victory"....Salon
[TimesUK Ditto}
Good Morning America

Item: TimesUK - Israel Plans to Nuke IraN

Like I was tellin ya 2 weeks ago..Remember Condi Rice's warning four years ago...

Can you afford to wait? The smoking gun you seek could well be a mushroom, not a methane cloud

P.S. Don't miss the MTP Iraq "debate" which closes with Biden announcing for President. All politics all the time.

Tom Paxton
From the album: Ain't That News

Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation

"Lyndon Johnson told the nation, have no fear of escalation, I am trying everyone to please. Though it isn't really war we're sending 50,000 more to help save Vietnam from Vietnamese..."

I can't recommend it highly enough.

Here's the link to the Burns article cited.