Tyranny-oh it comes in many shapes and sizes...Tyranny-but when it comes, it comes with no surprises

There are people, maybe even you
Who think opinion polls equals democracy
'Round here the grownups talk of should or should we not
Meanwhile the kids, they know we're going to war...

Dan Bern, "Tyranny" from My Country II

Tonight brings news from Congress on Iraq, both good and bad, though I still suspect that a scary number of the Democrats have their head stuck up where the sun don't shine. Republicans, frankly, aren't worth discussing at the moment, having abandoned reality a while back. The best idea I had heard from in a while for dealing with the Iraq disaster came from Jack Murtha, who decided that it might be best to actually require that our troops be ready before they go back to Iraq for future rotations. In case you missed it, it went something like this:

He's [Murtha was] proposing a law that bars the President from sending troops in Iraq back to the war zone until they have spent one year being retrained at their home base. It forbids troops from being kept in Iraq longer than the one year tour they were promised and prohibits any troops from going to the war zone until they are fully trained and have the proper equipment.

Sounds like a pretty good idea for a bill, especially in the House, where we have a majority and majorities can force through whatever they like. The plan was fiendishly clever in a way. When it got to the Senate, the Republicans would certainly try to filibuster, but the military needs a supplementary appropriations bill because Bush has spent the past few years cooking the books by not including the costs of the war. Thus, Republicans are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Block the bill, and they block the funding for the troops because they refuse to mandate that the troops are adequately prepared. Vote for the resolution and they get wedged away from their base. It was beautiful, but sadly too beautiful for this world. Even though something like 60% of Americans or so have turned against the war, Democratic moderates seem not to have quite come around (again, no need to mention Republicans, who still haven't realized the inevitable result of drinking the kool-aid). From Friday's Washington Post:

House Democrats have pulled back from efforts to link additional funding for the war to strict troop-readiness standards after the proposal came under withering fire from Republicans and from their party's own moderates. That strategy was championed by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
...
But that approach may be all but dead, according to several Democratic lawmakers. Murtha doomed his own plan in part by unveiling it on a left-wing Web site, inflaming party moderates.

"Congress has no business micromanaging a war, cutting off funding or even conditioning those funds," said Rep. Jim Cooper (Tenn.), a leading Democratic moderate, who called Murtha's whole effort "clumsy."

Seriously, it's hard to resist the urge to tell the Congressman that he should consider performing an unspeakable act upon himself. Who gives a flying monkey crap where Murtha unveiled the plan? If it's a good idea, then fight for it, and keep fighting for it. There is a time for process, and a time for action, and way too many people in Washington have absolutely no idea how to distinguish the two. A hint: when people are dying, try action, not process. When naming a building or declaring National Brotherhood Week, process is swell. Congress has every business in determining how funds are used, because they're frickin' Congress, capital-C, one of our three co-equal branches of government. It's just not that hard, especially given that the war is deeply unpopular and getting more so.

Shockingly enough, according to the WaPo it's the Senate that may take the lead on this one:

Senate Democratic leaders intend to unveil a plan next week to repeal the 2002 resolution authorizing the war in Iraq in favor of narrower authority that restricts the military's role and begins withdrawals of combat troops.
...
"We gave the president that power to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and, if necessary, to depose Saddam Hussein," Biden said of the 2002 resolution in a speech last week before the Brookings Institution. "The WMD was not there. Saddam Hussein is no longer there. The 2002 authorization is no longer relevant to the situation in Iraq."
...
The new framework would set a goal for withdrawing combat brigades by March 31, 2008, the same timetable established by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Once the combat phase ends, troops would be restricted to assisting Iraqis with training, border security and counterterrorism.

Seriously, Hell Yes! This war was a Republican creation from the beginning, and it's time to hang it around their necks for good. If they choose to block it, so be it, but it will crush their election hopes in 2008, having to explain why we've been for war for 5 years in Iraq and SEVEN in Afghanistan, without signs of things improving, all of our former allies having basically deserted us. This past week, Britain announced that they were pulling troops from Iraq, and no one, and I mean no one, believed it when the administration tried to claim it was a "affirmation that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well", to quote the Veep. By now all of realize exactly what happened: the British have no control whatsoever over Basra, and saw no need to continue getting their ass handed to them, deciding that since their troops are desperately needed in Afghanistan, where they can still do some good, they needed to redeploy them.

I have to admit, the people running the show have actually done a pretty good job so far, but this is the time to start hammering away, for the good of the nation and the good of the Democratic party. Courage!