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Impeachment: Definitely Not Just for BJs Anymore
 If there’s a mandate in the 2006 Democratic rout of the Republicans, it’s to end the war. So it was good that Democrats closed ranks around the White House against the idea of a troop “surge.”
In Vietnam war speak what Bush is proposing is an “escalation.” This was a new concept in warfare at the time, and required a passive construct to sell to the American people, most of who had soured on the war by then.
The pre-Korean assumption about war was that escalations, or surges, were redundancies. Based on the compelling reason to fight it in the first place, war was all or nothing. Taxes went up; men of age not in uniform better have had a good reason; war profiteers were prosecuted; and the aim of victory could be convincingly communicated in three words or less.
Every fight has a shelf life. Vietnam lasted eleven years, the longest American war on record, and not fondly remembered; the American Revolution lasted seven years, and contemporaneous accounts indicate that everyone – especially the British – had had more than their fill by then. The Iraq war is our third longest war, and Bush has told us that it would be up to future presidents to decide when to bring to troops home. Because he apparently hasn’t stopped sending them yet.
I’ve been against impeachment until now. It would distract congress for a year and stir up a partisan shit storm the likes of which we’ve never seen. And in the end, even if successful, we’ll still have endured seven years of Bush’s incompetence. But as we’ve seen, he can do a lot of damage in 12 months. To date 3006 American soldiers have died, and 150,000 have been wounded. Currently, 70,000 Iraq war veterans have been classified as disabled by the Dep’t of Veterans’ Affairs. Time to stop. Time to put an end it to it.
Bush sees it differently, and seems to be leaning toward increasing the current troop force by another 40,000 troops, while DoD is planning a “test” of its military draft apparatus, just to see if it works. No big deal, they say. Nothing to be alarmed about.
So the Democrats have one card to play: tell Bush to end the war or face impeachment hearings. He’s likely to react the same way he did to Iraq Study Group’s findings, but the Yiagos, Rasputins, and Mayberry Machiavellis around him might get the message. (See related link: http://www.veteransforamerica.org/
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~Jack McEnany
Also see: Am Bush an Idiot? Stranger than usual, Republicanalooza, Bush Buddy Benefits,
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