Congressman Jack Murtha is announcing plans to put all kinds of conditions on what the military must do in order to get money that's been allocated to waging war in Iraq.
They include: one year of training for any soldier designated for a combat tour in Iraq, one year time limit in Iraq with no extensions, no soldier goes to Iraq unless fully trained and fully equipped, and one year between combat tours.
These are great ideas, but there's only one problem. These ideas should be coming from the Constitutionally recognized Commander in Chief.
That's not Jack Murtha; nor is it any of his colleagues in Congress. It's the President of the United States.
Congress does have the power of the purse, but only to the point of a "yes" or "no" vote to spending bills of their or the President's creation. That means if the majority of Congress wants to pass a spending bill that funds the military but ends funding for the Iraq War, they can do so at will.
But these conditions (which I do like) cannot be made by Congress as to how the war is waged and how military personnel are moved around. That falls into the President's jurisdiction.
Murtha ought to push for President Bush to adopt these "suggestions" as military policy, and get to the main event of the Democratic agenda that they keep denying: their intent to de-fund the war itself (which I think is unwise at this point).
There's got to be a better way to expressing displeasure with the President than feeding parts of the Constitution into a paper shredder. Bush did it first (equal protection), now Congress wants to do it too.
THROW THEM ALL OUT OF OFFICE!
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