Edwards: "Send It Back" If Bush Vetoes Iraq Bill

"If President Bush vetoes funding for the troops, he will be the one who is blocking funding for the troops. Nobody else. Now is not a time to back down; it is a time for strength and conviction. The President's veto threat should only strengthen our resolve to stand by our troops and end this conflict. The Congress should make absolutely clear that they are going to stand their ground, supporting the troops and reflecting the will of the American people to end this war. If the President vetoes a funding bill, Congress should send him another bill that funds the troops, brings them home, and ends the war. And if he vetoes that one, they should send him another that does the same thing."

- Senator John Edwards, 4-3-07




The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls..and tenement halls...and on the blogs. The grande escalation of this failed war in Iraq is over. It's only the members of George W. Bush's administration and the tilted media that love this war because it's embraced by "their side" - the ones who verbally flail about and threaten others with empty admonishments and accusations; the ones who ignore those who deliver the People's message - who stand to go down in history as the numbskulls who nearly destroyed America's reputation and good standing in the world.

Yesterday in New Hampshire, Senator John Edwards criticized President Bush's threat to veto a House-passed bill to set a timeline for withdrawing from Iraq.

"If the president chooses to veto it, it's the president of the United States who's decided 'I'm not going to provide the funding to the troops leaving Iraq," he said. "If he vetoes it they ought to send it back to him."

William Rivers Pitt cleverly tells a story about what appears to be the tipping point for Congress in the most recent political struggle against the White House on the Iraq war. For me, it turned what was ambivalence about the recent developments into hope that our representatives will hang strong and force Bush to end the mess that his administrration has created.

Larry C. Johnson, ex-CIA who now works with US military commands in scripting terrorism exercises and briefs foreign governments on a regular basis on terrorist trends, writes a diary with a catchy title: McCain, Crazy Bastard. For those who faint at the sight of strongly worded opinions, get out your smelling salts. Johnson thinks McCain's all wet on Iraq.

McCain's fantasy world is rich but has no grounding in reality. We already have one President barely in touch with reality. The last thing we need is another ideological nut job incapable of recognizing reality while it is kicking him in the balls.

Marshall Adame was a US Coalition Airport Director for Basrah International Airport, VP for Aviation Development with an American Int'l Corporation in Iraq, and Department of State US Advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and with the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) where he was on the staff of the National Coordination Team (NCT) in Baghdad. He writes about some of his own experiences and the failure of leadership in Iraq.