It’s Up To Congress Now

02/18/2007

Paul Munnis


As our wounded soldiers return from combat they are assigned to substandard medical facilities for treatment and recovery. (See related story).

This is creating a big issue for Congress. Should money be spent on sending more troops to Iraq or be spent on priorities like renovating and modernizing military treatment facilities so that soldiers wounded in combat do not have to recover in cockroach and mold infested hospital barracks? The answer may well condition the funding for upcoming military requests for funding.

It’s coming down to fundamental questions of how to best support our troops and where do our priorities lie in our military expenditure.

The GOP is trying to say it’s about whether or not we will fund our troops but Democrats are saying it’s not about that at all – “it’s about HOW we will fund the troops and about our priorities.”

Democrats believe that the money should be used to rebuild our National Guard and not to decimate it. In order to do that the troops in the National Guard have to be given proper rest and rotation.

Democrats say that troops sent to combat should be properly trained and equipped and to fail to do that is to not be in proper support of our troops.

Democrats do not believe that permanent bases should be built in Iraq at the cost of Billions of dollars when near 40,000 casualties of the Iraq War are left without needed medical care and support.

Democrats are concerned about the need for a long term GI Bill to support troops who are unemployed, without housing, and whose family life has been devastated. We know from experience the tendency to turn to drugs and alcohol to escape from the pain and tedium of daily life. We also know about the divorce rates among wounded vets and the loss of family life for them. We feel that facilities and programs to deal with these problems are badly needed. We think the GOP is demonstrating that they just blow that all off. Democrats think that lessons learned must be applied.

So how do we best support our troops? Do we invest in them as people or do we forget them and send more people to Iraq to die in the cross hairs of a sectarian civil war that we cannot resolve?

It’s up to the Congress now since the American people keep making it clear – “it’s time to extract ourselves from entanglement in the mid-east and end involvement in Iraq.”

Congress must decide how best to do that and they have three basic options: capitulate to Bush and the GOP and stay the course thus ignoring the American people; use a blunt cudgel to hit the military over the head and pull funds for the Iraq War creating bad press for Democrats; or, use a scalpel and manage the funds to the points of real need and proper priority?

Bush wants us to do the first, the GOP says that Democrats are doing the second, yet Democrats are really more interested in the third option. The GOP is saying that the third option is “micro-management,” while Democrats think it to be “responsible management.”

I think that it’s now time for Americans to let Senators and Congressmen know what choice they favor.

Let’s get on with it.