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In the letter from Hank Curtis (“Dems don’t have the guts to stop Iraq fiasco,” 1/18) he fails to grasp two important realities:
1) Congress does not have the authority to override Bush’s decision to increase troops. The Democrats will posture themselves but their efforts to stop the current surge are nothing more than symbolic.
2) Troop withdrawal from Iraq was not a referendum on the ballot last November. The citizens of the US do not make the decisions regarding military strategy in any way, shape or form.
The authority over these issues is described in our constitution and the laws of the United States. For the sake of our soldiers and the sovereignty of our country, these decisions can never be left to a congressional whim or public vote.
Kipp Welch
Phoenix

This letter has not been edited.

READER COMMENTS

Those Dems keep calling this war President Bush's Vietnam. Not let us forget that it was many of those same Dems that stopped funding our troops in Vietnam and the in-coountry forces who supported that war and thus caused the death of millions of human lives in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam after our retreat, but then Dems never take responsiblity for the words that spew forth from their mouths.

The Dems do NOT have the courage of their so called convictions. If the Iraq Campaign is wrong, then defund it. Do what you believe in...show a little backbone. I firmly believe that to be a modern liberal today you are either missing the backbone chromosome or you must have it surgically removed.

While Iraq was not an explicit national referendum, it dominated national elections. Pro-war bleed the country dry to support endless war profiteering candidates like Rick Santorum and George Allen lost. The country very definitely voted on November 7th for a change in our approach to national security. The Democratic controlled Congress will work for an honorable conclusion to the Iraq occupation but it won't be an instant gratification process. It took the incompetent Republicans years to create this mess and it will take time to rectify it.

Bush keeps saying it would be a "disaster" if we pulled out of Iraq. Yes, it would be. It is a disaster that we are there in the first place. That disaster began when Bush and his Neocons lied to Congress and to the country and took us into the Iraq-trap on false pretenses.

The fact that Democrats don't have a silver bullet to solve the problem doesn't reflect negatively on the Democrats, it just brings home the point that Bush's war is the biggest blunder in the history of our country.

There may not BE a solution - we may be witnessing the beginning of a conflagration that cannot be contained, all begun by a lying, spoiled baby boomer "President" without ethics or wisdom.

I love this idea that keeps floating around about the Dem's being lied to. Maybe everyone else wants to forget, but I remember the C-SPAN footage of Colin Powell presenting the WMD photos. I saw a bunch of trailers in a desert. Since when does trailer in desert=WMD storage facilities? If the Dem's who voted in favor of the war after viewing this evidence want to pretend that they were lied to and didn't just have their heads up their rears, well, I guess that's between them and their consciences. But let's not go Orwellian and change history. A significant number of Dem's voted in favor of the war, and thier support typically didn't start to fade until things started going badly. It is the kind of logic that pretends there is any significant difference between politicians of the two parties that led the US into this mess. I thought this was representative government. Not being an old, rich white person, I dont really see any significant representation in the government. I don't think I will ever understand how people are unaware that a large number of prominent Dems(Ted Kennedy comes to mind) come from the same spoiled, priviledged background as our glorious commander -in-chief (sarcasm). And its a questions why a large percent of Americans don't vote? Let's see, my choices are a liberally spending government which wastes huge quantities of money on unrealistic projects while favoring the death penalty and opposing abortion and gun control, or a iberally spending government which wastes huge quantities of money on unrealistic projects while opposing the death penalty and favoring abortion and gun control. Some two party system. The government is going to remain the financial black hole that it is until we get some fresh blood in there, and end the dominance of the Republocrats.

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