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According to CNN today´s article as follows I would like to express some topics and reflexions about the war in Iraq:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House of Representatives on Friday voted 218-212 to approve a spending bill that includes a firm deadline -- August 31, 2008 -- for combat troops to leave Iraq.
President Bush said the House had abdicated its responsibility to protect the troops and denounced the vote as "political theater."
He said the vote had only one outcome: "It delays the delivery of vital resources for our troops."
The measure appears unlikely to pass the Senate.
Two House Republicans -- Reps. Walter Jones of North Carolina and Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland -- voted in favor of the bill. Fourteen Democrats voted against it.
After the bill's passage, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, told reporters that voters' voices "have been heard."
"Congress has acted on the concerns of the American people," she said.
Before the vote, Pelosi said the bill would address the problems in Iraq by "rebuilding our military, honoring our promises to our veterans, holding the Iraqi government accountable and enabling us to bring our troops home."
"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," she added. "The American people see the reality of this war -- the president does not."
But Republicans called the measure a "prescription for failure."
"We all want our troops to come home -- when the job is done," said Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas.
"We want to win. Internationally announcing our timelines for withdrawal literally hands the enemy our war plan," Johnson said. "What world superpower would do such a thing?"
Republicans also denounced the unrelated appropriations attached to the bill.
To help get reluctant lawmakers on board, Democrats added "sweeteners" to the $124 billion emergency supplemental spending bill.
The legislation includes some $21 billion to pay for items not in Bush's original request to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including $25 million to bail out spinach growers in California hurt by last year's E. coli outbreak. (Watch critics decry "emergencies" added to the bill )
The leadership had to win over anti-war Democrats who felt that the measure didn't go far enough. But some of the war's most liberal critics said they weren't buying it.
"Four years ago we were told we had no alternative but to go to war. Now we're told we have no alternative but to continue to war for another year or two," Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said before the vote "The fact of the matter is we do have alternatives."
Kucinich said, "Congress has the power to stop funding the war. That's what we should do. That's what we should have done and that's what I'm going to continue to work toward. We have to get out of Iraq, period."
However, Rep. James McGovern, an anti-war Democrat from Massachusetts who had been on the fence, said he would vote yes.
"I have come to the conclusion that defeating the supplemental bill before us today would send a message to George Bush and Dick Cheney that they will continue to have a free pass from this Congress to do whatever the hell they want to do," McGovern said during Thursday's floor debate on the measure.
White House promises veto
White House spokesman Tony Snow said Thursday the House bill "has zero chance of being enacted into law."
"It's bad legislation; the president's going to veto it, and Congress will sustain that veto," he said.
On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a version of the supplemental bill that calls for combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. Republicans say they'll fight to strip out the deadline provisions when the bill reaches the floor next week. (Full story)
Last week, Senate Democrats fell short, on a 50-48 vote, in another attempt to impose a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.
Once both the House and Senate versions are approved by their respective bodies, a conference committee will hammer out the differences.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for Congress to pass the bill quickly, or the military would be forced to take severe stopgap measures because of a lack of funding.
Among those measures, Gates said, would be slowing deployment of replacement troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and extending the tours of units already there.
"This kind of disruption to key programs will have a genuinely adverse effect on the readiness of the Army and the quality of life for soldiers and their families," Gates said. "I urge the Congress to pass the supplemental as soon as possible."
Snow also called for quick action.
"The clock is ticking," he said. "Money is going to run out for our forces in Iraq sometime next month."
My view:
The definition of war should be very clear here for us to discuss at the same level. According to Clausewitz, war is a political tool used to achieve political ends. So, war is an International Politics tool that are followed by others strategies like Blackmail, Bait and Bleed, Bloodletting, Balancing, Buck-Passing, Appeasement e Bandwagoning.
As we all come to know by now, the USA is far from wining the Iraq war. According to Clausewitz Theory of War, a State needs 3 steps to achieve victory as follows: 1- Invade enemy territory, 2- disable all retaliation power of combat of the army forces and finally 3- control the population. USA is easily conquer the first two steps but the third one comes always as a high price. The population that rebels against American troops can be categorized as guerrilla (according to Guerrilla´s theory of Clausewitz, Mao ans Laurence, there are two kinds: 1- to expel enemy forces from your territory and 2- confront and destroy the present government of your own country), such guerrillas have the main objective of attacking the regular invade army but not a front to front engagement but using the territory advantage acting like a mist that attack and evade with no previews notice. This strategy of a guerrilla tends to take out the regular army by make them tired to fight along the years, it has the ability to take the war for as many years that it can to either, rebuild a regular force or, as I think in Iraq´s case, make them retreat by the tired population that has no more patience to lose their soldiers and spend more and more money in a war with no apparent resolution. Without the population, the Government can no longer continue with war, they need population support as we all knows nowadays. The issue here, is that the President of United States has already engaged at the war´s path and so, as a great power in our world cannot leave the war from night to day, if they do so, the USA would lose one of the most important things in a multilateral or bilateral worlds called Credibility. Credibility is an extreme important factor to use in diplomacy (that is the same as bargain), to use that power to deterrence or comply the new States with Nuke program such as Iran. So, the arguments to take out USA troops from Iraq is increasing by each day, bush will need to use his veto power or whatever to grant the USA image, the problem here is how will he comes up to handle the internal problems and exit Iraq without looking like he failed, but his time to do so is coming short, every day and night.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House of Representatives on Friday voted 218-212 to approve a spending bill that includes a firm deadline -- August 31, 2008 -- for combat troops to leave Iraq.
President Bush said the House had abdicated its responsibility to protect the troops and denounced the vote as "political theater."
He said the vote had only one outcome: "It delays the delivery of vital resources for our troops."
The measure appears unlikely to pass the Senate.
Two House Republicans -- Reps. Walter Jones of North Carolina and Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland -- voted in favor of the bill. Fourteen Democrats voted against it.
After the bill's passage, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, told reporters that voters' voices "have been heard."
"Congress has acted on the concerns of the American people," she said.
Before the vote, Pelosi said the bill would address the problems in Iraq by "rebuilding our military, honoring our promises to our veterans, holding the Iraqi government accountable and enabling us to bring our troops home."
"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," she added. "The American people see the reality of this war -- the president does not."
But Republicans called the measure a "prescription for failure."
"We all want our troops to come home -- when the job is done," said Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas.
"We want to win. Internationally announcing our timelines for withdrawal literally hands the enemy our war plan," Johnson said. "What world superpower would do such a thing?"
Republicans also denounced the unrelated appropriations attached to the bill.
To help get reluctant lawmakers on board, Democrats added "sweeteners" to the $124 billion emergency supplemental spending bill.
The legislation includes some $21 billion to pay for items not in Bush's original request to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including $25 million to bail out spinach growers in California hurt by last year's E. coli outbreak. (Watch critics decry "emergencies" added to the bill )
The leadership had to win over anti-war Democrats who felt that the measure didn't go far enough. But some of the war's most liberal critics said they weren't buying it.
"Four years ago we were told we had no alternative but to go to war. Now we're told we have no alternative but to continue to war for another year or two," Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said before the vote "The fact of the matter is we do have alternatives."
Kucinich said, "Congress has the power to stop funding the war. That's what we should do. That's what we should have done and that's what I'm going to continue to work toward. We have to get out of Iraq, period."
However, Rep. James McGovern, an anti-war Democrat from Massachusetts who had been on the fence, said he would vote yes.
"I have come to the conclusion that defeating the supplemental bill before us today would send a message to George Bush and Dick Cheney that they will continue to have a free pass from this Congress to do whatever the hell they want to do," McGovern said during Thursday's floor debate on the measure.
White House promises veto
White House spokesman Tony Snow said Thursday the House bill "has zero chance of being enacted into law."
"It's bad legislation; the president's going to veto it, and Congress will sustain that veto," he said.
On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a version of the supplemental bill that calls for combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. Republicans say they'll fight to strip out the deadline provisions when the bill reaches the floor next week. (Full story)
Last week, Senate Democrats fell short, on a 50-48 vote, in another attempt to impose a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.
Once both the House and Senate versions are approved by their respective bodies, a conference committee will hammer out the differences.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for Congress to pass the bill quickly, or the military would be forced to take severe stopgap measures because of a lack of funding.
Among those measures, Gates said, would be slowing deployment of replacement troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and extending the tours of units already there.
"This kind of disruption to key programs will have a genuinely adverse effect on the readiness of the Army and the quality of life for soldiers and their families," Gates said. "I urge the Congress to pass the supplemental as soon as possible."
Snow also called for quick action.
"The clock is ticking," he said. "Money is going to run out for our forces in Iraq sometime next month."
My view:
The definition of war should be very clear here for us to discuss at the same level. According to Clausewitz, war is a political tool used to achieve political ends. So, war is an International Politics tool that are followed by others strategies like Blackmail, Bait and Bleed, Bloodletting, Balancing, Buck-Passing, Appeasement e Bandwagoning.
As we all come to know by now, the USA is far from wining the Iraq war. According to Clausewitz Theory of War, a State needs 3 steps to achieve victory as follows: 1- Invade enemy territory, 2- disable all retaliation power of combat of the army forces and finally 3- control the population. USA is easily conquer the first two steps but the third one comes always as a high price. The population that rebels against American troops can be categorized as guerrilla (according to Guerrilla´s theory of Clausewitz, Mao ans Laurence, there are two kinds: 1- to expel enemy forces from your territory and 2- confront and destroy the present government of your own country), such guerrillas have the main objective of attacking the regular invade army but not a front to front engagement but using the territory advantage acting like a mist that attack and evade with no previews notice. This strategy of a guerrilla tends to take out the regular army by make them tired to fight along the years, it has the ability to take the war for as many years that it can to either, rebuild a regular force or, as I think in Iraq´s case, make them retreat by the tired population that has no more patience to lose their soldiers and spend more and more money in a war with no apparent resolution. Without the population, the Government can no longer continue with war, they need population support as we all knows nowadays. The issue here, is that the President of United States has already engaged at the war´s path and so, as a great power in our world cannot leave the war from night to day, if they do so, the USA would lose one of the most important things in a multilateral or bilateral worlds called Credibility. Credibility is an extreme important factor to use in diplomacy (that is the same as bargain), to use that power to deterrence or comply the new States with Nuke program such as Iran. So, the arguments to take out USA troops from Iraq is increasing by each day, bush will need to use his veto power or whatever to grant the USA image, the problem here is how will he comes up to handle the internal problems and exit Iraq without looking like he failed, but his time to do so is coming short, every day and night.
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