End the War? Congress Needs a Big Play

Commentary
By Scott McLean

Other than nervously walking in and out of the living room dozens of times Sunday afternoon during the Bears-Seahawks game, I tried to come up with some thoughts on why President Bush would want to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq.

I still am scratching my head, trying to explain it to myself. I'm puzzled by the current direction of the war. The game was equally confusing.

The two defenses couldn't do much of anything to stop the offenses.

Somehow Chicago won the game with a field goal in overtime, even though they had problems tackling Seattle's star running back. Yeah, I missed some plays because I kept visiting the kitchen.

I drank way too much soda pop, began to feel like an enormous parade balloon, then drifted off to sleep before the sun went down.

If I had a picture of myself snoring, I would insert it here, though I'm sure you feel lucky I don't.

When I finally woke up, it was dark outside, the perfect setting to do more thinking and writing on the topic of American politics and Iraq.

After typing out several paragraphs, I came back here to add: the defense is not working.

Overtaking Saddam Hussein and his regime was no problem for the U.S. and allied forces. However, the whole idea that the U.S. military could somehow stop all the terrorism and sectarian violence in Iraq has come up short.

Through the air, the U.S. military is superior, but on the ground, in a civil war-like environment, the military, doing what the Iraq's police should by now be doing, has been unable to win.

And unlike a football game, there's no long field goal that can end whatever you want to call what's going on in Iraq.

Is there a way to end it, stop the bloodshed, replace violence with calm and tranquility. At the moment, a happy ending doesn't seem likely.

President Bush's decision for more troops is directly opposite to the wishes of Americans, as indicated in public opinion polls and the landslide win by Democrats in the November '06 congressional elections, in which the big issue was the direction of the war.

The president must find a way to justify the addition of troops to Democrats in charge of Congress. They are mounting strong opposition, as they should.

Following the president's speech, Democrats had strong criticisms for the increase in troops. Bush, a Republican, said Democrats should come up with an alternative plan if they didn't like his plan in Iraq.

Some Democrats, though by no means all, have warned that funds could be cut off, although it's still hard to say what form that would take or whether such a political move would have any success.