Why do we need to do this in frount of our brave men & women when they are laying their lives on the line? If I were still in the armed serves, I'd really be ashamed of my country's lawmakers!

My husband has been home from Iraq for 3 months and now they want to send him back again this fall! He has soldiers under him that are still suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder---regardless they are all going back. Why are we playground monitors for this sandbox civil war?

I am truly thankful that we are once again witnessing a Democratic process - in the form of this debate...

While I may not like war, I do support our troops - but at the same time - I like the majority of American's believe that where we are today - and how we are going about things is just not working, and so I welcome this debate in our Congress, and I wish to continue my support for our Women and Men - and their families - for the service they are giving our country.

I am a Veteran. I want our people home, and quickly.

It is a sad time when we argue over how to murder instead of doing things like reform our schools, end the war on drugs, reforming our voteing system to a truely democratic and sure process, and reforming our tax code.
How real can this life really get?

If I were in the Armed Forces I would be ashamed of the lies and deceit that were used to bring us into this war by our very own President and Vice President. Thank God some sanity is being restored to our elected officials.

Larry,

Are you suggesting we have the debate secretly? or not at all? Democracy = Dissent

This has nothing to do with shaming our troops. This has to do with bad decisions made by our lawmakers from before, primarily a President who espoused bold faced lies. It was a shame that our President sent troops over there in the first place, it is a shame that our troops initially and even on occasion now do not have the appropriate armor or equipment to do their jobs, its a shame that those who led the operations had their hands tied behind their backs and could not execute a more comprehensive battle plan. The shame is not on our troops, they have done a fine job despite these kinds of impairments.

unfortunately, this has to be done. this is the people's will and this government is the peoples. this is the first step that says to the current administration.."the PEOPLE want a change".

this administration has shown time and time again that they only understand money and power. if the administration doesn't listen after this, there is little alternative except defund the war (money) or start impeachment proceedings (power). the administration have already shown they have no interest in listening to anyone about anything or trying to compromise.

I'm in the National Guard of Missouri at this time which would qualify me as one of those "brave men and women". There are many reasons why invading Iraq with ground troops was never a good idea. I'm ashamed of some of my congress people as well, but not because they are finally starting a process of debate. I'm ashamed of them because they let this administration use their votes to start and continue an un-winnable war (against terrorism?) in a country which had NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11 AS STATED BY PRESIDENT BUSH. The ONLY primary reason we were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan in such large numbers was to respond to 9/11. The question is not, have we failed our troops? The question is, how do we fix this series of blunders? My question is, how did I know this was a bad idea, but my congress people didn't?

If I were you I would be ashamed of my spelling.

The president has a plan which he says will effectively remove U.S. Involvement in Iraq by end of this year. Some people may question as to whether or not we should send more troops over to risk their lives. But how many more lives are we risking by hindering funding and support to the people over there. I don't think it was our place to invade Iraq, but I do question the consequences of bailing out on a war-torn country which we have effectively created.

A great majority of the citizens in the U.S. do NOT favor Bush's plan for a surge. Now a great majority of the Congress does NOT favor Bush's plan for a surge. And yet the surge is still scheduled to take place. Therefore, it seems to me that the tactics of Congress right now are to effectively utilize the democratic process to voice the country's opposition and call the president, to not just make changes, but make changes that the country will support. Don't complain that Congress is not supporting the troops. The President is not supporting the opinions of the citizens and the Congress of this democratic nation. If you don't agree with the tactics being used by Congress right than how else should one go about using the democratic process to stop this war?

let's not forget the main reason we went..the oil. there is a global competition for the oil. look how china and russia is growing. do some research on the internet. we are building permanent bases in iraq...PERMANENT. also, there are 5 permanent bases being build in afghanistan that just happen to be on both sides of the *proposed* northern pipeline in afghanistan. it really is, and always was, about the oil and control of it. makes me sad.

It is not "treasonous" for Congress to debate this -- stop and think about how ridiculous this statement is. It is their job requirement. They are required to do it. It's the law.

If you refresh your memory by reading the Constitution, the duties of the Legislature are listed *before* the duties of the Executive, you'll note.

Remember 911 and never cease to punish the moslem world for their gret service to the demon Allah.. while even one Moslem brethes God's good air this world is in peril. Kill the rugheads, give their land to Israel and their oil to America. God bless President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair for their holy crusade against the demon Allah.

It is those who do not support this resolution who do not support our troops. The Bush plan is no change in strategy but a modification (not a change in) tactics. The Republicans can't even figure out if the resolutin is irrelevant or a danger to the American way of life and in doing so they are proving themselves to irrelevant.

The first sentence deals only with supporting our troops. To vote against this is to vote against our troops. The second sentence says the obvious which is this change of tactics is just a continuation of a failed tactic. To do so is to increase causalities needlessly and the blood of those troops is on the hands who vote against this resolution.

Finally we are not talking about leaving Iraq but making a true change of strategy. What we are talking about is regional conference to partition Iraq into three states. This plan has the greatest chance of working. I think we can stabilize the situation and minimize American causalties. So don't say we don't have a plan!

Congress debates about a non-binding resolution that the President has already made clear he will ignore. Sounds like a dictatorship to me. The shadowy goings on of the Office of Special Plans, a Vice President who has no regard for the citizens of this country, a war based on, not just faulty, but fabricated intelligence, all I ask is why have these 'executives' not been prosecuted. Are you going to tell me that we impeach presidents because they lie about getting blow jobs but not for this? Shame on us.

Well said to all, I am a military member and I would like you to know, that I was opposed to the invasion because I could not see how it would help the US. I am still opposed to the war and it has proven itself to not help the US or the Iraqi people. Our leaders have and are failing us daily. They have lied to the people and to the troops. Who should be ashamed for non-support, our leaders. Not for openly discussing the value of a policy but for invading a country with no objective or plan. I have had my say.

Comments like that from Larry J Michels demonstrate exactly how little the president and the republic party care for the brave men and women of the armed forces and their families.

One only has to read the comments of Army Wife,
John S. Cobb, and Joel to understand.

I still can't believe the arrogant condescension often exhibited by the president and others like him. For example, "Ryan", who responds to our veterans with spelling critiques.

Don't the voices of our armed forces count for anything? Or just when they support the administration's point of view?

I would be a lot more interested and concerned about what the American public thinks if I had some inclination that they had any idea of what was going on in Iraq. They don't.

As a result of the surge of 21,500 troops, insurgents are finally reacting to us instead of us reacting to them. The surge has driven at least one major Shia leader out of Iraq. I'm not sure what the Democrats and the American public are looking for -- largely because the Democrats only criticize existing plans but never table any of their own -- but when major leaders are forced to leave the field that usually indicates an effective plan.

Someone needs to convince me that the Democrats stance on Iraq is not driven more by the desire to maintain a political upper hand than to do what is right. What is right is not defined by a popularity vote. Often, what is right is hard and unpopular.

It is almost always easier to do what is popular than to do what is right. We made this mess. Running away will not fix it, it will only make it easier for us to ignore it.

I have been reading every article and watching every minute of every story on every network and also monitoring global opinion on this war since the very beginning.

I have concluded that two things are most assuredly the case:

1) Terrorism is real (even Iran just got attacked).
2) War with terror occurs domestically or abroad.

What this means, aside from all the political positioning to "win the hearts and minds" of the American people in the next elections so that the governmentals can keep their fat pork bellies filled, is that there is a real war between extremist Islamics and extremist Christians in this world. Unfortunately, due to the unwinnable tenet of this war, our brave troops are caught between a rock and a hard place as are the unwitting souls of those recruited to be mujahadeen and die to get some virgins.

The bluster of activity at home presumes that the American People voted against the war when they elected Democrats to a majority. Reading enough about this position has told me that perhaps this is not the case. Americans, by and large, understand, after 911 and certainly today as well, that terrorism is real. They understand that it must be confronted and outlawed and pursued and eliminated as a statement that can be made on planet earth. What they do not understand is how this is going to be done. Indeed I make the case that NOT ONE "noteworthy" has yet to come up with a serious debate on how this issue is ever going to be solved. I site Russia who makes a killing every year on selling weapons to anyone who will buy them as one immense roadblock to success.

So you can sit there and get all riled up about what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan if you want to and march on Washington even but you must realize that soon the streets of America will look and feel like the streets of Baghdad. You will sit there in your armchair as "Armchair Commander of The Middle East" and say that THIS COULD NEVER HAPPEN HERE. I for one thought that arguement was forever over with the disaster of 911. The problem is that the lesson HAS NOT BEEN LEARNED. Not one little bit.

I am not standing behind Bush's lies. I think he should pay for them. I am standing behind this war because it means that we are taking this war to the terrorists where they live. I am also not standing behind the way this was started. But I am standing behind THAT it needed to be started in the first place.

America and the free world needs to take a step back, hold thier positions and realize that this war is not even NEAR being over. The world needs to WAKE UP and realize that the same thing that caused the original founders of America is now re-happening to this world. Religious oppression is now poised to take the world by storm again. Just because you believe a certain way is now the reason to kill someone. To end a life because of belief is insane.

I for one hope that we can have the positive step back and review the strategy of how we are going to get THE WORLD to outlaw barbarians. And don't you reply to this and say that the American Troops are barbarians. Because the same people who say this sitting comfortably in their ivory towers of idealism are the same folks who are going to be riding down the street in New York City in their BMW's and Mercedes and happen to be sitting on top of the subway car that explodes and decimates a city block of New York City. If you think this CANNOT HAPPEN HERE, think again.

So as you debate this issue please do not forget 911. Do not forget that this war is about terrorism. America needs to find a way to heal regarding lashing out at anyone and everyone after 911 and realize that initial reaction must now become planned action and NOT retreat.

The world justified our reaction to 911. Who would not? Congress overwhelmingly, and this means BOTH PARTIES, voted to go to war, to show strength to our enemies and hope to God that this would keep them at bay and off our soil. Well, the world is now tiring of the lash out. It is undirected. It wants, and I believe also that that the American people want, a directed approach to terrorism that outlaws it, apprehends those who are colluding with it and tries them and sentences them. There will always be crime, but most criminals know they will eventually be caught. Most terrorists do not think this way. Most terrorists do not care if they live or die. They believe that what they are doing gets them into heaven or whatever "reward" they have been brainwashed to believe is theirs if they blow themselves up for the "mission".

So the "debate" that I want to see is the debate about belief and whether or not it is going to be allowed to terrorize humanity any more. You are entitled to your belief. You ARE NOT DAMMIT entitled to force your belief on anyone else, period. Go home and worship the way you want but if you start to harm anyone with your belief expect to go to jail. If you kill for belief then expect to die. Only when the consequences of acting on belief are as serious as the act can any sort of reason enter the picture.

What God would want this? What God would make one kind of person and then another only knowing that they would eventually fight each other? Is this some sort of cosmic darwinian conflict for spiritual evolutionary dominance? I think not. I think this is insanity at its highest level since the Roman Empire and its pantheon of Gods and its Emperor who claimed he was a god.

Mankind needs serious help. Mankind needs to seriously stop thinking that it is the cream of the crop. Global warming is a fact. What they are not telling you is that the permafrost is getting ready to "pop" enough methane into the atmostphere that the earth will quickly revert to its steamy, rainy, cold blooded past. This will be unstoppable. On top of this reality law and order will be an afterthought.

Time to take a check up from the neck up humanity. This fragile thing called civilization is once again slipping from your inept hands. Your grocery stores will empty out and then you will turn on one another and even eat each other until there are a few scattered tribes left and the whole thing will start over again with the backdrop of vine covered cities rotting into oblivion. You are the defenders of civilization, not the spoiled rotten big kids on the block.

I hope this makes an impact because I know that, as surely as I am writing this well thought out and well read response to this issue, the consequence of the current stance by HUMANITY is one of extinction of civilization.

I hope reason prevails. However the only way it will is for action to start reflecting the realities at hand. If the debate starts talking less about borders and more about these fundamental problems faced by humanity on a constantly shrinking globe then we will survive and even thrive to the extent these actions become universal. To the extent they do not will spell the end of civilization. Our society has countless billions who rely on the "supply chain". These numbers are unheard of in the history of humanity. If that supply chain afforded by your civilization fails then you will witness horror beyond your wildest imagination. Hell will look like a picnic compared to the inhumanity that will plaque humanity as the warlords of America and the rest of the world wrest regoinal power and resources to stave off extinction of their region. You think this CANNOT HAPPEN? Well keep squabbling about this war and you will see it happen. Step back and re-evaluate your position and strike true and hard at the realities on the ground and wound the terrorists for real. Are you telling me that you cannot find a man and eliminate him? The technology and means exist. The world is not united against terror. That is why Osama still lives.

The American People need to lead the way with this congress and show the world an example of what is going to be done to terrorism. NOT IRAQ or IRAN or any other NATION that houses terrorists. Isolation of populations against this threat is NOT the way forward. The way forward is to outlaw terrorism globally and then when it happens it will be clear as an act of terror and who is going to stop you from arresting them or killing them? No one. The way it is now that cannot happen. Sympathies and strategies for getting what you want are stronger than saying violence as a way of getting what you want is wrong. Because that is what terrorism boils down to. Violence as policy.

Wake up. Use your brains instead of your rifles. Your brains are much more powerful than your guns and bombs. Stand up and be a force for change and actually call your representatives and tell them you want terrorism outlawed officially. Tell them to start legislation on outlawing terrorism. Tell them to start alliances with other nations to do the same. Tell them to start partnerships globally to track these outlaws and punish them so that they and their kind know that all of humanity is hunting them down to extinction.

I've said my peace. I hope that some no brained idiot responds to this with some party line so that everyone else who reads this and then reads their comments can plainly see how stupidity is commonplace when ideas are inbred.

They are coming here...

Well the scroll-trolling "They are coming here..." needs to go back to school. Al Qaeda owes its presence in Iraq entirely due to our presence there. You can fight them there, but it just makes more of them, some of whom will come here and attack the US on home soil again - just as supporting them against the Soviets proved to be a policy with disastrous blowback (thanks, Ronnie!).

Had we stuck to going after Al Qaeda - not as "law enforcement" as the kool-aid squad think, but as a global intelligence operation - we would today be safer and richer than we were five years ago.

We are not. Failed policies have to stop. We cannot allow our president to continue playing double or nothing on failed policies. It's like the madness of a gambler who keeps playing because he's lost so much already. A smart poker player knows he can cut his losses, get out of the hand, and try to secure a better position in the next one.

We aren't fighting the terrorists in Iraq. We are fighting the Iraqis, including the ones we trained and armed. And the president's current policy is to keep training and arming them and stay in shooting distance.

"Support the troops"? This phrase is being used in a very dishonest way by alot of folks in DC., as in: "we want to end the war, withold the funds, but we support our troops". If the politicians that oppose this rediculous protracted farse in Iraq were honest they would call for an immediate BINDING return of our troops to the good ol' USA where we need them, protecting our nation, instead of being picked off one by one in some foresaken sand hole in the middle of nowhere to appease some ego's, and avenge some historical mistake.

"Support the troops"? This phrase is being used in a very dishonest way by alot of folks in DC., as in: "we want to end the war, withold the funds, but we support our troops". If the politicians that oppose this rediculous protracted farse in Iraq were honest they would call for an immediate BINDING return of our troops to the good ol' USA where we need them, protecting our nation, instead of being picked off one by one in some foresaken sand hole in the middle of nowhere to appease some ego's, and avenge some historical mistake.

"Support the troops"? This phrase is being used in a very dishonest way by alot of folks in DC., as in: "we want to end the war, withold the funds, but we support our troops". If the politicians that oppose this rediculous protracted farse in Iraq were honest they would call for an immediate BINDING return of our troops to the good ol' USA where we need them, protecting our nation, instead of being picked off one by one in some foresaken sand hole in the middle of nowhere to appease some ego's, and avenge some historical mistake.

GET A LIFE YOU IDIOTS............NO MATTER HOW WE GOT THERE, WE ARE AT WAR.........LET THEM DO THEIR JOB SO THEY CAN COME HOME WHEN ITS TIME..........
I HOPE WE CAN LEAVE IRAQ SOON SO THAT WE CAN GO GET THOSE CRACK HEADS IN IRAN..........ALSO, I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT OR A REPUBLICAN AGAIN!

A debate, over whether or not to debate a motion to begin a debate...are you fricken kidding me? WTF is wrong with the people in Washington? The American public has been completely shut out. The Constitution is apparently being stashed under some crooked House member's desk. Any voice of criticism regarding this Administration from a person, persons, or the stinking gutless media has been discredited.
The President does not care WHAT you or anybody thinks. Remember, he is the Decider. Screw laws. And debate? Debate? There's no damn debate. There is just Bush and Cheney. And thats all you need to know. You elected him. Now we all just have to sit back and deal with it. No one has balls in this country. We are all F*****!

HOW IN THE WORLD can mostly REPUBLICAN congressmen and women continue to support such a failed mission in Iraq???? I see them on TV railing their arms to express their support for this Iraq war---WHY???
Dont they care about our innocent military lives that are being sacrificed for THEIR war???

How in the world can Republicans STILL support this horrible mistake--our being in Iraq??? How can THEY say SUPPORT OUR TROOPS and just leave them there to die???

I read everywhere in the media about Bush Bashing, Iraq, Taxes, FEMA, Economy. Though I am Canadian Conservative I do follow US politics. You have Politicians who are wanna be Neville Chamberlains who think they can do a better job than Bush, against the Hitler's and Stalin's and Sad dams of this world, yet few appreciate the gravity of the situation. Bush may not have made some of the best decisions, but give the man his due. His administration has the difficult task of trying to govern and maintain peace and security of its 250 million citizens, which is no small feat for its CEO Bush. If that is all President Bush had to do, he would most likely go down as one of your Greatest Presidents, but sadly it is not the case. Why? Well Gee let's see, the world relies on President Bush and it's citizens to be the World's Police Force, to protect them from the Saddams of this world, something I am sure President Bush and the US citizens dread to do but must in all consciousness enter into the worlds problems. World War II proved that successfully. No one likes to go to war. North America as a whole holds their Governments in disdain, yet when the majority of North Americans wake up in the morning after a peaceful and secure sleep in their home, the sun is shining, eat breakfast with their families and put in a 40 hour work week, kids in school, perhaps go out for a few beers with the guys or out for dinner with the family knowing all is well within your own universe is something other countries can only dream about but can't because of their own countries inability to establish peace and security for it's citizens.
Whether President Bush is successful or not in his desire for peace and stability for the Middle East, he will not please everyone. It is grossly unfair to blame Bush and his administration for the world's problems, but that is the nature of the beast. It's tragic that North Americans who have never known war and strife in their own country prefer to turn a blind eye to what's going on in the world, much like Britain's past PM Neville Chamberlain did with Hitler. In ending, sadly some Countries, Voters and opportunistic Politicians will demand President Bush fall on his sword regardless of Iraq's outcome.

Now COngress in pondering around with a resolution to criticize Bush, and his decision making for Iraq. This is just maddening! Has any watched Congress live? I wrote better speeches and made better cases, arguments and points in grade school in front of my classroom!
Its like they have thrown common sense out the window and completely cut themselves off from reality. Washington is sick. This country need CLEAN HOUSE!

Now COngress in pondering around with a resolution to criticize Bush, and his decision making for Iraq. This is just maddening! Has any watched Congress live? I wrote better speeches and made better cases, arguments and points in grade school in front of my classroom!
Its like they have thrown common sense out the window and completely cut themselves off from reality. Washington is sick. This country need CLEAN HOUSE!