Readings on Senatorial Perfidy

Readings on Senatorial Perfidy:

The best overall post on the subject is Cassandra's, which demonstrates how cleanly General Petraeus, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Pace, were ignored. General Petraeus in particular said what he would need at his recent confirmation hearings; the Senate voted to confirm him, and then to deny him those same resources.

"We would have 45-day gaps, which would mean that part of a territory would basically be vacated to the enemy and ... you would have to fight your way back in," Pace said.

In other words, your elected representatives are playing political games with the lives of our troops, and they will pay in blood. People will die pacifying Iraqi neighborhoods, then be forced to leave and the insurgents will come back. Then our troops will return and die trying to drive them out again while the Democrats complain that the war is unwinnable. Keep this in mind the next time you hear them talking about how they 'support the troops'. Sure they support us - they support our right to come home in body bags if it helps sweep them into office in 2008.

If they really 'supported the troops' they'd either demand an immediate troop withdrawal now and face the consequences at the ballot box (face it, there is no reason for another American to die if they don't intend us to win this war, and when you read this bill, it becomes quite plain that is the one thing the Democratic Party will not countenance) or honor up and get behind the surge.

Is it fair to call it perfidy (or treachery)? I think it is, for the reason Cassandra cites: not because they are trying to end the war, but because they are leaving people in place to die, knowing full well they will refuse those people the support they need either to win or to hold their ground. We had a long discussion at (former-pro war, now anti-war blogger) the Commissar's place not long ago (co-blogger Eric Blair gets mentioned toward the end).

You can see from what I have said that I am not advocating that Congress may not re-enter the field; I do not argue that the President has authority to wage war forever, and they may not say otherwise.

I have said specifically that they may use their Art. I powers to rescind the authorization and demand an end to the war. That isn’t explicit in the Constitution, but I think it’s a fair reading.

All I have asked is that we not cut off forces in the field from their support. If we aren’t going to support them, we should bring them home. If we aren’t going to bring them home, we should provision them.

You say the political class owes them nothing, but I disagree. They are owed something by every American, and the political class most of all. They are the ones who, when called, answered. They are the ones who left home and family, slept in dust storms, who have bled and died in the service to the will of the political class.

If that debt goes unanswered, there will be a price to be paid by our society. I do not know, in all truth and honesty, how to begin estimating it.

If that debt is not merely unpaid but denied — if people come to believe, as you have suggested, that the debt does not even exist — the price will be higher. The faith of a people in their nation reaps a beautiful interest in every endeavor that nation undertakes. A failure of faith, especially among that class that might be willing to volunteer for service, likewise exacts a usury that our nation will be sorry to pay.

The Senate has chosen to ignore that debt of honor. It intends, instead, to leave men in the field, but cut off their reinforcements. This is a dishonorable act, and a failure of faith. This is not what our fighting men deserve.

"They are men who give service and loyalty to us. I will return their service by serving their interests; and I will return their loyalty with my own, as fiercely as they have given."

Not the slender majority of Honorable Men and Ladies in the United States Senate.