38 Dem Candidates Form New Anti-this-war Bloc
From Paul Kane at the Washington Post:
More than three dozen Democratic congressional candidates banded together yesterday to promise that, if elected, they will push for legislation calling for an immediate drawdown of troops in Iraq that would leave only a security force in place to guard the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Rejecting their party leaders’ assertions that economic troubles have become the top issue on voters’ minds, leaders of the coalition of 38 House and four Senate candidates pledged to make immediate withdrawal from Iraq the centerpiece of their campaigns.
“The people inside the Beltway don’t seem to get how big an issue this is,” said Darcy Burner, a repeat candidate who narrowly lost to Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) in 2006.
The group’s 36-page plan does not set a specific deadline for when all combat troops must be out of Iraq. “Begin it now, do it as safely as you can and get everyone out,” Burner said.
The starkest difference between the group’s proposal, dubbed a “Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq,” and those embraced by many senior Democrats and the party’s presidential candidates is that it rejects the idea of leaving U.S. troops on the ground to train Iraqi security forces or engage in anti-terrorism operations. The group instead calls for a dramatic increase in regional diplomacy and the deployment of international peacekeeping forces, if necessary.
It should be called the Coalition of the Tilling, as they offer to turn swords into plowshares. It’s a heartening and long overdue sign to see as now voters get a real chance to elect a team committed to end the war. And if that’s what voters want, it also gives them a stronger Congress to insure that the promise will be kept.
