Written by: Jim Hansen
Thursday, September 20, 2007

Yesterday, Idaho's two senators Larry Craig and Mike Crapo again put partisan loyalty ahead of the sacrifices our troops and their families are suffering. They voted against Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's amendment to allow a decent interval between deployments. Currently, troops are being force to return to Iraq time and time again with insufficient time at home to recover because there is a shortage of reserve forces.

The Bush Administration insists that its Republican Senators remain blindly loyal and not buckle under pressure from the public. Sadly, only six Republican Senators stood up to administration pressure and supported the amendment. Sen. Webb needed 60 votes to move his proposal forward and secured 56.

The Military Officers Association and many retired military leaders strongly support the Webb Amendment, for obvious reasons: they have personally experienced how being deployed over and over impacts their marriages, their finances and the health and wellbeing of their families. The Bush Administration simply cannot tolerate any proposal for the military that they did not generate and with the help of Sen. Craig and Crapo and others the Administration dismisses all such ideas as political ploys. Not too surprising. This is a political war, so they see any idea to ameliorate its impact on people as political.

Sen. Craig and Sen. Crapo often refer to Bush as the "commander in chief" implying they have no choice but to follow his orders. That might be true if they were active military. But they are not. The people of Idaho hired them, not the Bush Administration. President Bush is their political head, not their commander. We, the people of Idaho, are their commanders. One of the poisons that have infected the process as a result of this war and occupation is that political and military roles and obligations have been deliberately blurred - undermining the integrity and public confidence in both.

Here is what Sen. Webb said about his amendment:

Listen to it then call Crapo and Craig and ask them what is it about this common sense idea that they refused to accept. Surely the partisan hand-slap they might get from the White House for being disloyal is far less than what our service women and men and their families have to experience.

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