The Vote for Endless War
On Tuesday, December 18, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate combined to give President Bush $70 billion to carry the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into next summer. Only 23 Democrats and one independent supported an amendment by Senator Feingold that would have required the safe redeployment of troops from Iraq. Here are the senators who voted to end the war:
Akaka (D-HI)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Murray (D-WA)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Next summer, when the money runs out, a cutoff of funds will be unimaginable. The election will be too close. So our troops are committed till the end of the president's term; after all the talk, the Democrats have ended by obeying him. This capitulation marks the climax of one of the most extraordinary displays in history of a complex phenomenon: power wielded in the face of popular rejection, and power surrendered in spite of overwhelming public support. A president whose policy was disapproved by more than half of the American people chose to defy a majority whose midterm victory he himself had called "a rout." And the majority, saying they wished things were different, pleading the necessity of 60 rather than 50 votes, but never exacting reprisals or driving a hard bargain against defectors from their own ranks--the majority, again and again, backed down.
This definitive result of the 110th Congress will confirm the popular feeling that George W. Bush believes in his disaster more than the Democrats believe in anything.
Some day, an inspired historian will answer the question what the Democrats of the new majority in Congress were thinking in the months of December 2006 and January 2007. For consider their position. The report of the Iraq Study Group had lately told the president to pull back from Iraq; numbers of generals and retired military officers had registered their dissent from the war (a thing unheard-of in earlier wars); the party had on its side the good will of the public and the suffrage of the licensed experts. And then? The Democrats sat, and watched, and waited. They talked about their social policies. They knew if they waited long enough, the next move on Iraq would be the president's; and this apparently was what they wanted. They knew that his next move would be to widen the war. They had decided by February that they would not stop him.
Those who appeared most consequential in the scene were not the real movers. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can hardly have carried as much weight in these larger deliberations as Hillary Clinton and Rahm Emanuel. Senator Clinton outranked Senator Reid in fame, fortune, and influence; she was the apparent candidate by acclamation for the presidential race in 2008; and her desires, however conveyed, would count for more than those of an obscure and hesitant lawmaker. Rahm Emanuel had taken credit for the winning election strategy of 2006. Ascending with the majority, he avoided the substantial issue of Iraq, and addressed the need to get the best armor for the soldiers already there. Emanuel talked about armor, and soon Pelosi was talking about armor. All the while, on the floor of the Senate and in public speeches, Hillary Clinton gave her best energies to free the president to go after Iran.
If the Clinton-Emanuel axis is indeed a more accurate clue to the workings of the party than Reid-Pelosi, one may well ask what guided the accommodation of the Bush policy through 2007 by the de facto leaders of the opposition.
The premise on which, in fact, the two parties for all their differences seem now impressively unified, is the projection of American power in the Middle East. Whose interest does that serve? The list is long, and the proportions impossible to gauge. There are the oil companies (the province of Cheney and Bush), greedy for the last of a dwindling resource. Another half-century of profits is worth much more than a war to them. There is also Israel, with its largely uncritical American backers, including political supporters in both parties and financial supporters without whom the Democrats are lost (Senator Clinton in particular). Add to these the arms industry and the security bubble of the 2000s--from cluster bombs to retina scanners--alike dependent on the maintenance of this war and the urgency of the next, whatever the next may be.
Four superbases, we were told in 2003, were to be built for Americans in Iraq, but now there are five or six. As Clinton and Emanuel know, those bases are meant to be permanent. They will not be used only to secure Iraq and intimidate Iran, but to harry Russia by way of the friendly belt of former republics, and to raise a bulwark against the growing power of China. The missile interceptors we want to install in Poland and the radar station in the Czech Republic, about which Vladimir Putin was said to be unreasonably exercised, could indeed seem, to a suspicious eye, part of the same broad strategy. Camp Bondsteel, built on 955 acres in Kosovo, might also be supposed to make some contribution. The vice president is not the only American who does not want the Cold War to be over.
To judge by the votes of the 110th Congress, and by what has and has not been said on the campaign trail, some understandings are now clearly in place. The main agreement concerns what is not to be said. If either Clinton or Obama is the Democratic nominee, and if no new insurgency erupts, the Iraq war will drop away completely as an issue of the presidential race in 2008. To have prophesied this a year ago would have seemed fantastic; but the soothing indications are already being slotted in. Baghdad is now said to be "quieter." We are shown few pictures of American soldiers and fewer still of Iraqi civilians. The New York Times ran its story about the $70 billion appropriations vote on page 24. Nevertheless, December 18 will be remembered. It was the day when a thirteen- month contract was signed, and the domestic powers told us that nothing more could be done about this. Go back to the economy, they said, and the mortgage crisis, and the role of religion in politics and the views of undecided voters about gay marriage. While you are talking, the Vatican-sized embassy in Baghdad will be completed, and the superbases will go up. The next step will have been taken for projection of American power in the Middle East.
When did we agree to this? At what time, and in what place? The United States, for the first time in our history, is more feared than it is trusted, and more hated than it is feared. And the opposition does not dare to think aloud about the reasons.
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Exactly right.
Iraq has gone down the American gullet lubricated, as it were, by the oil we want and need.
The palms that are greased are the ones whose hands are crossed with silver and whose lies conned us into to supporting them.
Obama wants to be conciliatory and Hillary wants to hide her war-mongering ways behind the mantra of being tough. How about being greedy and dishonest?
Neocons and neoliberals are really the same animal under the skin.
The "mission" was to launch the war. Like Troy, it would only be a matter of time before a Trojan House was able to blind the American people to the death and suffering caused by the war. Then the acceptance of the death and suffering would overcome any objections and the Iraqis would be overcome by overwhelming force and tenacity. Then their oil would be ours!
Hillary will show the prize to her friends. Mission accomplished. Henry Kissinger planned the pipeline from Iraq to Tel Aviv in 1975. It will become a reality, reducing energy costs by 25% and weakening Syria.
The assault on the citadel of justice will be complete, even if the war was launched with a thousand lies. Shock and awe has triumphed but the hearts and minds have not been won. These military filibustering war-mongers have hidden their black hearts while taking the black gold.
This ("...vote for endless war")is sad but true. Also sad but true, the American public seems to care less about the mess in Iraq now than it should. Its no longer the number one issue. War is too easy to "forget" when you or your child are not being drafted etc. From the very beginning, this episode has seemed unreal to too many Americans. The price we will pay for generations to come is all too real, and we will be cursed by our grandchildren for our lack of responsibility. But that's not real to us either I guess.
This analysis is spot on, if you buy the democracy line. However, this whole business of politics is no more than a dog and pony show, which makes this post:
"The ponies are just running in circles, and the dogs keep jumping through hoops?!"
I had a couple more questions on this, first,
which 'defense' corporation are you invested in,
and second, how many more army officers do you
think will be hauled back home in handcuffs for
trying to embezzle money?
Thanks
Untill we stop electing all these idiots on the basis of how good looking they are or how tall they are or how much money they have or if they are "into GOD" or if we could be drinkin' buddies with them we will only reap what we sow!
What will amaze historians is the time it took from the development of public choice theory until the public was told about it, and all the mystification and faux bewilderment purveyed by the educated class in the meantime.
I don't agree that, at this point, voting to fund the war means supporting the war. It means Bush is holding our troops hostage-- he *would* keep them in Iraq without the funding they need to do their job. Democrats have no choice. If they don't fund, the troops they support will be not only stuck in Iraq but stuck there without the things that might keep them alive.
So before we beat up on Democratic politicians too much, let's remember-- the American people are to blame. Look at Democrats who support Hillary 45% to Obama's 25%. Doesn't her vote to authorize this war we are now forced to fund so our troops aren't left hung out to dry mean anything to Democrats? The same for Biden, Dodd and Edwards.
If the American people were as decent as we're always reminded we are, we'd give all the pro-war politicians a swift kick in the pants and send their sorry Bush-appeasing butts out of town. Instead, Pelosi & Co. have to deal with a nation that falls for the same Bush gag every time-- "Democrats are weak."
I feel sorry for Pelosi, not the Democratic voters who chose Kerry over Dean and may very likely choose Hillary over Obama, who called this a "stupid war" long before it was popular to do so.
Two words: "Term Limits"...
What you see described is the result of the "career politician", beholden to the campaign dollar. Rep or Dem, doesnt matter, eventually, they drink the cool aid and this is the government you get.
Let's finally be honest with ourselves. While the People of America have mostly been a Peace loving people, Since the mid 1800's we have not had a single 30 year period when we have not either expanded our territory by war or had a war. Our government has never been peaceful. Propaganda got better after WW1 so we are constantly told "How good we are as a nation" but if we are truely honest with our history we have always been about expansion at the expense of other peoples . We support Israel because they are JUST LIKE US . We herded our indeginous people onto reservations and then repeatedly reduced their size and did our best to destroy their culture. If the people of this country threw the PIGS that occupy our goverment out for an election cycle they would be back in the trough feeding on our money inside of 10 years . Nothing short of a second revolution will straighten out this mess if even that would work. To start we have to have term limits on all Federal elective offices. We also need an independent investigative arm with laws giving 50 years at hard labor for accepting a dollar in bribes or campaign contributions with public funding of election campaigns. Repeal laws that support the FICTON of the Corporate Person. Election of our Supreme Court (once again with term limits). And even if we did all that i hold small hope of us ever becoming a free people ruled by a Blind Law that treats all as equals. And i for one would rather see us go back to bicycles and horses that to send a single young person to die for oil ever again!!
Mr. Bromwich, surely you are not as naïve as your piece makes you seem. I feel certain that you are aware that money from the military-industrial complex regularly makes its way to the floor of the House and Senate and that it buys those votes which support the Bush war machine. You must also be aware that those congress persons and senators who have been brought and paid for are guided by the will of their “supporters” rather the welfare of their constituents. Congress has not been chided as “The best government money can buy” without some justification.
So what can a helpless country do to extricate itself from these onerous circumstances? Twenty three senators are not enough! The American people have to wake up and pay attention to how their representatives vote, recognize when they are voting against their wishes, and return the favor by voting those representatives out of office. It should be a given that selling a vote is a grounds for termination.
Retaliate against those who are benefiting from this war by removing your patronage to the fullest extent possible. For example, by riding my bicycle and walking when possible, I’ve reduced my usage of gasoline to a tank full a month (about 11 gallons). Small things matter, I’ve stopped eating fruits and vegetables out of season because I believe they must be shipped some distance and thus use petroleum products.
Finally, stop your children from volunteering to serve in the armed forces. When military recruitment continually falls short then they will get the message that the American people will not stand for unnecessary wars!
Bless you, David Bromwich, for keeping this front and center.
This vote did it for me. Particularly in light of the new BBC poll of Iraqi citizens in Southern Iraq, released right after the vote, which highlighted how fundamentally undemocratic and repressive our continuing presence in Iraq is, according to the people whose nation we occupy. AGAINST. THEIR. DEMOCRATIC. WILL. Yet, also on December 18th, the United Nations Security Council shamefully voted to officially 'bless' another year of this grotesque, authoritarian injustice against the people of Iraq.
The BBC deserves an award for working to understand what the people of Iraq think and want, despite the purposeful disinterest in the opinions of Iraqis shown by Washington and our propaganda-friendly media. Asking not what the corrupt Iraqi Green Zone figureheads, installed by the U.S., parrot on behalf of their occupiers, but what the people of Iraq - who those figureheads and their American bosses are exploiting and repressing at every turn - think of our armed presence in their land.
'Like having a great weight lifted off our chests,' is how one Iraqi described the aftermath of the departure of British troops from Basra.
Chris Dodd's integrity on FISA proved there was another way, just the day before, and then this... Even Russ Feingold will only go so far with his rhetoric about Iraq. The debate on his amendment could at least impact the public coverage somewhat, if Feingold would explain what the IRAQI PEOPLE want, as relayed in multiple opinion polls, instead of skirting the ugly truth about what our UNWANTED occupation is all about so as to avoid stepping out on 'unauthorized' new ground.
The media can't be forced to tell the truth if no one in Congress will point it out, loudly, clearly, and repeatedly, with the moral outrage it demands.
Thank you for pointing out the truth, even while all those holding our power to effect change [Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 - occupation-ending power that resides SOLELY in the hands of our Congress, no presidential acquiesence required] fall silent, and play dead.
Great Post, as always!!
You mentioned Rahm Emanuel. What many of you don't know about Rahm Emanuel:
"His father, the Jerusalem-born Benjamin M. Emanuel is a pediatrician, and was a member of the Irgun, a radical Zionist terrorist group in the 1940s." - Irgun was the Zionist terrorist organization that blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing mostly British civilians in 1947. They also committed genocide in 1948 against Palestinian villages in trying to expel the Palestinians from Palestine (which would later become Israel).
"Emanuel served as a noncombatant in the Israeli army during the 1991 Gulf War."
"Emanuel's knowledge of the top donors in the country, and his rapport with potential donors within the Jewish community helped Bill Clinton amass a then-unheard-of $72 million in 1992. Following the campaign, Emanuel became a senior advisor to Bill Clinton at the White House from 1993 to 1998. "
"Emanuel is said to have "mailed a rotting fish to a former coworker after the two parted ways."[8] On the night after the Clinton election, "Emanuel was so angry at the president's enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting 'Dead! ... Dead! ... Dead!' and plunging the knife into the table after every name."[4] His "take-no-prisoners attitude" earned him the nickname "Rahm-bo"
"During his original 2002 campaign, Emanuel "indicated his support of President Bush's position on Iraq, but said he believed the president needed to better articulate his position to the American people."
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Do not expect a significant change in how things work in Washington until we:
Institute public financing with severe punishment for infractions.
Clean up the voting system, likewise.
Institute presidential elections by popular vote.
And put severe restrictions on lobbyists.
Since politicians are readily bought and sold, honesty in government will have to be force-fed to them with much more than a slap on the wrist when they go astray.
With the entrenched systems in place, the foregoing will be a formidable challenge and none of the above may become realities in our lifetime.
Public Support only in the polls with no action equals Unresponsive Elected Officials,
1thirteen3
Plain and simple - They have failed. We elected the democrats to the majority to help end this war, and they are only perpetuating it instead. We gave them the benefit of the doubt and tried to rationalize the constant objections to their efforts, but no more of that...It is now obvious that we cannot rely on our elected representatives to end this war, either because they don't have the spine to do so, or maybe they secretly want to keep the occupation going as much as Bush, maybe even more. We the people need to shoulder the load and do this ourselves now. It's time to start looking at more extreme measures..
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