- The US electorate sent a clear, unequivocal message in
the November mid-term elections. End the Iraq war and bring home the troops.
Many supporting war in the 109th Congress lost out to more moderate voices
taking over their seats because voters want change and expect new faces
to deliver starting with the top issue on voters' minds in recent polls
- Iraq. A majority of the public demands it, protests and heated rhetoric
continue building over it, and the Congress is about to disappoint again
proving getting into war is easy but even an act of Congress can't get
us out because doing nothing is less risky than taking a stand against
the prevailing view in Washington.
-
- So the best this Congress can offer is non-binding stuff
with no meaning and a wishy binding proposal rolled out March 8 guaranteeing
support for the war with billions more spending than the administration
wants. It also sets a timetable for partial withdrawal far enough in the
future to be laughable. It proves again expecting elections to change things
in Washington is like betting on an early end to winter in Chicago. Hope
springs eternal but never fails to disappoint.
-
- The House proved it February 16 sending a pathetic non-binding
no-action message repudiating the administration's decision to "surge"
more troops to Iraq showing its spirit lay in its rhetoric, not in its
actions where it counts. The floor language was long, loud and toothless
with pieties from House Speaker Pelosi saying "We owe our troops a
course of action in Iraq that is worthy of their sacrifice" but failing
to provide one. So much for resolve. The Senate was even more non-binging
than the House failing for second time February 17 even to pass a procedural
measure to allow for a full vote on a resolution opposing more troops guaranteed
to make things worse as they're sent. Once again with chips on the line,
both Houses of Congress show party member profiles in courage are as rare
as ones with honor and integrity or like finding a friend in a city Harry
Truman once complained about saying if you want one in Washington, "get
a dog."
-
- Politics, Washington-style proves again campaign promises
are empty, the criminal class is bipartisan, and the atmosphere is charged
with empty rhetoric and business as usual. Instead of ending the war, Democrats
propose continued war with more funding in new legislation sounding like
an old Miller Lite commercial. Their plan is drafted to sound good, but
not be ful-filling as it won't work and won't pass both Houses or override
a presidential veto signaled by White House spokesman Dan Bartlett saying...."it's
safe to say it's a nonstarter for the president." So much for Democrat
intentions, good or otherwise.
-
- The new legislation calls for withdrawing US combat troops
beginning no later than 120 days following passage of legislation to be
completed by September 1, 2008 in the House version and suggests March
31, 2008 only as a goal in the Senate proposal. It also calls for George
Bush to certify Iraq's "government" is progressing toward established
"benchmarks" July 1 and October 1 leaving that judgment to a
president always claiming progress in the face of clear evidence on the
ground proving otherwise.
-
- Left out of the proposal is what Democrats like John
Murtha (no dove) and other so-called "moderates" in the party
wanted in it to prevent further escalation of war:
-
- -- A call for a political, not military solution to the
conflict.
-
- -- Changing the military's mission to training, logistical
support and "target(ing) anti-terrorism operations."
-
- -- Requiring the Pentagon to abide by combat readiness
and training standards to include proper equipment and enough time for
recuperation.
-
- -- Language prohibiting no further war funding after
September 1, 2008.
-
- -- Mandating deployment extensions not exceed 365 days
for the Army and 210 days for Marine units. Unmentioned is why should there
be any let alone what right have we to be there in the first place.
-
- -- On March 12 the Democrat leadership backed off further
announcing their proposal will exclude any limitation on Bush's unilateral
right to attack Iran, including with nuclear weapons, bowing to the demands
of the Israeli Lobby and Republican hawks.
-
- When it emerges in final form, legislation from both
Houses will be another lesson in Politics 101 - same old, same old meaning
both parties in both Houses support imperialism on the march, and Congress
will do nothing to stop it, rhetoric aside intended only to soothe, comfort
and again deceive the electorate.
-
- This proposal gives George Bush unrestricted power to
continue waging war masquerading beneath rhetoric to curtail him. It provides
near-unlimited continued funding giving him cover in the name of national
security to act as he pleases, placing no restraint on his deploying as
many additional combat brigades and support troops as he wants, with no
restrictions on how long they'll remain. It also allows an undetermined
number of US forces to stay in Iraq in perpetuity the way they still are
in Germany, Japan and South Korea proving when America shows up anywhere
we're not leaving - ever.
-
- Congressional Democrats have also larded their bills
with funding for Afghanistan, relocation of US troops from bases in Europe
and Asia, homeland security, veterans' health care (far too little), farm
disaster aid, Gulf Coast recovery and flu pandemic preparation in the usual
kind of hodge-podge legislation always coming from Congress likely to add
still more provisions costing more billions in its final form. In hopes
of getting enough votes for passage, this and other small print pork ad-ons
lard the bills the usual way things are done on Capitol Hill. No need
to guess who picks up the tab.
-
- Congressional Authority to Wage or End Wars
-
- Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution authorizes
only Congress to declare war even though since 1941 it deferred that authority
unconstitutionally to the president. Congress also has power to end wars.
What it lacks is backbone stiff enough to do it by cutting off funding
because it alone controls the federal purse strings. Article I, Section
7, Clause I says: "All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in
the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with
amendments as on other Bills." Either House may originate an appropriations
bill although the House claims sole authority to do it. Either House may
amend bills of any kind including revenue and appropriations ones. Congress
may have trouble rescinding funding already approved, but there's no disputing
its power to withhold future amounts without which wars end and troops
are withdrawn.
-
- Congressional appropriation power is the key. In the
House it resides in the Appropriations Committee and in the Senate with
the Committee on Appropriations both charged with the power given it by
Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution saying: "No money
shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations
made by law; and a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures
of all public money shall be published from time to time."
-
- This language means only Congress has constitutional
power of the purse it alone can authorize by laws both Houses must pass.
That includes the federal budget in which spending for wars and all other
discretionary and mandatory categories are included (like servicing the
federal debt). Only Congress can fund them, and no funding means no spending
meaning Congress alone can end the Iraq war if it wishes. Cut off the
funds, war and occupation end, and troops come home with or without presidential
approval - or at least that's how it's supposed to work and has in the
past.
-
- How Congress Ended the Vietnam War
-
- Cutting off funds finally ended the Vietnam war after
Congress was mostly deferential to presidential authority throughout the
1960s and early 1970s. In 1964, it granted Lyndon Johnson broad authority
to use force and provided funding for it. Still, unlike today, some bold
legislators then publicly challenged the administration applying some but
inadequate budgetary pressure. An early critic was Senator Frank Church
who said early on sending troops to Vietnam would be a "hopeless entanglement,
the end of which is difficult to see." Others in Congress agreed
but voiced it privately. They included noted senators like William Fulbright,
Albert Gore Sr. (the former vice-president's father), Stuart Symington
and Majority Leader Mike Mansfield.
-
- Even Lyndon Johnson was conflicted about the war early
on, had doubts on what he was getting into, and privately expressed them
in May, 1964 to his best Senate friend Richard Russell in taped Oval Office
conversations. He wanted advice about the "Vietnam thing," Russell
called the "damn worse mess I ever saw" warning we weren't ready
to send troops to fight a jungle war. He told Johnson if the option was
sending over Americans or get out "I'd get out" and the territory
wasn't a "damn bit" important.
-
- That was three months before the fateful Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution empowered the president to wage war without congressional approval
which he did while believing and saying the war was unwinnable. It ruined
his presidency, shortened his life, and ended it a disgraced, defeated
man who once was bigger-than-life as Senate majority leader and then President.
-
- While still in office, the war deteriorated and influential
congressional Democrats used their investigatory power to force contentious
but ineffective public debate. It began as early as 1966 in the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee chaired by William Fullbright who no longer
could conceal his private opposition to a war he opposed. Hearings went
on forcing the administration to face up to budgetary consequences of war
and peacetime social program priorities at a time Johnson's Great Society
meant something and included his War on Poverty that would be an unimaginable
priority under George Bush.
-
- In 1968, Johnson accepted a $6 billion budget cut in
exchange for a tax surcharge to curb growing inflation that wasn't enough
to keep it from getting out of hand later on. He went along with powerful
Democrats concerned enough about a "guns and butter" economy
to reduce some of the former for their more important domestic agenda.
That's impossible today under George Bush and a bipartisan Congress committed
to shredding the nation's social safety net for reckless "global war
on terrorism (GWOT)" spending meaning wars without end and big profits
for their corporate paymaster allies.
-
- Johnson's Great Society had different ideas that continued
under Richard Nixon under whom most people forget capital punishment was
halted, abortion was legalized, EPA and OSHA were established, Supplemental
Security Income (SSI) was created, and the first large-scale integration
of public schools in the South began along with normalizing relations with
China. Nixon was bad, but not all bad.
-
- But he was baddest of all on Vietnam (not Watergate)
as war continued under the Nixon Doctrine. It included the secret war
on Cambodia killing hundreds of thousands leading to the rise of the Khmer
Rouge Gerald Ford supported as an anti-Soviet ally ignoring their scorched
earth policies against their own people. It also continued massive bombing
and Vietnamization to let South Vietnamese troops do our killing for us
so US forces could withdraw just like today's plan is to let Iraqis do
our fighting and dying while we train them inside secured permanent super-bases
we won't give up no matter what, or so we say as we did in Vietnam till
we did.
-
- Nonetheless, under Johnson and Nixon, Congress reasserted
its power of the purse incrementally. It was mostly political posturing
in the 1960s, but by June 30, 1970 the Church-Cooper amendment (attached
to a supplemental aid bill) passed stipulating no further spending for
soldiers, combat assistance, advisors, or bombing operations in Cambodia.
It was the first congressional budgetary act limiting funding for the
war. Nixon ignored it but others followed leading to the key Church-Clifford
Case 1972 Senate amendment attached to foreign aid legislation to end all
funding for US military operations in Southeast Asia except for withdrawal
subject to the release of prisoners of war. It was the first time either
House passed legislation to end all war funding. It was defeated in the
House but showed anti-war forces strengthening that in time would prevail.
-
- They finally did in June, 1973 when Congress passed the
Church-Case amendment ending all funding after August 15. Congress then
overrode a presidential veto passing the War Powers Act (still the law)
that year limiting presidential power by requiring the chief executive
henceforth to consult Congress before authorizing troop deployments for
extended periods. Unlike today, Congress began taking its check and balancing
role seriously enough to act, if slowly, to curtail presidential authority
and assert its own with the most important power it has - of the purse
that forced Richard Nixon to end the Vietnam war. It can do it again today
as then but so far shows little inclination or courage with few and rare
exceptions, one being a modest effort by Senator Russ Feingold who detailed
his position on the Senate floor even though now he's gone wishy on it.
-
- Senator Feingold's Position on Ending the Iraq War
-
- First the good news. Everyone in Congress knows the
law, but Feingold had it in mind in remarks delivered February 16, 2007
on the Senate floor saying people want the war ended, and Congress should
stop funding it. On January 31, he introduced the Iraq Redeployment Act
of 2007 to force the president to redeploy US forces there by cutting off
war funding. He said "We must end our involvement in this tragic and
misguided war. The President will not do so. Therefore, Congress must
act." The same senator was one of 23 in the upper chamber voting
against H.J. Resolution 114 on October 11, 2002 authorizing George Bush
to use US Armed Forces against Iraq. On August 17, 2005, he was the first
senator calling for withdrawing US forces from the country and a timetable
to do it suggesting a completion date of December 31, 2006. He further
stated April 27, 2006 he would move to amend emergency appropriations funding
of $106.5 billion requiring troop withdrawal instead. He also introduced
a March 13, 2006 Senate resolution to censure George Bush for illegal wiretapping
in violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requiring
court approval the president never sought.
-
- Feingold got nowhere, but at least he tried even though
his record isn't lilly pure. His end of February comments showed it saying
congressional Democrats are beginning to move in the right direction on
Iraq. He knew then and now that's false and saying it tarnished his otherwise
good intentions. He also praised the flawed March 8 Democrat leadership
proposal to continue funding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with legislative
provisions for troop withdrawals by 2008 that's wishful thinking at best.
-
- Nonetheless, Feingold stood tall earlier as the only
senator voting against passage of the USA Patriot Act in October, 2001.
He also fought its renewal and is now part of a bipartisan congressional
minority demanding lawmakers defend our constitutional rights because those
on Capitol Hill swore an oath to do it. Further, he opposes the president's
right to "surge" new troops to Iraq, believes the notion is flawed
and unconvincing, and feels congressional action must go beyond nonbinding
resolutions. It must include Congress using "its power of the purse
(not about) cutting off funds for troops (but) cutting off funds for war."
He rightly believes Congress has constitutional power to do it and wants
a strategy for getting them out to be redeployed "within the context
of the global fight against al-Quaida....and other international terrorist
organizations."
-
- Indeed Feingold isn't true blue, but at least he's got
it half right even if he sadly misstates the terrorist threat that's a
home-based state-sponsored one inciting people around the world we attack
to strike back. Ending the threat is simple as the senator knows. Stop
attacking them, and they won't hit back, but keep it up as we do relentlessly,
and it guarantees eventual harsh blowback at home and abroad certain to
get worse and may become catastrophic in US cities if the administration
pursues a plan to attack Iran, with or without nuclear weapons.
-
- Is There An Edward Boland in the House....or the Senate?
-
- Readers may forget his name but should recall his amendment
during the 1980s Contra wars when the Reagan administration secretly escalated
them. It led to the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986 involving illegal administration
arms sales to Iran, then illegally diverting funds from them to US-armed
Contra forces adding to what CIA supplied them with through illegal drugs
trafficking.
-
- In 1982, the House passed the Boland Amendment as a rider
to the Defense Appropriations Act of 1983. It cut off CIA and other intelligence
agency Contras funding used against Daniel Ortega's Sandinista National
Liberation Front (FSLN) that led the popular 1979 revolution ousting the
hated US-backed Somoza dictatorship. The bill became law because politicians
from both parties were outraged by Ronald Reagan's secret Central American
wars undertaken without notifying congressional oversight committees as
required. The president went around the restriction, got in trouble doing
it, and only escaped criminal responsibility when the Tower (investigating)
Commission absolved him other than to blame him for not better supervising
his subordinates.
-
- What Congress did in 1982 and during the Vietnam war,
it can do now with full constitutional authority backing it. With an administration
possibly heading for nuclear war with Iran, Congress must head it off,
defund the Iraq war and end our ill-fated adventurism in the Middle East.
Some in high places want it, but it remains to be seen what's next and
whether a majority in Congress will ever put their legislative powers where
their rhetoric is, act before it's too late, and be able to override a
certain presidential veto from an administration bent on wars without end
for goals impossible to achieve.
-
- Is There An International Lawyer in the House or Senate?
-
- None are needed as lawmakers are duty bound to be law-readers
to know and understand the Constitution they swore to uphold "so help
them God" who may not sympathize with those using the Almighty's name
in vain. That includes knowing Article Six stipulating "This Constitution
and the Laws of the United States....and all Treaties made (to which the
country is a signatory) shall be the supreme Law of the Land (and) The
Senators and Representatives (and) Members of....State Legislatures, and
all executive and judicial Officers....are bound by Oath....to support
this Constitution (and everything in it so help them or be criminally liable)."
-
- That includes the aforementioned treaties of which the
UN Charter is one to which this country is a signatory and bound by its
provisions including its Chapter VII. It allows the Security Council to
"determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the
peace, or act of aggression" and if necessary take military or other
action to "restore international peace and stability." It permits
a nation to use force only under two conditions: when authorized to do
it by the Security Council or under Article 51 allowing the "right
of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against
a Member....until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international
peace and security."
-
- No nation attacked this one on 9/11, and no Security
Council resolution authorized the US to go to war against Afghanistan or
Iraq. In both instances, US military actions were willful and malicious
acts of illegal aggression the Nuremberg Charter called the "supreme
international crime" above all others making every member of Congress
supporting them criminally liable along with George Bush, but who'll hold
them to account. It's why no one in Congress ever mentions what should
be central to any "debate" on the war and why no mainstream journalists
worthy of their profession have courage to remind them.
-
- There's no reminder either that Article One, Section
8, Clause 11 of the Constitution gives Congress alone power to declare
war so presidents never have sole authority to do it. It's how the Founders
wanted it as James Madison wrote in 1793 that the "fundamental doctrine
of the Constitution....to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in
the legislature." And George Mason stated during the constitutional
convention the president "is not safely to be trusted with" the
power to declare war. Sadly it hasn't worked out that way. The president
and Congress only observed the supreme law of the land five times in the
nation's history, the last being in December, 1941 following Japan's attack
on Pearl Harbor.
-
- Following WW II, Harry Truman criminally broke the law
setting a post-war precedent his successors followed, and no Congress intervened
to stop them. It made every post-war president criminally liable but none
more so than George Bush and all in Congress conspiring with him. Following
9/11, the president rightfully called the attacks acts of terrorism (whoever
was responsible) as they are under US law even though international law
provides no generally accepted definition of this crime. They weren't
acts of war, and calling them that crossed the line breaking the law as
only nations can attack one another, not individuals. No evidence existed
then or now Afghanistan was behind them nor did Saddam pose an imminent
threat justifying our aggression.
-
- George Bush tried and failed getting legal Security Council
cover for both wars. He then tried getting it from Congress, couldn't
get his preferred formal declarations and had to settle for joint-War Powers
resolution authorizations to protect the country against international
terrorism he chose to do by waging illegal wars against two countries.
-
- The result today is a nation embroiled in two unwinnable
wars some high officials and observers feel are the greatest strategic
blunders in the nation's history. Combined they may also end up our greatest
crime surpassing in lives lost the mass carnage we inflicted on Southeast
Asians. That's the legacy of George Bush about to get a renewed lease
on life to continue his reign of terror on the greater Middle East for
another two years in spite of mass public opposition to it worldwide.
-
- The people have spoken, but imperialism marches on aiming
next at target Iran with nuclear weapons cleared for use if an attack is
launched. If they are in any future conflict, every member of Congress
will be criminally liable to indictment by the International Criminal Court
(ICC) in the Hague according to University of Chicago professor Jorge Hirsch
even if they're authorized without congressional approval. Hirsch states
why:
-
- -- the act will be one of "most serious crimes of
international concern."
-
- -- Congress funded the weapons' creation paying the military
to use them.
-
- -- Congress knew having these weapons means they may
be criminally used.
-
- -- Congress can act preventively now to prevent these
weapons being used. Failure to do so is a crime.
-
- -- If they are, at least some in Congress "actively
aided, abetted and assisted in the commission of the crimes."
-
- Hirsch explained further that Congress has "constitutional
power to legislate" conditions, limits and restrictions over if, how
and when the president can authorize military use of nuclear weapons as
commander in chief. Even more damning, he points out, is the Bush Doctrine
policy illegally proclaiming the right in various national security documents
to wage preemptive wars using all weapons in our arsenal including nuclear
ones against any country or force the administration feels threatens the
national security even if it isn't true.
-
- If Iran or any other country is so-designated and attacked
with nuclear weapons, Hirsch points out every Western European signatory
country to the ICC will be obliged to arrest any congressional member on
their soil surrendering them to Court authority in the Hague to stand trial
since none of these nations has bilateral "Article 98 agreements"
with the US granting immunity to US citizens.
-
- This needn't happen if Congress acts responsibly and
legislatively prevents George Bush from waging war with Iran, nuclear or
otherwise. Warning the president against acting without congressional
approval won't stop him any more than wishing will. George Bush does what
he wants, and statements from leading Democrat presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton and Speaker Pelosi that he must get congressional authority first
are plain wrong, misguided, stupid, and now irrelevant as Democrat leaders
changed their mind and will say nothing. Only an act of Congress has a
chance, and unless the 110th body passes one in clear strong language it's
practically telling the president do as you please and ignore what we say
which he may do anyway with a stroke of a "signing statement"
erasing whatever Congress legislates.
-
- If that happens and the US attacks Iran, all bets are
off on what's next with impossible to predict consequences that won't be
good for the West and especially Washington. It will expand the Iraq conflict
to a regional one, inflame the entire Muslim world and unleash an unpredictable
backlash fallout from a desperate strategy doomed to fail. Further, it
would be more proof of joint administration-congressional complicity demonstrating
again the criminal class in Washington is bipartisan, but who already doesn't
know that.
-
- It's also no secret corporate interests thrive on wars
and fund the parties to wage them. It's thus unlikely Congress will bite
the generous hands feeding it unless the price to pay starts exceeding
the benefits received. Getting reelected is top concern, but fearing a
shakled trip to the Hague might focus some minds as well. Members of Congress
agreeing to nuclear war against Iran will henceforth be unable to travel
freely in Western Europe knowing their final destination might not be what
they had in mind or their quarters the kind they're used to for a stay
longer than planned for a fate usually imposed on others.
-
- With this in mind, we learned from Secretary Rice on
February 27, the US agreed to participate in an international conference
with Iran and Syria on Iraq with the agenda limited to Iraqi security sure
to include Washington's accusations about support for anti-US resistance.
It would be foolhardy imagining Washington's offer of engagement is well-intentioned
as this administration has an unblemished record of speaking with forked
tongue, so nothing it's up to should be taken at face value.
-
- What is known is that first round talks were held March
10 in Baghdad at a sub-ministerial level with no announcement at their
conclusion other than agreeing to the formation of several low-level regional
working parties with a further thus far unscheduled conference to be held
at the foreign ministerial level at a location to be decided. They won't
be bilateral unless Tehran agrees to abandon its uranium-enrichment program
and Iran and Syria satisfy Washington's claim they've stopped supporting
anti-US resistance in Iraq and Lebanon. Attending participants in this
exercise are members of the Arab League, Organization of Islamic Unity,
G 8 members, and the five permanent Security Council members who all together
will likely achieve nothing.
-
- The talks represent no softening of Washington's stance
that may be hardened as they proceed with US repeating unproved claims
Iranian elements support anti-American forces in Iraq meaning ultimatums
will follow, no compromise is possible, and tensions in the region will
end up further heightened. That's where things now stand following the
Baghdad session at which senior State Department official David Satterfield
accused Iran of supplying weapons to Shia militias claiming Washington
has evidence to prove it without showing any. At the same time, back home
US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns was pressing
ahead with efforts to get the Security Council to impose harsher sanctions
on Iran because it's pursuing its legal right to develop commercial nuclear
power.
-
- How this is perceived and portrayed at home has a lot
to do with what's going on. The administration may use the talks to mollify
critics giving Congress more leverage to pass Bush's requested $93 billion
Iraq supplemental funding request Democrats upped to $120 billion + with
unenforceable add-on provisions to be debated in both Houses. Without
a touch of irony, it's business as usual in Washington with the Pentagon
readying a "shock and awe" attack against a country administration
officials are engaging in phony diplomacy no one on either side is fooled
by......and the beat goes on.
-
- So much for good intentions from an administration having
none and a Congress matching it misstep by misstep. It's clear from the
Democrat leadership with most others in the party acquiescing, their public
posturing notwithstanding. The congressional Dems and their presidential
aspirants have tacitly or explicitly kept the "military option"
against Iran open meaning they'll not oppose administration plans to launch
an all out attack if it's ordered. That's despite Senate Majority Leader
Reid's March 2 claim he would support legislation barring an attack on
Iran without congressional authority he's now backed off on.
-
- The only issue Democrats pathetically raised is whether
the administration or Congress can authorize it, but now we know a matter
that serious won't be part of the Democrats' final legislative proposal.
Also ignored is the fundamental issue that launching an attack will be
a further act of illegal aggression against a country posing no threat
to us or its neighbors and therefore must not be allowed to happen. Democrat
presidential aspirants feel otherwise and have so stated it as Senator
Clinton did at the late January AIPAC annual convention saying: "In
dealing with this (Iran) threat....no option can be taken off the table."
Senator Obama agreed saying on CBS's 60 Minutes: "I think we should
keep all options on the table." And former senator John Edwards showed
his resolve at Israel's Herzliya Conference in January saying: "To
ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options
on the table." Sounds like they all have the same script writer, and
they surely deliver their party's message that Democrats are as eager to
attack Iran as are Republicans and won't stand against it if George Bush
so orders.
-
- What's Next from Congress
-
- Rhetoric and wishy proposals with no chance of passage
are once thing, real bipartisan action with teeth another, and so far there's
none from either House with key senators and congressmen voicing the usual
boilerplate about not wanting to cut off funding the troops because we
have to support them. Their kind of support means letting them die or
get maimed and be disabled for life for imperialism on the march. Some
support.
-
- A less than credible crumb of it came from Speaker Pelosi's
backhanded pronouncement she'll link new funding requests to strict standards
of resting, training and equipping the troops now off the table. Earlier,
she and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wrote the president that "thousands
of the new troops (sent over) will apparently not have the armor and equipment
they need to perform the mission and reduce the likelihood of casualties
(and that problem needs correcting)." Now the tactics have changed
with the 2008 withdrawal proposal to damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead
and on with war till we win it.
-
- Some proposals with echos of Richard Nixon's "peace
with honor," his being elected in 1968 as a "peace" candidate,
and his hope history would call him a "peacemaker" at the same
time he was determined never to be "the first president of the United
States to lose a war." So his policies ended up killing almost as
many US forces as his predecessor along with one to two million Southeast
Asians during his watch alone who never got to see the "peace"
he promised except the one he sent them to rest in. All the while Congress
debated, and war continued another 6 and a half years with serious funding
cuts stalled until 1972. Even then, Richard Nixon continued waging war
until the January 23, 1973 treaty was signed in Paris ending it and the
last US troops came out in March. War went on in the name of peace in the
same spirit coming from the White House and Congress today couched in terms
of supporting the troops and "spreading democracy."
-
- George Bush says it and so do key Democrats like Speaker
Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid as well Senate Armed Services Committee
Chairman, Carl Levin and Senate Foreign Relations Committe Chairman, Joe
Biden. Funding war will continue showing the one way to end it won't be
taken, and the best out of Congress is non-binding posturing and the latest
proposal to withdraw combat forces between March 31 and September 1, 2008.
The administration's response - it can barely contain its contempt and
continues doing as it pleases.
-
- Democrats spoke but who's listening and acting. Levin
and Biden mentioned other congressional action, with no chance of passage,
including changing the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United
States Armed Forces Against Iraq of October, 2002 whereby Congress surrendered
its authority to the Executive on the most important of all constitutional
powers presidents never should have. It followed the even more outlandish
joint House-Senate resolution passage of the Authorization for Use of Military
Force (AUMF) of September, 18, 2001 authorizing "the use of United
States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched
against the United States."
-
- It effectively gave George Bush carte blanche authority
to attack any nation he claims threatens national security on his say alone
allowing him to declare a state of permanent war that won't end in our
lifetime unless Congress stops it. So far it hasn't and shows no signs
it will. Whatever it does, it faces a Bush veto meaning any chance for
legislative relief needs a two-thirds majority that's practically impossible
on any issue opposing the president, especially as beneath the rhetoric
Democrats support Bush wars as much as Bush does.
-
- All this will be part of the interesting "debate"
on the Democrats' March 8 proposal including their proposed $120 billion
and rising supplemental funding to keep the war machine oiled and running
plus all the added pork. The president already wants and should eaily get
a nearly half trillion dollar defense budget with $142 billion more in
emergency 2008 supplemental funding for Iraq and Afghanistan and anti-terrorism
efforts that don't include additional funding for Bush's planned troop
"surge" to cost billions more. Combined, the funding from 2001
through 2008 raises the amount of war spending to over $690 billion eclipsing
in current dollars Vietnam's war cost making Bush's war second only in
amount to what was spent on WW II.
-
- But there's more, lots more. The total doesn't include
the following:
-
- -- An estimated $100 billion direct cost of the 9/11
attacks.
-
- -- $66 billion to replace destroyed or unusable military
equipment.
-
- -- $125 billion in backlogged veterans' claims.
-
- -- Unknown billions for CIA torture-prisons.
-
- -- Multi-billions for homeland security (now budgeted
at over $45 billion and rising) to keep a growing restive population in
line with hardball tactics like illegal spying, mass roundups and incarcerations,
and construction of secret US concentration camps for tens of thousands
of aliens and US citizens Bush may label "unlawful enemy combatants"
meaning lock-em-up and throw away the key.
-
- -- And there's another major suppressed future expense:
the hugely underestimated cost to provide care alone for chronically sick,
wounded and disabled Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans Nobel laureate economist
Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard economist Linda Bilmes believe will be a minimum
$536 billion and may end up much higher. They arrived at the number from
their calculation of the number of wounded soldiers to each one killed
coming up with the astonishing ratio of 16 to 1 the result of improved
medical care and life-saving armor. They used data from the Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA) indicating 50,000 surviving casualties from the
wars and 200,000 veterans so far treated at VA centers, 40% of whom incurred
serious brain or spinal injuries, amputations of one or more limbs, blindness,
deafness, severe burns, or other severe chronic injuries.
-
- They also cited data from the brief Gulf war in which
less than 150 Americans were killed noting 48.4% of its veterans sought
medical care and 44% filed disability claims, 88% of which were granted.
That amounts to an astonishing total of 611,729 Gulf war vets now getting
disability benefits, a large percentage suffering psychiatric illnesses
including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression - for a campaign
lasting six weeks with no occupation.
-
- So far, it's known over one-third of returning Iraq and
Afghanistan war vets have already been diagnosed with similar conditions,
and those numbers are guaranteed eventually to skyrocket. Unlike the
brief Gulf war after which US forces withdrew, the total combat and support
force since 2001 is hugely larger - on the order of 1.5 million or more
and growing serving multiple deployments lasting a year or longer with
frequent extended tours of duty in all creating a looming epic human calamity
already unfolding that will explode in the out years.
-
- Even the VA's Deputy Undersecretary for Health Frances
Murphy is concerned admitting there's now a 400,000 claims backlog resulting
in waiting lists of months in some cases "render(ing)....care virtually
inaccessible." The VA expects claims to reach 874,000 this year and
930,000 in 2008 which helps explain why care provided at Walter Reed and
other medical facilities deteriorated so badly and are now appallingly
inadequate and shameful.
-
- It all adds up to what Stliglitz and Bilmes now estimate
will be a cost of $2.5 trillion or more for George Bush's wars having raised
their earlier estimate of around $2 trillion. It's a shocking indictment
of imperial recklessness and failure to achieve anything but build bottom
lines of corporate war-profiteers by looting the Treasury courtesy of US
taxpayers supplying the loot. Stiglitz believes the economic damage to
the country is severe enough to cause a global economic depression within
two years unless major changes are made in how the economy is managed going
forward.
-
- It's starts with defunding wars and addressing huge unrepayable
deficits from them. It also means Congress finally confronting a president
crazed with power and on a doomed imperial mission for more of it that
will destroy the nation unless he's stopped. Congress finally confronted
Richard Nixon ending his misadventure he never would have on his own. But
before they did, debate and posturing went on, and real action only came
incrementally while the war went on for 11 bloody years following the August,1964
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that escalated it. It continued even though
it was repealed six years later in May, 1970 and replaced by the 1973 War
Powers Act limiting the president's power to wage war without congressional
approval. The law is still in force, requires presidents consult Congress
before and after engaging in hostilities, and amounts to much ado about
nothing for all the good it does stopping George Bush from doing what he
wants as long as Congress only talks and won't act.
-
- It's time Congress took its sworn oath seriously and
began undoing its lack of resolve since 9/11 that changed everything.
But even if it does, it remains to be seen if a president thinking the
Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper" will take it
seriously or just go around it the way he's ignored adverse Supreme Court
rulings and gotten away with it. The times keep getting more interesting
with dangers becoming so great we'd better hope what Congress lacks in
courage it makes up for in fear before letting war in the Middle East get
to the next perilous stage meaning out-of-control and too late to matter.
-
- In the meantime, the same forces are combining today
that helped end the Vietnam conflict and in time may have the same result
in the Middle East - a redoubtable Iraqi resistance to occupation, mass
anti-war sentiment at home reaching the halls of Congress, and a deteriorating
American fighting force with growing signs of internal rebellion against
war with no end and for no purpose. What administration and congressional
hawks won't do and Democrats are too ineffective or timid doing, the people
of Iraq, America and our fighting men and women may do for them leaving
them no other choice. The lessons of history are clear. No greater force
exists than the will of millions of angry determined people set on achieving
what governments won't do for them. We may now be heading for that moment
of truth that may be the way to end Bush's wars and anyone after him with
the same intentions. Stay tuned and never lose hope.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
tune in each Saturday to the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on
The Micro Effect.com at noon US central time.
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