Democrats
Pass “Anti-War”
Bill That Funds The Wars
In Iraq And Afghanistan
By Barry Grey
26 March, 2007
World
Socialist Web
After
weeks of public posturing and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, Democrats
in the House of Representatives secured passage Friday of an emergency
spending bill that grants the Bush administration’s request for
over $100 billion in additional funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In what amounts to a colossal political fraud, they presented their
“Troop Readiness, Veterans Health and Iraq Accountability Act”
as a measure to force an end to the war in Iraq by September 1, 2008.
It does nothing of the kind.
Even if a similar Democratic measure were to be passed in the Senate—and
it will not—and the final bill were to survive a presidential
veto—a political impossibility—the resulting law would do
nothing to halt the current military escalation in both Iraq and Afghanistan,
and would allow upwards of 75,000 US troops to remain in Iraq indefinitely.
The bill is a labored attempt
by the Democratic leadership to pose as opponents of the Iraq war, while
in practice ensuring its continuation. The vote to authorize war funding
flies in the face of the will of the electorate, which expressed its
desire to end the war and its opposition to the policies of the Bush
administration in last November’s congressional elections, overturning
Republican control in both houses of Congress.
In remarks following the
vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went out of her way to declare her
party’s support for the US military and the so-called “war
on terror,” calling the bill “a giant step to end the war
and responsibly redeploy our troops out of Iraq” so they could
concentrate on Afghanistan, “where the war on terrorism is.”
The Bush administration has
denounced the bill and promised to veto it, in line with the White House’s
blanket opposition to any conditions, no matter how toothless, being
placed on its war-making powers.
The bill passed by the narrowest
possible margin, with 218 votes in favor and 212 opposed. Only two Republicans
voted for the bill and 14 Democrats voted against it.
The conditions attached to
US troop deployments by the bill are themselves so conditional as to
be meaningless. Under the measure, Bush would be obliged to certify
to Congress on July 1, 2007 and again on October 1, 2007 that the Iraqi
government has made progress in meeting certain benchmarks, such as
containing sectarian violence, reining in militias, and reforming the
constitution. Should Bush fail to go through the motions of making such
a certification, withdrawal of US combat troops would begin. Even if
the government certified progress, US combat troops would be withdrawn
by September 1, 2008.
But this “final deadline”
could be extended if the administration obtained approval from Congress.
In any event, less than half of the 140,000 US troops currently in Iraq
are designated as combat forces, meaning that 75,000 or more troops
would remain after the “deadline” to conduct counterinsurgency
operations, train Iraqi forces, police borders and protect US assets.
As New York Senator Hillary
Clinton, the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination,
made clear in an interview with the New York Times last week, if elected
she would keep a large force of American troops in Iraq indefinitely
to secure “remaining vital national security interests”
there. She elaborated on these “national security interests”
by noting that Iraq is “right in the heart of the oil region.”
Similarly, the House Democrats’
bill upholds the war aims of US imperialism by listing as one of the
benchmarks the passage of an oil law that will open up Iraq’s
vast reserves to exploitation by US energy conglomerates.
The bill also requires the
Pentagon to observe standards for training, equipping and resting troops
before their deployment and limits the duration of Army tours of duty
to 365 days. With the military already stretched to the limit, these
provisions could actually create obstacles to the further escalation
of the war under Bush’s so-called troop “surge” in
Baghdad and Anbar Province. Consequently, the bill allows Bush to waive
these requirements in the name of “national security,” giving
him a free hand to send as many additional troops as he desires.
In the weeks leading up to
Friday’s vote on the floor of the House, the White House and congressional
Republicans continually called the Democrats’ bluff, exposing
their antiwar pretenses by challenging them to cut off war funding.
This culminated last week in the passage, with overwhelming Democratic
support, of a Republican-sponsored nonbinding Senate resolution vowing
to never cut funds for “troops in the field.”
For their part, Pelsoi and
the rest of the Democratic leadership continually tacked to the right,
readjusting their war spending bill to placate Blue Dog Democrats and
other war supporters within the Democratic caucus by further watering
down its nominal restrictions on Bush’s war powers. They secured
the support of the party’s right wing by dropping language that
would have required Bush to obtain congressional support before launching
an attack on Iran.
They loaded the bill with
allocations for special projects targeted to win over specific congressmen.
Thus the final result includes $25 million for spinach farmers in California,
$75 million for peanut storage in Georgia, $15 million for Louisiana
rice fields and $120 million for shrimp fishermen.
As Pelosi and her subordinates
scrambled to assemble the necessary 218 votes to secure passage, groups
on the so-called liberal wing of the party declared their support, including
the Congressional Black Caucus and MoveOn.org.
The critical role was played
by the misnamed “Out of Iraq Caucus” of House Democrats.
This group of some 70 congressmen has postured as the most militant
critics of the war. Their key leaders, such as Lynn Woolsey and Maxine
Waters, both of California, have been paraded before antiwar demonstrators
by protest organizers as living proof that the Democratic Party can
be pressured to end the war.
Pelosi dealt with them through
a combination of threats and inducements. The house speaker reportedly
warned California Rep. Barbara Lee, another leader of the Out of Iraq
Caucus, that she would be stripped of her post on the powerful House
Appropriations Committee if she sought to block passage of the bill.
On Thursday, Lee, Woolsey,
Waters and company insured passage of the bill at a closed-door session
with Pelosi. The Washington Post reported on Friday:
“As debate began on
the bill yesterday, members of the antiwar caucus and party leaders
held a backroom meeting in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a final
plea to the group, asking it to deliver at least four votes when the
roll is called. The members promised ten.”
Lee, the author of a bill
that would supposedly withdraw US troops from Iraq by the end of 2007,
said, “While I cannot betray my conscience, I cannot stand in
the way of passing a measure that puts a concrete end date on this unnecessary
war.”
Waters said the leaders of
the caucus had told their members, “We don’t want them to
be in a position of undermining Nancy’s speakership.”
In the debate on the floor
of the House, supposedly antiwar liberals denounced the war, and proceeded
to call for a vote to fund it. Typical were the remarks of Jim McDermott
of Washington State, who declared, “The Iraq war is a fraud...
Perpetuating it is a tragedy,” and then announced he would vote
for the war funding measure.
Virtually all of the Democratic
speakers wrapped themselves in the flag and declared their unconditional
“support for the troops.” According to one press report:
“In the closing round of the debate, most Democrats focused on
elements of the bill that they said would protect American troops by
requiring better training and longer periods of rest between deployments.”
Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri,
who heads the Armed Services Committee, said the bill would strengthen
the US military, which has been strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I’m deeply concerned about the readiness of our forces,”
he said.
The legislative charade mounted
by the Democratic Party has nothing to do with ending the war in Iraq.
There are, in fact, no principled differences between the Democrats
and Bush when it comes to the imperialist aims of the war. Both parties,
the Democrats no less than the Republicans, serve the corporate interests—the
oil conglomerates, the Wall Street banks, and the American financial
oligarchy as a whole—that seek through military violence to establish
US control of the resources and markets of the world.
The differences between those
within the political establishment who favor continued escalation of
the war and those who seek to continue the colonial occupation with
reduced US troops are purely tactical. They have to do with the best
means of salvaging the US debacle in Iraq by killing and brutalizing
more Iraqis, in order to secure US control of the Middle East.
The real political purpose
of the Democrats’ bill was indicated in an interview this week
on the “Democracy Now” radio program with Robert Borosage,
a long-time Democratic Party operative and contributing editor at the
Nation magazine. Arguing in support of the war spending bill, he said,
“The question is about, can you create a symbolic vote—because
the president has vowed to veto it if it passes—a symbolic vote
that unites the opponents of the war and shows that there’s a
majority in the Congress now united about a date certain to get the
troops out.”
In other words, a measure
that will have no effect on the war, but will promote the fiction that
the Democratic Party is in some way a vehicle for the antiwar sentiments
of the people, and thereby keep social opposition within the bounds
of the two-party system.
In this critical task for
the American ruling elite, forces like the Out of Iraq Caucus and their
“left” allies in the protest movement play a crucial role.
They serve not to end the war, but to provide a right-wing, pro-war
party with a left-wing, antiwar gloss, the better to block the emergence
of an independent movement of working people against war, repression
and social inequality.
Four-and-a-half months after
the election, in which the people expressed their opposition to the
war, the result is the opposite of their wishes. Tens of thousands more
troops are being deployed, the carnage and death are increasing, and
US military spokesmen like Gen. David Petraeus are speaking of an escalation
unlimited in both size and duration.
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