Fake
Congressional
Opposition To War
By Stephen Lendman
16 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org
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.
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 [email protected].
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.