We need to actually get all of our congressional delegation on record to see where they all sit. It’s not as easy as it looks to find everyone’s position – how they would support a pull out, what kind of time table, etc. So let’s use this thread to figure that all out.
Then the greater question is what are we ultimately going to do about congressmen from Massachusetts who are content to let the status quo continue. What about guys like Steve Lynch, who supported this war from the beginning and who’s words on Iraq now are tepid and ambiguous at best. I’m not suggesting we wage some grand war during the next primary season (though, I’m not opposed to that). I’d just be happy to put some serious pressure on them, perhaps through a mounted blogging campaign to get the message out.
People are dying in Iraq. We don’t have time to wait. It’s already too late for thousands. These are people we can’t ever bring back. The time is to ask what Congress is going to do about it – especially our own elected officials.
Here’s an online petition at Russ Feingold’s PAC, Progressive Patriots Fund, in support of his bill. Please sign it.
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Then, vote it up at reddit – if 10-15 of you vote it up today, it’ll have a very good chance of getting on the “hot” links front page, which will draw a lot more people to the link.
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(To vote up, click on the up arrow – if you don’t have an account, you’ll be prompted to sign up, and it’s very easy. I have no connection to reddit and no incentive to get people to sign up, beyond wanting to promote some links such as this one).
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A primary challenge is the most effective sort of pressure, and any other pressure you plan becomes more effective when there’s a primary challenge. We need to support someone running against Lynch and make clear why we’re supporting the opponent. We can set up a situation where Lynch might feel like changing his actions as a way of deflecting votes away from the challenger, something he may not do if he doesn’t feel threatened.
Related, but not the same thing: here’s my story of how the quest for votes seems to have affected someone else’s votes in Congress.
First, we had the folks in the former GOP majority who “support the troops.” They support the troops by:
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1. Lying to them about why they’re going where they’re going.
2. Allowing contractors to bilk the government and provide troops with lousy food, water, living conditions, etc.
3. Ignoring military planners that said we’d need many more troops to secure the country in 2003, thereby endangering the troops on the ground in many ways.
4. Confronting “the greatest challenge of our time” by cutting taxes for the rich and VA services for the troops as well as vehicle armor and body armor to the troops.
5. Re-sending the same troops over and over again to Iraq and Afghanistan instead of instituting a draft…or keeping them there via the stop-loss policy.
6. Allowing predatory lenders to prey on the difficult circumstances facing military families.
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Then came along the new Democratic majority. They’re supporting the troops as well, by allowing all the results of 1-6 to continue unabated.
There was an article I read today in either the Progressive or New Republic where basically the Congressional leadership wants the Iraq war to go on to hang over Republicans heads going in to 2008.
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And thats just sickening, as much as I agree that the GOP should be held accountable they have the power, they have the ability, and they should just have not even the balls but the common decency to finally end this god forsaken war before more lives are lost in vain.
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I am tired of the Congressional leadership sitting on their toes, if they keep doing this not only will more young men and women be wasted (yes Obama said wasted and should’ve stuck with what he said!) and quit trying to play to Peoria, and god damnit even Peoria is sick of this war. It is time to end it, thats what the voters elected them to do in 2006 and thats what they have a responsibility to do, not just politically but morally as well.
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Also Rep. Nadler (D-NJ) has a fairly good bill that would end funding for the war without taking away armor and essentials for the troops.
…has a bill which would take away armor and essentials from the troops.
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There are nine by my count different withdrawal bills in the House alone. The differences have to do mainly with time limit specified, conditions and exceptions which could delay withdrawal, and the level of detail with regard to diplomatic initiatives and economic aid to Iraq.
My point on vehicle armor and body armor is that the troops don’t have the best equipment available to them for the environment in which they’re fighting. Meanwhile, the GOP majority said they were “supporting the troops”.
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For a dramatic example, check out this Vote Vets ad that appeared in the 2006 campaigns.
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As for the Dems, they haven’t done anything to rectify that as of yet. And as a guy with friends over there, I’m frustrated by that.
This certainly feeds the very toxic frame that Democrats only say things to get elected. If this is true, it is outrageous, but I sincerely doubt it is true.
Capuano, Delahunt, Frank, Markey, McGovern, Meehan, Neal, and Olver are cosponsors of John Murtha’s Joint Resolution terminating Congressional authorization for the Iraq War and calling for redeployment “at the earliest practicable date”. This was the first really significant anti-war effort introduced in Congress (that I remember) and dates from November 2005.
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Tierney was also a cosponsor in the last Congress. Why he hasn’t signed on this time I have no idea. Somebody probably needs to call his office and remind him how his constituents feel about the war. And yes, Lynch is the holdout in the delegation. People definitely need to call to remind him.
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There a whole load of other, more specific legislation which has been introduced. Of interest here may be:
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H.R.746 introduced by McGovern and cosponsored by Capuano, Delahunt, Frank, and Olver which sets a six month timeframe for withdrawal.
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H.R.353 introduced by Markey and cosponsored by Capuano, Delahunt, McGovern, Meehan, Olver, and Tierney which would prohibit escalation.
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H.RES.41 introduced by Meehan and cosponsored by the entire rest of the delegation (even Lynch). It’s a non-binding resolution which calls escalation “the wrong course of action”.
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These three bills give us some information, anyway, regarding who’s where and (perhaps) how far they are willing to go at the moment.
I am still waiting for some acknowledgment by the Democrats in favor of quick withdrawal that such withdrawal is likely to make things worse, at least in the short run.
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Even if the possibility of regional calamities are remote, as KBusch maintained in a series of interesting posts, there is a civil war in Iraq. Coalition forces have restrained that civil war, at least to some degree. Listening to Ann Garrels on NPR, it sounds like things have improved slightly in recent weeks in Bagdahd. Withdrawal removes all restraint, and will likely mean an intensification of the civil war, at least in the short run.
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All of the withdrawal proposals thus far ignore the question of what comes next. This demonstrates that these folks are either just as oblivious to circumstances as the administration, or are just engaged in superficial peace-nowism.
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The only Democrat that appears to be thinking of these things is Joe Biden, and he is a boob. Sigh.
All of the withdrawal proposals thus far ignore the question of what comes next.
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This is a lie. Some do, some don’t.
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H.R.645, H.R.663, and H.R.930 all specify (to some degree of detail or another) regional and international diplomatic initiatives. Regardless of what you think of the specifics of these plans, you’re flat-out wrong with your characterization of what Democrats ‘acknowledge’. Did you look at any of the bills, or just repeat something you heard on the teevee?
A special envoy? Unspecified diplomatic initiatives? Employment training, for goodness sake?
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There is a civil war, between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis. This civil war, although it has worsened, has not escalated as much as it might, largely because US forces are trying to keep the two separated. This is an unsustainable US policy to be sure. But the withdrawal of the restraint of US forces will cause the civil war to be… unrestrained. The existing Shia government would likely be thrilled with the opportunity to ethnically cleanse Bagdahd and environs of Sunni Iraqis.
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So things get worse for Iraqis. And have some (arguable, debatable) possibility of making things worse regionally.
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These bills make references to employment assistance, diplomacy, and other pie in the sky silliness. What I want is a sober assesment of the consequences of withdrawal. Likely Iraqis get to die at a much faster rate, at least for awhile. Possibly at a much higher rate, if we get Yugoslavia style ethnic cleansing, which is a possibility. In the event of regional instability, possibly a lot of dead Arabs (and Persians?) and maybe disruptions to the oil supply. Fun stuff, all.
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Plans for employment training sure suggests to me that Democrats pushing these bills are no more concerned with the reality on the ground than Bush has ever been– they just have an opposite default setting.
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The problem is that Bush broke the dike, and now has his (our) finger stuck in it. We can’t fix the dike without pulling our finer out, but pulling our finger out makes the existing mess into a bigger mess. It is a dilemma. I want adults in charge of security policy, which means that they must confront the dilemma. Wishing it didn’t exist will not be a net improvement over our present situation.
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…all you want, with your patronizing tone, and your condescending comments about how ‘adult’ you are relative to others. What does that accomplish?
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What I want is a sober assesment of the consequences of withdrawal.
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How about the report of the Iraq Study Group? Have you read it? What do you think of its recommendations?
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The most important one, highlighted by the authors themselves is “new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region.” They refer specifically to engagement with Iran and Syria and all of Iraq’s other neighbors. James Baker is, I guess, too pie-in-the-sky for you?
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BTW, some people might argue plausibly that funds for employment training (as an element of broader plans for social and physical reconstruction) will help stabilize the country. You might disagree, but what exactly is so ridiculous about it?
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I don’t have answers for solving the dilemma. I wish I did. But from where I sit, you’re the one engaging in wishful thinking. We’re going to just keep throwing the lives of our fellow citizens at this problem, hoping it goes away? Because no one has yet hand delivered you a document which contains the magic formula–something totally new that no one else has been able to come up with yet?
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All you’ve offered is rationalizations for doing nothing.
Would that the study groups recommendations were adopted. But the study group did not advocate commencing withdrawal within 30 days, to be completed within 1 year, either.
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If the Congess were to make the study group recommedations policy, that would be reassuring. But they aren’t; they’re discussing how best to force complete withdrawal, ASAP.
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I never claimed to be an adult; I stated that I would perfer those purporting to set American security policy to be adults.
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Employment rtraining in the context of civil war is absurd because it assumes the existence of sufficnent stability for there to be employment at something other than arms. Do you think employment retraining might have helped in Mogadishu as well?
There are (at least) nine different bills about withdrawal in the House alone, and they differ greatly. It’s a flat misrepresentation to characterize them as you do. In any case, I haven’t even mentioned the bills about escalation, or any of the non-binding resolutions. I just want to strongly urge you not to throw up your hands and settle for no change in policy with the false excuse that Democrats are unrealistic about the problem. That’s all I’m saying here. There has to be something you can get behind. So get behind it already, and let people know, and help create the political pressure for a resolution to this disaster.
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As far as the usefulness of reconstruction assistance in the present situation, I don’t have the information at hand to argue one way or another. But I’d love to hear some. I’d love to go over every one of the bills and hear the arguments for and against every provision. Why the hell isn’t Congress doing exactly that? Why the hell isn’t the whole country demanding it?
On this at least we agree. I would also like for the Congress to review the bills in detail. The debate, while painful, might at least stimulate the production of a Democratic strategy.
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I have neither the time nor the inclination to review dozens of different bills; I, like much of the country, am in a practical manner restricted to receiving that which the policicians choose to transmit.
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And thus far, the transmissions have been with respect to the “escalation” (Side note: Recent reports of improvements to security and stability by such pro-administration media as NPR lead me to believe that the “surge” may not be a bad idea for the short term.) The use of the word “escalation” conjures Vietnam, in which it meant expansion of the war by adding throwing new weapons into the mix (B-52s) or new bombees into the mix (Cambodia). In this sense, the “escalation” is no escalation at all; it is more like a reinforcment. As such, I’m not sure these resolutions are meaningful, except in the symbolic sense of screeching to the President that he las lost the country, to which he won’t listen anyway.
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Or, to cutting off the funding outright, in order to effect withdrawal on as near to immediate a basis as possible. I view this option as being as grossly irresponsible as was the decision to invade in the first place.
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So, I await an Iraq policy from the Democrats that suggests to me that they can be responsible for security policy. If they don’t anti-Bush Republicans will steal their lunch.
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Pray, tell, where is all this discussion? Surely you don’t mean the non-binding resolution on being against an escalation of the war. That’s about as far removed from your discription as a pig is from a flower.
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Either you’re making this up as you go along, or you just don’t know what you’re talking about. Either way, I suggest you go back to the drawing board, because none of your posts on this topic have been well reasoned.
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You say we need to stay in Iraq because the civil war can get worse. Well, it has, despite our presense. However, regardless, it’s not OUR responsibility to decide how a country governs itself. It’s not OUR responsibility to get involved in an Iraqi Civil War. We didn’t have people involved in our civil war, we shouldn’t go interfering in their’s.
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H.R. 645 Section 2, declaration of policy:
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2) to begin withdrawing United States Armed Forces from Iraq and to complete the withdrawal in an orderly manner and at the earliest practicable date, relinquishing to the Government of Iraq full responsibility for maintaining security and public safety;
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H.R. 663Section 102(a):
Commencement of Redeployment- Not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall begin the redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq.
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On this site and elsewhere, these bills with “teeth” are increasingly bandied about as showing real “leadership” on the Iraq issue, as opposed to the non-binding resolutions on the increased troop level that are derided as Clintonesqe, which is supposed to be a bad thing.
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What you’re really advocating is telling them: “Gee, sorry fellers, have a nice bloodbath. Sorry about that.” Trying to play the “who are we to intervene in this local affair?” card is just an attempt to preemptively shirk responsibility for the potential consequences of the withdrawal policy.
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Quote
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“I don’t have answers for solving the dilemma.”
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Then just keep complaining you child
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And PS: talking with the head of Iran makes about as much sense as holding a summit meeting on whether or not the Holocaust really happened.
Not President Imanutajob.
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The alternative hasn’t exactly worked out very well, has it?
Hey there, World Citizen. You’ll find that I tend to disagree wtih Central Mass Dad on a whole bunch of things, but he generally does try to understand what he’s talking about and he does consider things carefully. In a sense, he’s the ideal person to hash out Iraq policy with. Further, he’s not a Republican. What more could you ask?
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I would be surprised if he were just going to repeat what he saw on teevee.
An apt description as any: I am a “not Republican.”
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In no small measure thanks to our discussions, I am nowhere near as opposed to withdrawal as I was. I just concerned that the Democrats are adopting their own faith-based policy on Iraq; just basing it all on a different faith.
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In 2003, I was worried that the administration wasn’t thinking things through. Now, I’m concerned that the Democrats are more concerned with opposing Bush than with thinking things through.
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The only guy I hear who is actually taking the issue on in a thoughtful way is Joe Biden, but it is hard to hear him through that giant foot in his mouth.
Are you serious? His recent positions are a direct result of the fact that he’s pretending that he’s running for President. Biden is almost as bad as Joe Lieberman.
I promise to rate your next Lakoff reference a “6.”
Compliments on your persuasive presentation.
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The problem is that however you get there (via careful consideration or mere recitation), the argument that “Dems don’t have a plan” falsely justifies a status quo of ongoing failure.
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If you’re hinting that I should modulate the frustration level, thank you, I’ll take note. But I am frustrated.
Thank you, World Citizen.
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I happen to think that Atrios hits the nail precisely on the head with this one:
For me that is compounded by the following:
Central Mass Dad’s question about genocide is germaine here. It represents the worst downside. I don’t think we are looking at something like the Rwanda. (No famine, for example.) It’s unlikely to be as bad as Sudan. It might be worse than the India-Pakistan partition. Will it be as bad as Yugoslavia? I am trying to figure out how to answer such questions.
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My take on it though is that leaving in 2004 would have caused less harm than leaving in 2006 — which would have been safer than after two more years of Bush’s attempts to put out the fire with gasoline.
All of the withdrawal proposals thus far ignore the question of what comes next.
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To the extent to which the American Congress’s withdrawal proposals don’t specify particular “what comes next” for Americans, the obvious implication is that Americans will not be involved in “what comes next.” The necessary implication in that is that Iraqis will determine what comes next.
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Americans aren’t the controllers of the planet, are they? The British tried to be, and they utterly failed.
Abd just to continue it a bit, I’d also point out that our investment in the war will, at some point, perhaps some not too distant point, become unsustainable. We’re heavily dependent on foreign capital at the moment. If that stops coming in for whatever reason, we may no longer be able to afford the Iraq war even if we wanted to stay there.
I suppose that what I am driving at is whether anti-(iraq)war is really isolationsim is disguise.
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It is within the realm of possibility that the present government of Baghdad would be thrilled by our departure because it would allow them (i) to stop the pretense of unity government, and (ii) to enage in what some might describe as the ethnic or religious cleansing of much of the non-desert part of the country.
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Will progressives then be outraged that we are not doing enough to stop the carnage in
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Never mind the (hopefully remote) possibility of regional instability and large-scale disruption to the oil supply.
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Americans will be involved in what comes next, because we must be. There is too much Very Important Stuff in that neighborhood for it to be otherwise.
I find this line of argument very frustrating because it’s so senseless. Yes, I know Iraq is likely to have a flare-up when we leave, but what do you suggest? That we stay another two years letting the civil war linger on, then leave and they have a flare-up? Or that we stay another fiver years, letting the civil war linger on even longer, and then leave? Ten years? Someday, we have to leave. If nothing else, we can’t afford to occupy Iraq for much longer. And the longer we stay, the longer their civil war will last, and the worse things will be when we leave. If we’d left in the first year they might not have even had a civil war at all (if we’d done it skillfully). Now, they’ve got one no matter what we do. Our choice is, do we stay longer, making it worse and worse, and dragging it on longer, or do we stop digging the hole we got both us and Iraq into? Enough already.
To stop a Civil War. That’s something Iraqis have to figure out themselves. How Iraq is run is a decision for Iraqis: quite frankly, it’s none of our business and not our place to get involved. No one got involved in our civil war…
if you consider our revolutionary war a civil war (we were fighting our country, the UK, for freedom) than the French did come, albeit late.
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If the South had won the Civil War of 1861-1865, wouldn’t it be the Southland’s “revolutionary war?”
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Just sayin’.
The movement was started by us, not the French.
…There is nothing that the Democrats in Congress can do regarding the war on Iraq unless they are willing to do targetted defense funding cuts to specifically eliminate funding for the war on Iraq. And they just aren’t going to do that, as long as there is a demented president (and vice president in the White House.
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Why? The reason is simple. The demented president (and vice president, even if the president were to be removed) are not going to remove the American troops from Iraq regardless, and–and this is the most important thing–the American troops are basically hostages to the malAdministration’s foreign policy fantasies. The mantra would be, Democrats remove funding for the troops, leaving them open to Iraqis cutting them down. That is the real fear that the Democrats would have by removing funding.
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An adult as president would view elimination of funding as an order to remove the troops. The fact is, however, that we have a demented child as president, and he won’t.
It will come down to a constitutional crisis, and frankly, it NEEDS to. Why? Because only if the Dems set in stone and law what is to be done will they be able to stem the terrible precident this president has continued as to the power of the executive branch. And this jerk will ignore what the Congress passes – I suspect even IF there’s funding pressure against the war (I WON’T call it defunding – they are voting on funding TO BE DISPENSED that doesn’t exist yet – I hate how we let the Republicans frame the issue).
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If…WHEN the president ignores the laws to withdraw Congress passes with some fracking signing statement – THEN there is no choice but to remove him from office.
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Or else, the next jackass with a god complex who comes in the office will simply continue to consolidate power and we will no longer have a representative democracy.
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It’s as simple, and as important, as that.
…The American troops in Iraq are hostages as long as Bush wants to keep them there.
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This situation is not like South Vietnam in 1974-75. In 1974-75, when Congress cut off the funding for US funding of the South Vietnamese, the vast majority of the American military had left South Vietnam. There were no American hostages, except, perhaps, a few personnel at the American embassy in Saigon, who were efficiently evacuated by helicopter (and it is highly unlikely that the North Vietnamese would have been so stupid as to gun them down, anyway).
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Currently, there are on the order of 140K American military personnel (and an uncounted number of mercenaries–sorry “contractors”) in Iraq. They are hostages there–the funding will continue. The Democrats are defanged. And the killing and maiming of Iraqis, Americans, and others will continue unabated.
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Maniacal president inserts troops into Irgendwo (German for “wherever”), demands funding, and Congress complies because, to deny funding, the troops will be left–well–hanging. That’s why the troops are hostages, and that’s why congress, like the automatons that they are, will comply. It really isn’t that complicated. AND, because funding goes to the armaments industry (and all their employees and hangers on to the seventh generation) nobody cares. A gruesome description, but, quite frankly, a correct one.
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Buy Euros, learn a foreign language, and prepare to emigrate. This place (the USofA) is destined for self-destruction. It will spend itself into penury–the British did in trying to maintain its empire in Inja and environs. I’m sure that your grandchildren will be happy to read about what the USofA is wasting its money on, while the Chinese are laughing all the way to the bank..
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Common sense is the set of prejudices that one learns before the age 18.–Albert Einstein
that there are no efforts by congress to undercut Bush. For example, Murtha is pushing the “Slow Bleed” bill that would seriously limit the ability of the number of troops the prez could deploy. Michele Malkin hates it, so it must be good…
World Citizen already mentioned this above.
The Murtha bill WC mentions above is different than the one I’m talking about. Guess I need a caffeine boost…
Yes, this intervention should end and it should end soon. But …
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It’s going to take more political pressure than we have now to get Murtha’s Resolution or Feingold’s Bill or even Raj’s Sharply but Excellently Worded Resolution past a Republican Senate filibuster. The Democratic majority especially in the Senate is not big enough, so it makes a whole lot of sense to use the debate in the House of Representatives to build political support for a non-non-binding resolution.
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I don’t see how this can happen any faster. Signing lots of petitions doesn’t seem to help that much. (I think you could sign a new one every day.) The recent march was ignored by the media. We obviously need better ways of mobilizing and expressing public impatience with this stupid and lethal occupation.
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One thing does suggest itself: Support the DSCC’s and MoveOn.org’s targeting of Republican Senators on this issue: make them face the choice of changing their minds or losing their seats.