[Peace-discuss] Democrat trimmers

[Robert Naiman]

Cockburn is on target on the folly of Obama, of course (and a delight
to read as always), but he overstates the significance of the
Hoyer-Murtha vote. Some supporters of quick withdrawal - like Kucinich
- tried to make it a referendum on this proposition, but lots of
supporters of quick withdrawal didn't go along. Maxine Waters, head of
the Out of Iraq Caucus, supported Hoyer. Many felt that it would not
be credible to project the idea of being the party of ethics to have
Murtha as #2. It didn't help when Murtha told the Blue Dog Caucus that
the Democrats' ethics package was "total crap." Murtha claimed that he
was quoted out of context, but I was never able to figure out what the
context was in which the statement meant something other than what it
appeared to mean. Many adhered to the "dance with the one that brought
you" view. It definitely would have been better for Murtha to win from
the point of view of pushing for quick withdrawal, but the leadership
vote doesn't really tell us much about where the majority of the
caucus is on early withdrawal.

On 11/23/06, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
> [Trimmer = "One who trims between opposing parties in politics, etc.;
> hence, one who inclines to each of two opposite sides as interest
> dictates ... 1704 'The Patriot's Soul disdains the Trimmer's Art.'"  The
> trimmer whom Cockburn quotes at the beginning of the following is Obama.
>   --CGE]
>
>         November 23, 2006
>         The Democrats and the Slaughterhouse
>         Head for the Exits, Now!
>         By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
>
> Imagine a steer in the stockyards hollering to his fellows, "We need a
> phased withdrawal from the slaughterhouse, starting in four to six
> months. The timetable should not be overly rigid. But there should be no
> more equivocation." Back and forth among the steers the debate meanders
> on. Some say, "To withdraw now" would be to "display weakness". Others
> talk about a carrot and stick approach. Then the men come out with
> electric prods and shock them up the chute.
>
> The way you end a slaughter is by no longer feeding it. Every general,
> either American or British, with the guts to speak honestly over the
> past couple of years has said the same thing: the foreign occupation of
> Iraq by American and British troops is feeding the violence.
>
> Iraq is not on the "edge of civil war". It is in the midst of it. There
> is no Iraqi government. There are Sunni militias and Shia militias
> inflicting savagery on each other in the awful spiral of reprisal
> killings familiar from Northern Ireland and Lebanon in the 1970s. Iraq
> has become Chechnya, headed into that abyss from the day the US invaded
> in 2003. It's been a steep price to inflict on the Iraqi people for the
> pleasure of seeing Saddam Hussein die abruptly at the end of a rope.
>
> If the US is scheduled for any role, beyond swift withdrawal, it
> certainly won't be as "honest broker", lecturing fractious sectarians on
> how to behave properly, like Teacher in some schoolhouse on the prairie.
> It was always been in the US interest to curb the possibility of the
> Shia controlling much of Iraq, including most of the oil. By one
> miscalculation after another, precisely that specter is fast becoming a
> reality. For months outgoing ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad tried to
> improve the Sunni position, and it is clear enough that in its covert
> operations the US has been in touch with the Sunni resistance.
>
> If some Sunni substitute for Saddam stepped up to the plate the US would
> welcome him and propel him into power, but it is too late for such a
> course. As Henry Kissinger said earlier this week, the war is lost. This
> is the man who -- if we are to believe Bob Woodward's latest narrative
> -- has been advising Bush and Cheney that there could be no more
> Vietnams, that the war in Iraq could not be lost without humiliating
> consequences for America's status as the number # 1 bully on the block.
> When Kissinger says a war is lost, you can reckon that it is.
>
> Democrats, put in charge of Congress next January by voters who turned
> against the war, are now split on what to do. The 80 or so members of
> the House who favor swift withdrawal got a swift rebuff when Steny Hoyer
> won the House Majority leader position at a canter from Jack Murtha,
> humiliating House majority whip Nancy Pelosi in the process. But there
> are still maneuvers to have Murtha capture a significant role in
> brokering the rapid exit strategy he stunned Washington by advocating a
> year ago.
>
> Next came Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, who never opens his mouth
> without testing the wind with a supersensitive finger to test the
> tolerance levels of respectable opinion. In Chicago on Monday he said
> there are no good options left in Iraq, but that it "remains possible to
> salvage an acceptable outcome to this long and misguided war."
>
> This time Obama plumped for the "four to six months" option for "phased
> redeployment", though the schedule should not be "overly rigid", to
> give--so the senator said -- commanders on the ground flexibility to
> protect the troops or adapt to changing political arrangements in the
> Iraqi government. Then there followed the familiar agenda for America as
> stern, disinterested broker: "economic pressure" should be applied to
> make Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds sit down and forge a lasting peace. "No
> more coddling, no more equivocation."
>
> It sounds great as a clip on the Evening News, provoking another freshet
> of talk about Obama as presidential candidate. Substantively it means
> absolutely nothing. What "economic pressure" is he talking about, what
> "coddling", in ruined, looted Iraq? It's all the language of fantasy.
>
> The only time reality enters into Obama's and Democrats' foreign policy
> advisories is when the subject of Israel comes up. Then there's no lofty
> talk about "No more coddling", but the utterly predictable green light
> for Israel to do exactly what it wants--which is at present to reduce
> Gaza to sub-Chechnyian levels and murder families in Beit Hanoun: this
> is a Darfur America really could stop but instead is sponsoring and
> cheering on, to its eternal shame.
>
> The Palestinians are effectively defenseless, even as the US Congress
> cheers Israel on. What political Washington cannot yet quite comprehend
> is that Iraq is not Palestine; cannot be lectured and given schedules.
> America is not controlling events in Iraq. If the Shia choose to cut
> supply lines from Kuwait up to the northern part of the country, the US
> forces would be in deep, deep trouble. When the Democrats take over
> Congress in January, they should vote to end funding for anything in
> Iraq except withdrawing US forces immediately. If they don't, there's
> nothing but downsides, including without doubt a Third Party peace
> candidacy that could well cost them the White House in 2008, or--who
> knows--the return of Al Gore as the peace candidate, now that Russ
> Feingold has quit the field. Perhaps that's what Obama was trying to
> head off.
>
> Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair's new book, End Times: the
> Death of the Fourth Estate, will be published in February by
> CounterPunch Books / AK Press.
>
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-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org