[Peace-discuss] Our senators and the war

[C. G. Estabrook]

	“We have protected Iraq when no one else would.”

No, that's not from Bush's speech last night.  It's from the official
Democratic Party response, delivered by our senior senator, Dick Durbin. 
(Remember his lachrymose retraction of anything unpleasant he might
have said about Guantanamo?) When the supposed opposition party is
presenting an account so at variance with the truth (and Durbin must
surely know that that's an egregious lie), it's amazing that the US
populace sees the matter as clearly as it does.

Of course it's not just Durbin's lie.  Our junior senator also answered
(rather obsequious) questions on TV last night. He asserted the US
military "has done a great job in difficult circumstances" (without
mentioning the brutality, torture, and random killing that leads the
overwhelming majority of Iraqis to want them gone, regardless of the
ongoing civil war).  He assured us that Congress would not deny the
military "all the resources necessary to execute the missions laid out
for them."  On the question of terminating the war legislatively, he
said "I don't think re-litigating the original decision to go in is
particularly fruitful."  Why?  Because "it's not a Republican/Democrat
issue -- it's a realist versus ideological issue."

Apparently those Americans who voted for an end to the war were just
being ideological.

Outside the US, the situation is apparently more obvious that it is to
our media:

[1]  Melbourne Independent Media Center
<http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/136095.php>:

...Bush relies on the nominal opposition party, the Democrats, to make
sure that popular antiwar sentiment finds no expression in official
Washington.

The official Democratic Party response, delivered by Senator Richard
Durbin of Illinois, was just as reactionary and dishonest as Bush’s own
address, and if possible, even cruder, verging on outright racism.
According to Durbin, the US government has proceeded on the purest of
motives. “We have protected Iraq when no one else would,” he exclaimed,
describing an American intervention which has shattered Iraq as a
functioning society and reduced much of the country to primitive conditions.

“America has given Iraqis so much,” he continued, listing the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein, the writing of a new constitution and elections to a
new government. Now it was time for Iraqis to take responsibility for
themselves, he declared. “They must know every time they call 9-1-1,
we’re not going to send another 20,000 troops.”

The Democratic “opposition” to Bush’s policy in Iraq represents nothing
more than an effort to sustain the US stranglehold on that country while
appeasing the genuine popular revulsion against the war. In response to
press questions after his response, Durbin reiterated that the Democrats
would not cut off funding for the war and could not stop the escalation.

Asked whether voters opposed the war had a right to expect action, not
just words, to bring the war to an end, Durbin replied, “The thought
that we could stop this in its tracks is not practical”...

[2] Today's Financial Times
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b21e7794-a118-11db-acff-0000779e2340.html>:

	Congress is helpless only out of choice

Several decades back, the psychologist Martin Seligman developed his
theory of "learned helplessness". Subjected to repeated punishment,
animals and humans come to believe they have no control over what
happens to them, whether they actually do or not. In Seligman's original
experiment, dogs given repeated electrical shocks would prostrate
themselves and whine, even when escaping the abuse lay within their power.

As with canines, so with congressional Democrats. In theory, they now
control a co-equal branch of government. In practice, they are so
traumatised by years of mistreatment at the hands of a contemptuous
executive that they continue to cower and simper whenever master waves a
stick in their direction.

This phenomenon is at its most pitiable when it comes to Congress's
powers over national security, terrorism and the war in Iraq. Last
Sunday, Senator Joseph Biden, the Democrats' dean of foreign policy, was
asked on Meet the Press what he intended to do when President George W.
Bush announced his plan to send additional American troops to Iraq.
"There's not much I can do about it," Mr Biden shot back. "Not much
anybody can do about it. He's commander-in-chief."

This has been the attitude of most of Mr Biden's colleagues. Nearly all
of them think that the war in Iraq is a losing proposition, which Mr
Bush's pending escalation will make worse. Most favour gradually
reducing the number of Americans deployed in Iraq. Yet they are behaving
for the most like dazed onlookers at the scene of a disaster. At best,
they are willing to consider expressing their disapproval of Mr Bush
through a non-binding resolution, also known as "talking to the hand".

In fact, congressional Democrats have the power to stop the war any day
they want. Rejecting additional funding, which 12 senators voted to do
in 2003, is merely the most dramatic and least politically attractive of
their options. Congress can pass a law that says the president cannot
send more troops. It can limit the length of military tours of duty. It
can legislate a deadline for withdrawal. A few anti-war types are, in
fact, proposing such drastic measures. But such voices remain a small,
if vocal, minority.

Congress learnt to be helpless by standing aside as successive
presidents asserted that the war power belongs to them alone. That is
not what the constitution says. Article one, which gives the legislative
branch the sole power to declare war, also puts it in charge of
creating, funding and regulating the armed forces. But every president
since Harry Truman has taken the position that it is unreasonable for
permission to be required from Congress in advance of military action.

Congress's frustration with being brushed aside boiled over during
Vietnam, resulting in the passage of the 1973 war powers resolution. All
presidents since Richard Nixon have maintained that this law - which
creates a 60-day period after the onset of hostilities for presidents
either to get congressional approval or withdraw troops - is an
unconstitutional infringement of their article two power as
commander-in-chief. Both Presidents Bush asserted that they needed no
congressional authorisation for their Gulf wars - and Congress, in both
cases, chose to avoid a showdown by handing them authorisation anyhow.
This has left unsettled the question of whether a president can in fact
go to war over Congress's objection.

But Congress's power to terminate a war is even clearer than its power
to forbid one in the first place. A provision of the war powers
resolution states specifically that the president must remove forces
when Congress so orders. Faced with military deployments they disliked
in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, Republican lawmakers did not hesitate to
invoke this authority during the Clinton years.

Perhaps the most striking example was the military intervention in
Somalia. In 1993, the House of Representatives passed an amendment
saying US forces could remain there only one more year. Two subsequent
defence appropriations bills cut off funding for the deployment.
Congress also drew limits around how US personnel and bases could be used.

When they say they are incapable of stopping Mr Bush's plan, what
congressional Democrats really mean is that they are afraid to oppose
it. With only 17 per cent of respondents supporting the "surge",
according to a recent ABC-Washington Post poll, it is hard to see how
voting against more troops would be an act of political suicide. But
after years of being called weak, unsupportive of the troops and
unpatriotic, flinching at conservative threats has become a Pavlovian
Democratic response. Earlier this week, Tony Snow, White House
spokesman, said the war in Iraq remained necessary because Americans
"don't want another September 11". It is hard to imagine anyone being
taken in by this non-sequitur, yet many still are. By feigning
helplessness, Democrats also leave the onus for whatever happens next in
Iraq on Mr Bush.

There are plausible arguments for supporting a surge and some good ones
for rejecting a precipitous pullout. But Democrats who argue for
withdrawal and fail to act on their convictions have no leg to stand on.
By abdicating their constitutional role, they feed the executive monster
Mr Bush has created. If they are serious about ending the war, Democrats
must quit yelping and bite back.

The writer is editor of Slate.com

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007