[Peace-discuss] Seeing clearly…

[Morton K. Brussel]

Interpreting the present stalemate…

  	
May 14, 2007
Benchmarks and Bullsh*t
Beware bipartisan 'consensus' on Iraq
by Justin Raimondo

The news I have for "netroots" types and Huffington Post liberals who  
see the Democratic Party as the major if not only hope for the  
antiwar movement can be summed up in two words: forget it. Majority  
leader Sen. Harry Reid recently let the cat out of the bag when he  
said, "There is new reason this week to believe that a bipartisan  
consensus on Iraq is emerging."

Translation: the sellout is coming, if it isn't already here.

American voters sent a clear message to Washington last November when  
they voted to put an ostensibly antiwar Democratic Congress in power:  
they told pollsters the war was the big issue, and, furthermore, they  
wanted out of Iraq. They voted Democratic not because they suddenly  
believed that party would end "the culture of corruption" – which is  
a very bipartisan phenomenon, and voters aren't dumb enough to  
believe otherwise – but because they took seriously Democratic  
promises to get us out of Iraq. Before the election, leading  
Democrats called for a timetable aiming at complete "redeployment" of  
U.S. troops out of Iraq: immediately after the election, however, the  
Dems capitulated to the "surge" (even as their "antiwar" rhetoric  
waxed louder). Last week the House voted down a measure that would  
have withdrawn the troops in nine months. If you follow the link  
you'll see that Madam Speaker allowed the withdrawal vote "in the  
hope that her rank-and-file would then unite behind the funding bill"  
– a two-part bill that would release some $48 billion initially and  
then schedule a summertime vote to appropriate $52.8 billion more to  
cover expenses until the end of September.

The White House has threatened to veto the two-part funding ploy but  
coupled this with an offer to negotiate on the Benchmark Question.  
All eyes are now on the Senate, reports the Christian Science  
Monitor, "where majority leader Harry Reid and White House officials  
have been hunkered down in secret negotiations. Last week, Bush said  
he had empowered White House negotiators 'to find common ground on  
benchmarks.'"

Caught between the Democratic Party's antiwar base and the War  
Party's control of the reins of power in Washington, Pelosi and Reid  
have been walking a tightrope between the two, but their balancing  
act is increasingly untenable. Pressure from the ranks of groups such  
as MoveOn.org – whose leadership initially colluded with the  
Democratic sellout – has forced a turnaround, and the MoveOners have  
now issued an ultimatum of sorts to the Dems in the form of an open  
letter: they're threatening to move "into opposition"!

Ralph Nader, you have a call on line one…

The president is now holding out the bait of "benchmarks" to  
increasingly restive Republicans in Congress who are looking at the  
oncoming antiwar voter tsunami with something approaching panic, and  
the Democrats will in all likelihood fall for it – with a sigh of  
relief. After all, Reid and Pelosi have been looking for a way to  
fund the war without seeming to own it, to prosecute a conflict and  
yet take no responsibility for it – and now, finally, they may have  
hit on the perfect formula.

The benchmark delusion was first perpetrated by the Democrats, you'll  
remember: it was an aspect of the House bill that would have made  
release of funds conditional given the fulfillment of a whole brace  
of benchmarks. The only problem was that each and every one of them  
could be unilaterally waived by the president. Why Bush didn't accept  
this I'll never understand: methinks he's reconsidered, and it's a  
good move. Now he can say he's compromised, the Republicans who are  
taking incoming fire back home in their districts will be given some  
political cover, and the Democrats (and I include MoveOn.org in this  
partisan category) can tout this as a concrete legislative  
"achievement" for the party of peace.

And the war will go on, just as before. Nothing will change. Nothing  
but the number of dead and wounded, both Iraqi and American – the  
former rising in much larger numbers than the latter, of course. The  
extended deployments will be extended yet further, and the war – this  
futile, unjust, morally indefensible war of conquest – will drag on.

In voting down the nine-month withdrawal bill, the Democrats acquired  
part-ownership of this war – and in moving to endorse the final  
funding bill, they are becoming full partners with the GOP in the  
annexation of Iraq to the American empire. That's what these famous  
benchmarks are all about: they are essentially instructions to the  
Iraqis, telling them what they must do before the funding spigot gets  
turned on. The benchmarks dictate to the Iraqis how they will  
"reform" the process of "de-Ba'athification," how they will divvy up  
their oil resources, and when and how to hold local elections, among  
other things.

Of course, the Iraqi parliament could always vote down the American  
diktat, but then there would be no money forthcoming – including, as  
Hillary Clinton has proposed, no money to protect our Iraqi sock  
puppets from their countrymen, who consider them collaborators and  
traitors. Under the circumstances, it doesn't take much of a tug on  
the leash to bring the Iraqi leaders into line. This is how the  
Americans conduct their battle for "hearts and minds" – by making  
local satraps so widely and deeply despised that they are totally  
dependent on their Washington overlords for their sheer physical  
survival. The real "benchmark" the Iraqis have to display to the  
Americans' satisfaction is an infinite capacity for obedience.

While Congress dickers, both "major" parties are entering a deal in  
which they become equal partners in empire. The "benchmarks" bill,  
coupled with the "surge," will seal this agreement in blood.

MoveOn.org is running antiwar television ads in Republican-held swing  
districts – but will they run those same ads in the districts of the  
59 Democrats who voted against the nine-month withdrawal plan? Don't  
hold your breath.

The Democratic Party is not about to end this war. Far from ending  
it, they seek to organize and formalize the occupation. Their  
"compromise" spending bill signs them on to constructing a viable  
colonial administration based on a two-tiered system of  
administration – with the Iraqi legislature rubber-stamping decisions  
made in Washington and the money flowing in at the same speed as the  
Iraqis carry out their orders. Four years after "mission  
accomplished," the nature of the mission – the carving out of an  
American province in the heart of the Middle East – is all too apparent.

The U.S. is embarked on an openly imperial venture, and the structure  
of a rising American Empire is taking shape before our eyes. It's a  
fantastic castle with many rooms and antechambers all leading to the  
seat of power, the imperial throne-room of the Oval Office. Here, at  
the very apex of the imperial pyramid, the most powerful man on earth  
contemplates his next move, while his co-emperor, who holds court in  
an undisclosed location, whispers in his ear: Iran.

The Democrats will go along with that one, too. Madam Speaker agreed  
to strip a provision from the Iraq funding bill that would have  
required the president to come to Congress before launching an  
attack. Indeed, none of the major Democratic candidates have ruled  
out attacking Iran. The loudest voice against such a move has come  
from among the Republicans. Rep. Ron Paul, who recently made such a  
splash in the GOP presidential debates, has warned of the possibility  
of a new Gulf-of-Tonkin type "incident" that would draw us into war  
with Tehran and ignite a regional conflict.

Democrats are in favor of all sorts of warning labels on products,  
right? I propose a warning label be placed over Democratic Party  
headquarters in Washington, especially directed at antiwar voters,  
which simply says "ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE!"

What is needed is not just a revision of our Iraq policy, or our Iran  
policy, or even our Middle East policy. We need to reevaluate – and,  
yes, reverse – our entire foreign policy from top to bottom, starting  
with its central premise, which is that we must be the dominant  
military and political power on the planet. Neither of the major  
parties is prepared to do this: since World War II, both the  
Democrats and the Republicans have been explicitly committed to a  
foreign policy of global intervention, and this bipartisan consensus  
has been maintained right up to the present day. After 9/11, this  
messianic tendency in American foreign policy metastasized like a  
cancer cell and gave birth to the neoconservative mutation, which  
seized control of the policy-making apparatus in Washington.

As Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan put it in their 1996 foreign policy  
manifesto, a founding document of the neoconservative foreign policy  
platform, the new American imperialism is to be a "benevolent global  
hegemony." For the first time, the real nature of the bipartisan  
consensus, with its emphasis on "internationalism" and America's role  
as the "world leader," was made consistent and explicit. While  
disagreeing over means, both parties generally agree on the proper  
ends of U.S. foreign policy: global military dominance by the U.S.

This goal is simply not attainable, and, even if it were, it is  
unsustainable – and, even if it were sustainable for any significant  
length of time, it would not be desirable. World hegemony,  
"benevolent" or otherwise, is not so much a policy as a  
megalomaniacal fantasy, a symptom of an underlying sickness that has  
infected the minds of our rulers – an illness that can only end in  
madness, death, and mayhem on a scale not seen since the last world war.

The cure is not to be found in partisan politics or in the wishful  
thinking of Hollywood liberals who invest their hopes in whatever  
rising star in the Democratic political firmament is fashionable at  
the moment. The only antidote is a third-party effort to expose and  
defeat both wings of the War Party and hold them to account. A  
nationwide antiwar electoral campaign pledged to defeat all pro-war  
members of Congress – especially Democrats– and actively campaign  
against all pro-war candidates for president would do much to set the  
stage for a complete cure.

Before that is possible, however, grassroots activists must lose  
their illusions about the Democratic Party – and recognize the  
necessity of defeating pro-war Democrats, not just in primaries but  
in the general election. The third-party option must be considered,  
and this will separate those whose first loyalty is to the Democrats  
from those whose allegiance is to the cause of peace.

Let's separate the wheat from the chaff, the "benchmarks" from the  
bullsh*t, and the partisan hacks from the healthy body of the antiwar  
movement. Because ending this war isn't a partisan issue – it's a  
moral imperative.