[Peace-discuss] If there were an antiwar movement...

[C. G. Estabrook]

[It's shocking that there's no national movement to defeat this funding.  The 
Democrats have done their job well, and the clapped-out "antiwar organizations" 
are silent.  The least we can do is call out Congresspeople and remind them that 
  they're voting for crimes. --CGE]

	Posted on Sun, May. 10, 2009
	Will Congress keep paying for these two wars?
	David Lightman and William Douglas | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The debate over how - and how long - the United States should fight 
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan returns to Washington's political stage this week 
as a wary Congress begins considering new funding for the conflicts.

The House of Representatives is scheduled to spar over a $96.7 billion plan to 
pay this year's costs for the wars and flu prevention strategies, with final 
passage likely by the end of the week. The Senate Appropriations Committee plans 
to write its version on Thursday.

Lawmakers expect at least two major conflicts of their own — one over methods of 
measuring the wars' progress, and the other dealing with detainees from 
soon-to-be-closed Guantanamo Bay prison.

The House bill would require President Barack Obama to tell Congress by Oct. 1, 
in writing, his plan for closing the Cuban facility, which Obama has said will 
close by Jan. 22, 2010. The measure doesn't include $80 million the 
administration sought for closing Guantanamo.

The $84.5 billion in war funding, which would push the cost of the two conflicts 
past $1 trillion since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, 
terrorist attacks, is also likely to trigger a lively fight, pitting Democrat 
against Democrat.

"We don't have any end in here for Afghanistan and I don't like that we're going 
to continue to be in Iraq," said Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chairwoman 
Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif.

Obama has said that the U. S. combat mission in Iraq will end by August 31, 
2010, and that all U.S. troops should be out by the end of 2011, but he's given 
no timeline for Afghanistan. The bill requires monthly reports from the Pentagon 
and other national security officials on progress in Iraq.

It also mandates a report on Afghanistan and Pakistan by early next year 
assessing whether those governments are "demonstrating the necessary commitment, 
capability, conduct and unity of purpose" to warrant the current level of U. S. 
involvement.

The report must include details on the "level of political consensus and unity 
of purpose to confront the political and security challenges facing the region," 
as well as how the governments plan to deal with corruption and controlling 
their own territory.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. had supported timelines when George W. Bush 
was president but is discouraging them now.

Anti-war liberals could mount an effort to include firm timelines for progress, 
but Pelosi is urging them to trust Obama.

"The president now has to take the time that is necessary to keep the American 
people safe," she said, "to stabilize the region and to do so in a way that 
makes everyone who has an interest in the stability of Afghanistan to make an 
investment there."

Pelosi, though, eventually may face a formidable legislative force: House 
Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., has warned that he is 
"extremely dubious that the administration will be able to accomplish what it 
wants to accomplish" in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"When I came here in 1969 I was opposed to the Vietnam War," he recalled, "but 
President Nixon pointed out that he had inherited it and deserved some time to 
try and make his policy work, so I decided to keep my mouth shut for a year."

After that year, seeing no progress in Vietnam, Obey began speaking out against 
the policy.

"I am following that same approach here," he said. While he's willing to give 
the administration "everything that they want" now, at the end of the year he 
wants "an honest, tough-minded evaluation of the chances of success."

The war funding is expected to pass because skeptics want to give Obama some time.

"I don't want to continue a war," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, who is 
undecided about her vote. But, she said, "I really think the administration has 
been effectively articulate in their desire to end the war in Iraq and change 
the situation in Afghanistan."

Equally combustible this week could be Obama's desire to close Guantanamo.

Congressional Republicans hope to use the scheduled closure _and lack of a plan 
for what to do with the 241 detainees still there — to accuse Obama and 
Democrats of being weak on national security and soft on terrorists.

Republican leaders Thursday unveiled their "Keep Terrorists Out of America Act," 
a proposal that would forbid relocating Guantanamo Bay prisoners to any facility 
in the United States unless the receiving state's governor and legislature approve.

The measure has become a major GOP offensive, with House Minority Leader John 
Boehner, R-Ohio, asking in a Web video ad "Just what is the administration's 
overarching plan to take on the terrorist threat and to keep America safe?"

Republican lawmakers this week rhetorically asked whether the American public 
wants suspected terrorists housed in Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin, Virginia, 
South Carolina or New York.

"And the thought of having any number of these detainees ... the security 
provisions that would require, the risk it would create, and, being literally in 
the shadow of Ground Zero, I find not just offensive, but also extremely 
dangerous," Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said at a news conference unveiling the GOP 
plan.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/v-print/story/67868.html