[Peace-discuss] House Votes Today on Afghan, Pakistan Wars

[Stuart Levy]

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 04:08:04AM -0500, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> I have no idea how you voted, but I'll leave it to the candid member of 
> AWARE to say whether you "defended Obama" by objecting vigorously to my 
> news summaries that criticized his candidacy and pointed out his 
> obfuscation of his position on the war.  I recall that you exploded at one 
> TV taping when I guyed you a bit for offering a "commercial for Obama."
>
> I know that our present system is a parody of democracy, but in principle 
> we're supposed to vote for legislative candidates who will vote correctly 
> on the issues. There is no issue more important than the war this year, and 
>  it seems that, unusually enough, we have a choice: an incumbent who is 
> consistently voting against the war, as he promised to do; and an opponent 
> who refuses to make a similar promise.  The choice isn't hard for anyone 
> opposed to the war.

Well... as I mentioned in David Gill's facebook thread, we still don't
know why Tim Johnson has flipped on the wars (even though I called him
this week to confirm that I'm glad he did).  And as I said there,
one can imagine several plausible reasons -- including that this war
is now being promoted by a President of the opposite party, which could
change in a couple years.  If a President Palin attacks Venezuela,
what would Johnson think of that?  Given that uncertainty, I don't think the
choice is as clear as you say.

It'll mean more if we can see that Gill is taking a position which is
opposed to the President of his own party.  He's done that on health care,
as far as I can see.  And Gill commented, just last night, after conferring
with Progressive Dems. of America, that he will now issue a position
on (I think) war funding, which he had not done before.
I look forward to reading it.


> On 7/27/10 10:40 PM, Brussel Morton K. wrote:
>> It is a blatant lie to say that I defended Obama, and this statement 
>> reveals
>> a kind of turpitude that I should not have expected. Furthermore, you know
>> that I didn't vote Democratic (for Obama), so your second sentence is 
>> simply
>> disingenuous obfuscation.
>>
>> You might remember that in the previous election, Gill was against the 
>> Iraq
>> war;  Johnson supported it and the policies of Bush. My contacts with 
>> Gill,
>> although limited,  were encouraging: He explicitly stated his opposition 
>> to
>> our wars and occupations and to U.S. militarism in general (Is Johnson 
>> voting
>> for cutting the military budget—and by how much if at all?. How has he 
>> voted
>> on that budget?).  Whether Gill would vote the way I prefer if in Congress 
>> is
>> unanswerable now, but his stances in the past were far superior to those 
>> of
>> Johnson, not only on the issues of militarism, terrorism, national
>> "security", and war and peace, but on many other progressive issues as 
>> well.
>>
>> Your manichean approach to these candidates is unworthy if not unusual.
>>
>> --mkb
>>
>> P.S. I am sending this to Gill to see if and how he responds.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jul 27, 2010, at 9:52 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>
>>> This is unworthy of you, Mort. It's also stupid to stay with a candidate
>>> just because he's a Democrat.
>>>
>>> We have a Congressional representative (whom I ran against in 2002) who
>>> voted for the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq.
>>>
>>> He now says he was wrong to do so.  More importantly, he has promised to
>>> vote against any more funding for the Mideast war - and he has 
>>> consistently
>>> voted that way.  Isn't that what we've been trying to get Congress 
>>> members
>>> to do?
>>>
>>> His rather desperate opponent refuses to make a similar promise. (Since
>>> Gill has little chance anyway - look at the returns for the last 3 or 4
>>> elections in the 15th CD - he wouldn't want to offend anyone who's either
>>> for or against the war.) He asks us to vote for him (because he's a
>>> Democrat) and then he'll decide later how much blood he wants on his
>>> hands.
>>>
>>> Haven't you been lied to enough?  Of course, I do remember your defending
>>> Obama in similar terms.  How do you think that's worked out?
>>>
>>> How long will they be able to seduce and abandon you?  --CGE
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/27/10 9:25 PM, Brussel Morton K. wrote:
>>>> Plugging for Tim Johnson is becoming tedious. So is denigrating David
>>>> Gill.
>>>>
>>>> I'll bet on Gill's humane qualities any day over Johnson's. I suspect
>>>> that there's more behind your campaign for Johnson than just his
>>>> (recent opportunistic?) war issues  He goes to church and he's against
>>>> abortion . Does he still believe in the war on terror, which at least
>>>> until recently he supported? Forget about public health and other issues
>>>> such as taxes and the economy.
>>>>
>>>> --mkb
>>>>
>>>> On Jul 27, 2010, at 8:05 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Rep.Johnson voted for the Kucinich-Paul resolution.
>>>>>
>>>>> His arrogant Democratic opponent, David Gill, seems to want us to vote
>>>>> for him without telling us how he would vote on war funding. Would he
>>>>> have voted for the Kucinich-Paul resolution?
>>>>>
>>>>> Given the consistent lying from Democrats about what they'd do in
>>>>> regard to the war, I can see no reason for people opposed to the war to
>>>>> vote for them in November. Certainly not for David Gill, when he will
>>>>> not even echo Tim Johnson's promise to vote against money for war in
>>>>> the Mideast. --CGE
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 7/27/10 11:53 AM, Robert Naiman wrote:
>>>>>> [Note that while we can be pretty confident that Rep. Johnson will
>>>>>> vote no on the war money, we have no such assurance, as far as I am
>>>>>> aware, that he will support the Kucinich-Paul measure calling for the
>>>>>> withdrawal of U.S. forces from Pakistan; another reason to call,
>>>>>> using the toll-free number provided below.]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote this afternoon on
>>>>>> the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This morning, the Senate version of the Afghanistan war supplemental
>>>>>> was brought up in the House under "suspension" rules, which require a
>>>>>> 2/3 majority to pass. This expedited procedure is generally used for
>>>>>> measures considered "uncontroversial," which is odd, to say the
>>>>>> least, since the war in Afghanistan is anything but uncontroversial,
>>>>>> with the most recent evidence being the release by Wikileaks of
>>>>>> secret documents on the war, which the New York Times reported
>>>>>> "offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in
>>>>>> Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official
>>>>>> portrayal." [...] If 90% of the Members who voted for the
>>>>>> McGovern-Obey-Jones amendment on July 1 vote no this afternoon on the
>>>>>> war supplemental, the measure will fail. [...] Also on the House
>>>>>> calendar today is H.Con.Res. 301, a "privileged resolution"
>>>>>> introduced by Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Bob Filner, and Ron Paul, which
>>>>>> invokes the War Powers Act to force a debate and vote on the
>>>>>> deployment of U.S. forces in Pakistan.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As Representative Kucinich points out, what U.S. forces are doing in
>>>>>> Pakistan has never been authorized by Congress. The 2001
>>>>>> authorization of military force targeted those who planned and
>>>>>> carried out the September 11 attacks and those who harbored them. It
>>>>>> was not a blank check to attack anyone we don't like, or anyone our
>>>>>> friends don't like. U.S. forces in Pakistan are targeting people who
>>>>>> did not, as far as we know, plan or participate in the September 11
>>>>>> attacks, and against whom no evidence has been presented that they
>>>>>> harbor those who did. Whether one thinks the enterprise worthy or
>>>>>> not, U.S. participation in a war against the internal foes of
>>>>>> Pakistan has never been authorized by Congress. There's nothing in
>>>>>> the 2001 authorization of military force about a barter agreement in
>>>>>> which we attack people in Pakistan that the Pakistani government
>>>>>> doesn't like in exchange for permission to attack people in Pakistan
>>>>>> that we don't like.
>>
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