Reality-Based Legislation: House Dems Demand end of US War in Iraq in 08
The Democrats in Congress passed a supplemental funding bill for the Iraq War that included a demand that troops be withdrawn by August of 2008.
Contrary to what John McCain alleged, the bill does not micromanage the conduct of the war. It declines to continue funding it after a date certain. Congress has the right in the Constitution to control the purse strings, and no president can fight a war that Congress declines to fund (except by engaging in criminal embezzlement, as with Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra).
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution clearly says that Congress has the right
' To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years . . . '
The Founding Fathers did not want even so much as a standing army, much less a standing war. It was the clear intent of the Constitution that any funding for any military effort be strictly limited in time. The idea that Bush could take the country to war for 4 years and never face any Congressional scrutiny or limits on funding is wholly antithetical to the US constitution.
What Pelosi and the Democrats did is not only constitutionally permitted, it is required. That is why McCain and other opponents of the legislation are attempting to muddy the waters by claiming that it micromanages the war. If it did so, the legislature really would be treading on a prerogative of the president. But the Congress hasn't said that the military should attack Ramadi on October 8. What it is saying, it has the right and duty to say.
The pro-war forces keep pretending that the November 2006 elections never happened, and that they haven't lost both houses of Congress and that the American public doesn't want an end to the war. The pretence is often weirdly allowed to stand by the corporate media. But here in Realityland, aka the blogosphere, we don't have to play those games.
Labels: Iraq War
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/24/2007 01:29:00 AM
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Standing Armies
As previously noted, the experiences in Iraq are easily translatable to the homefront should the political motivations and initiatives be indicated. As we have all read in our history books, the presence of a standing army was one of the problems the colonials had with the Angaloids, eventually causing the ejection of the latter in the late 18th Century.
The reduction of standing armies has been tried after each and every war in this century, resulting in poor preparedness for the next group of Central Powers, Axis Powers, North Koreans, and the like attempting to impose their wills in their own regions. The necessity for maintaining standing armies has been determined by the Americans' past experiences of being drawn in to others' family squabbles, namely the Germans against the Saxe-Coburgs (cum 'Windsors') in the 19Teens, again in the 19Forties, then the Asians beginning with and continuing through the Japanese-Chinese-Koreans, then the VietNamese, and now the Middle Easterners.
Needless to say, all wars are good for the related industries, with slumps usually overcome by initiating new conflicts. The old weapons are dispensed with early on, allowing for the new and improved models to be marketed to the government (then to Ah-No Arnold from Kahl-ee-fohr-nee-yah), at present representing some $40Billion in backlog for replacement items. Obsolescent equipment also has a ready market.
On the homefront, the police forces have been militarised in order to deal with every ooga-booga that gets media attention, resulting in transfer of military hardware to the urban fighters. The translation from 'law enforcement' to 'police state' becomes easier when all of the equipment is consistent among the available forces. A standing army -- posse comitatus notwithstanding -- serves as a back-up to the locally directed groups (police, federal officers, National Guard, et al), if only to serve as advisers as they reportedly did at Waco against the villainous and evil archenemy (bequeathed by GHW Bush to BillJeff Clinton),David Koresh. Tear gas, M16s, tanks, helicopters, General [Sir] Wesley Clark, and all the neat toys and action figures.
The shift of reponsibility for law enforcement to the municipalities and the states allows for the pacification of the average citizens who must defer all decisions to the uniformed (and perhaps uninformed) forces. Used to be, the citizens would fill out the ranks, being most know-ledgeable about their local areas and the populace and able to make informed decisions about who was inside Mt Carmel and up on Ruby Ridge.
'Wars' on everything tend to make for spinning heads, requiring some centralisation of the 'Forces for Good' and the concentration of elitist peace officering rather than making it a community effort. The downside to this is there is a dichotomy within the communities as seen in Ru-Dee Giuliani's New Yak or in 1968 Chicago or in WTO Seattle or the 1932 Bonus Marches after WW1 (MacArthur's 'park'?) and other times and locales where the power elites seek to establish their presences and preeminencies locally. Even in N'Ahlins, the contractor Blackwater was in force before the Guard was mobilised, bringing to the fore and fray private armies as are used in Iraq.
A pacified populace is easier to manage than one that is actively involved, even to the point of various agencies doing the dog-and-fireplug routine to establish jurisdictions. The omnivoracious politicians will obviously point to the need for effective law and order but this might fly in the face of the rising crime rates and the continued destabilisation of society, perhaps largely due to the citizenry being told on the one hand, 'Hands off!' and, on the other, being accused of complacency.
Kick 'em 'til they go down and then tell 'em they're cowards for not getting up! Something like the Sovietisation of the 'West,' learning how to deal with burgeoning and increasingly unruly groups of people might be part of the thinking.
Armies, as Mussolini found out, are easier to control and can more easily control adversaries when the time comes to be assertive. That was, of course, until Il Duce lost his head when the people decided to act in their own best interests. As we've seen in Iraq, this is not something that is culturally defined, only moe prominent there today due to an insufficiency of techological capabilities and oversight.
A problem with "Realityland" (aka the blogosphere) is that it is highly atomized and sectarian. Perhaps 35% consist of groups that are perfectly content with a standing army and a standing war, because xenophobia and foreign campaigns instill unity and distract from domestic issues. Red America would probably go ape over the GOP stance on immigration or medical costs, were it not for the flag waving and troop worship afforded by the war. Even the mourning occasioned by the dead or wounded can have a tonic collective effect, provided the casualties are few in number, are segregated from the elite, and can be exploited as hallowed martyrs to discredit those who dare question the war.
Clouded in the legend of the "greatest generation" is the historical fact that by early 1945 many policy and military leaders questioned whether the American public would stand for much more combat. The public tolerance for conflicts on the scale of the Bulge, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa was more fragile than History Channel nostalgia lead us to believe. Bad weather on D-Day could have meant catastrophe and a much longer war. Truman opted for the A-bomb in part because of fears that a Operation Olympic landing would founder, stalemate, and spell political doom.
Meanwhile, were Bush to cede to the House deadline, he would probably lost the 35% popular support wedded to the war cause, while picking up nothing from the rest of the public. The symbolism of the war, the dearth of tangible current collective sacrifice, and the ability to defer real costs into the future, make it far more expedient to continue the war unabatted into 2009. The "surge" optimizes the calculus because it costs relatively little and might well induce a calm lasting long enough for Bush's 2nd term clock to run out.
The "final straw" may be the refusal of enlisted ranks and reservists to endure further extended terms of duty. However, rhetoric, rotations, and application of the surge may delay a breaking point, conveniently, until the 2009-2013 Administration. The supreme irony will be if the Right may then expoit the ire of disillusioned Iraq vets to discredit politicians who, in 2007, voted to shorten the war. Surely, Karl's successors are already working on the script.
There's been lots of notice of the fact that Congress controls the purse strings, but the Constitution also gives Congress: the powers "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces" Rulemakers are not micromanagers, they are the bosses.
My congressman Sam Farr is sponsoring a bill to embed civilian reconstruction contractors into the US Military in Iraq,
He calls that 'supporting' Iraq.
I call it 'blow it up and pave it over'.
You couldn't find a handful of congressmen or senators that truly want to exit Iraq. The potential for their constituent to profit is too ripe a plum to ignore.
Fortunately, They are being FORCED TO leave by the very people they should be seeking to 'support', the Iraqi on the street with a gun or a bomb, as opposed to being 'asked' to leave by an an illegitimate, handpicked group of CRONIES called the Iraqi government who will never ask, and will leave the country to return to the west when the US soldiers do...
The Iraqis keep blowing it up as we build it anyway. I don't think they want the 'support' we offer.
Here's an example of an improvised "shaped charge" that would be hard to blame on Iran:
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer
12 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber driving a truck with explosives hidden under bricks destroyed a police station Saturday in Baghdad — the largest in a series of insurgent strikes against the American-led security crackdown. At least 47 people died in the attacks, including 20 at the police station
[source]
Those bricks were ostensibly for building a new "police station", part of Iraq's new police state infrastructure the US and it's construction contractors are endowing the Iraqi public with... not schools and hospitals, police stations.
Apparently some Iraqis have a problem with that.
The ones that loaded this truck stacked the bricks a little heavy on the top to force the explosion sideways/down, and WHAMMO, no more police station.
The only support we should be offering Iraq is WAR REPARATIONS, to whomever survives the struggle to the top of the smoldering rubble that we so kindly provided the opportunity for the Iraqi people to build.
I think that Bush never framed the expectations of the people well.....so when things went south he has only himself to blame. I still don't understand why we can' throw the Iraqis into the deep end of the pool with our logistical help.
Well reasoned commentary on Congressional perogative though. Thanks for it.
Given the voting system that applies in the US it is difficult to know what public opinion wants, since it is mostly misrepresented in Congress, with so few people voting, and those that vote being not wholly typical, it quite easy to understand the presumptions made in the White House. I understand that the goings on in Ohio and Florida are raw nerves just waiting to prodded.
Despite its short coming there is much to admire in the American political system, whose subversion appears to be the primary purpose of those who command executive authority in the White House. One has to hope the optimists will be proven correct that things will right themselves, as in the past.
Still the theme of the contest between executive prerogative and democratic accountability is universal. Let us all sincerely hope that democracy will survive and prosper in the US, as it appears, tragically, doomed in Iraq. The loss of democracy in Iraq is not to be compared to the loss of life and basic amentities such as drinkable water, or even control over the principle natural resource.
Can we please get something straight; the United States at the Federal level has NEVER been a democracy. Further, one of the most important checks and balances was written out of the Constitution after the election of 1800--the loser becoming Vice President; it was supposed to be like the Roman system of two Counsels--one elite, one plebian--such that executive decisions needed to be made by consensus and making one party rule impossible. This change is often forgotten despite its great importance.
Please excuse me if this seems off topic:
Who funds the operations the Iraqi government?
I understand that Iraqi revenues, under UN supervison fund (in theory) only reconstruction and development projects.
I would think this excludes ongoing operations the Iraqi goverment, its parliment, it ministeries, etc. From where does this operational funding come? Who determines how it gets disbursed?
Thanks, sdutky@terpalum.umd.edu
My understanding is that these legislations effect only COMBAT troops, i.e. only 60,000 out of 140,000 troops (surge not included). The Dems want those permanent bases there for future wars against Iran and Syria just as much as the GOP. Hillary has already promised us if she wins the White House in 2008, she'll keep "just enough" troops there to "fight Al-Qaeda." Check my article Aiding the Enemy at http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar07/Binh18.htm or in my blog http://prisonerofstarvation.blogspot.com for more.
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