Senate Votes for Cloture on Bill to Cut Off Funding for Iraq War

In what was seen as a surprise move, the Republicans in the United States Senate agreed to allow a vote on a bill to cut funding for the Iraq War and to redeploy troops out of Iraq within 120 days. Consequently the motion to invoke cloture passed by a vote of 70 to 24 with 6 Senators not voting.

Both Ohio Senators voted to invoke cloture, which may be the first time that Brown and Voinovich have voted the same way on a bill related to Iraq. Interestingly 21 of the 24 votes against invoking cloture on debating the bill came from Democrats. Democrats voting against cloture included both Democratic Senators from Delaware, and newly elected Democratic Senators Casey, Webb, Tester, and McCaskill.

The Republicans voted to allow the debate to go forward and to advance the bill to a vote because they think that the so-called "success" of the surge will help them move public opinion. Of course, a lot of that depends on how the Democrats frame the debate.

We hope that Democrats point out that Republicans are willing to spend billions of dollars on Iraqis, but not on Americans. Billions of dollars to rebuild Baghdad, but not New Orleans. Framing the debate that way makes the choices that Republicans are making very clear.

We would also like to see Democrats earmark the money saved by cutting funding for the war and deploying troops out of Iraq for helping ordinary Americans caught up in the foreclosure crisis or into developing alternative energy. Of course, it is all hypothetical anyway since Bush has already vowed to veto any bill cuts off funding and redeploy troops out of Iraq. Still, the debate could be interesting.

Eleabor Clift's Column for Newsweek: "Marketing the War"

Here is a link to a great column by Eleanor Clift because it contains an analysis on how the Republicans plan to blame the Democrats when things go wrong in Iraq. This is a quote from the article:

Forget September. April is the real deadline. That’s when the U.S. military can no longer sustain the surge, and the debate will then be over whether to return to pre-surge levels or begin a staged withdrawal. You can guess where Bush will be; he’ll want to keep 130,000 troops (down from the current 160,000) in Iraq until he leaves office. The strategy of the war’s architects is clear: keep enough troops in Iraq to provide a surface illusion of progress, and then when the Democrats (ideally, Hillary) win the presidency in ’08 and pull out of Iraq, Bush and the Republicans can claim they were on the verge of a great victory against Islamofascism when the weak-willed opposition party betrayed the troops and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. It worked with Vietnam, crippling Democrats on national security for decades because it was a Democratic Congress that pulled funding from the South Vietnamese government.

This is why Democratic politicians in Washington are not lining up to cut off funding for troops while they are serving in Iraq. They realize that they are going to be blamed if we withdraw rapidly and a bloodbath results. The thing that is not known, however, is whether the American public will care if there is a bloodbath in Iraq. If you want an explanation of why Democrats aren't willing to cut off funding, Clift's column is a good place to start.

Congressman Ralph Regula Backs Indefinite Deployment for American Troops in Iraq

As the result of this roll call in the United States House of Representatives shows, Congressman Ralph Regula (R-13) voted to indefinitely deploy American troops in Iraq. He was joined by all the Republican Representatives to Congress from Ohio.

Of course, if you ask them, they will tell you that their vote wasn't for deploying American troops in Iraq indefinitely. They will tell you that their vote was against establishing deadlines for the removal of American troops. They will tell you that their opposition to the Democratic bill establishing a withdrawal date of March of 2008 is not the same as voting to deploy troops indefinitely.

Don't believe it. After four years of war in Iraq, it is obvious that Bush has no idea on how to end America's involvement in Iraq. Nor does he seem to have any desire to do so. If you aren't for a deadline to bring American troops home, then you are for continuing Bush's indefinite deployment of American troops in a sectarian civil war. Ohio Republicans: Once again, putting Bush first.

Will Iraq War Hurt Democrats More Than Republicans?

Most Democratic activists believe that the Iraq War assures that the next President of the United States will be a Democrat. While it would seem that Democrats have an advantage because of the Iraq War, success is not guaranteed. The Iraq War could actually cause more trouble for Democrats than for Republicans.

On the Republican side there doesn't seem to be any intraparty turmoil over Bush's war. The Republican base seems to support Bush on the war. The Republican candidates are pretty much in support of Bush for starting the war, although some break with him on how the war has been managed. On the Democratic side, however, it is a different story.

In the June 21, 2007 edition of the Washington Post we have this article by Senator Carl Levin, a sponsor of the recent war funding bill that was vetoed. On the face of it, this article seems to be a reasoned defense of why Democratic Senators don't want to vote for cutting off funding for the war. Sen. Levin's approach, however, leads to this response on Daily Kos. As you can see, by reading the entry on Daily Kos the writer rejects any argument that Democratic Senators who voted to fund the war without the timelines following Bush's veto did the correct thing. If you read the comments to the posting, it is almost impossible to find anyone who agrees with Senator Levin's article.

The problem is, of course, what to do about the fact that Bush has a veto power over Democratic passed legislation. Right now there does not exist enough Republican votes to pass a funding bill with timelines over his veto. The alternatives then seem either to be pass the funding bill without timelines or don't pass a funding bill at all. Of course, that means that Democratic Senators will be subject to the repeated claim by Republicans that they are "abandoning" American troops. Given the complicity of the media in Bush's war, this claim is very likely to be picked up by the media without any thought or consideration of whether it is correct.

Furthermore, such a funding cut-off of American troops while they are fighting has not, to our knowledge, been done before. Congress cut off funding for aid to South Vietnam in 1974, but that was after American troops had withdrawn from Vietnam. It also came after 12 years of American involvement in Vietnam. (Click here to read a short history of how Congress ended American involvement in South Vietnam.) Cutting off funding to South Vietnam is a far cry from cutting off funding for American military operations while American troops are engaged in combat.

Yet, such distinctions don't seem to matter to many Democratic activists. It is easy to see a situation where the activist base of the Democratic Party, angered at what many activists regard as complicity in Bush's War and by the nomination of a presidential candidate like Hillary Clinton who voted to authorize the war, walk away from the Democratic Party in 2008. This could easily lead to a situation where the Republican candidate has more support from his party than the Democratic nominee does from his or her party. It was just such a situation that helped elect Nixon in 1968 and Reagan in 1980. Who says that political history can't repeat itself?

Is This Report True or Just More Bush BS?

In this article in the New York Times off the record sources are reported as saying that the Bush Administration is looking at cutting back troops in Iraq, beginning in late 2007 and continuing on into 2008. Here is a quote from the article:

The concepts call for a reduction in forces that could lower troop levels by the midst of the 2008 presidential election to roughly 100,000, from about 146,000, the latest available figure, which the military reported on May 1. They would also greatly scale back the mission that President Bush set for the American military when he ordered it in January to win back control of Baghdad and Anbar Province.

The mission would instead focus on the training of Iraqi troops and fighting Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, while removing Americans from many of the counterinsurgency efforts inside Baghdad.

Now, consider the timing of this report. The Republicans in Congress just went through a tough time sustaining Bush's veto. They are being warned by the Democrats that there will be many more votes this summer regarding Iraq. So-called "moderate" Republicans up for election in 2008 are demanding some action by September, although, according to the General in charge, September won't necessarily show much progress from the troop "surge."

What to do if you are the stubborn Bush Administration? Maybe you float this story to try and shore up Republican support with the hope that even if you aren't pulling troops out in September, you will do so by the 2008 election. In short, we think it is just more bs from Bubble-Boy and his gang.

John "Bonehead" Bohner Wants Never-Ending War in Iraq

If you click on the link in the title for this entry, you can read an article about the Iraq funding resolution. This article contains the following quote from John Boehner, Minority Leader of the House, (R-OH):Democrats have finally conceded defeat in their effort to include mandatory surrender dates in a funding bill for the troops, so forward progress has been made for the first time in this four-month process.

Okay, so now we know Boehner's position: a bill that sets a timetable for American withdrawal from Iraq is setting a "surrender date." Now, here's the question that every Democrat and progressive who supports setting a timetable should be asking Bonehead and his kind: how much longer should the U.S. stay in Iraq? One year? Two years? Four years? A decade? How much longer should Americans expect to see their sons and daughters killed or wounded in Iraq and their tax dollars spent? And, if you are unwilling to answer that question, then aren't you for a never-ending Iraqi War by the United States?

If the Democrats bill set "surrender dates" then the Republican version of Iraq funding is a bill for unlimited war, a war with no recognized goals, no way to measure success, and no end in sight. Democrats need to make this point over and over: Republicans supporting Bush are supporting never-ending war in Iraq.

Bush's Second Surge?

The link in this entry's title takes you to a story about a so-called "second surge" being conducted in Iraq by the Bush Administration. Hearst newspapers are reporting that due to increased length of deployed troops and faster rotation of troops in and out of Iraq, there will actually be close to 200,000 troops in Iraq at the end of the year. This is in contrast to the approximately 140,000 or so troops that are supposedly going to be in Iraq after the ongoing "surge" is completed.

If true, this could really put GOP lawmakers in an increasingly awkward position. They are resisting putting deadlines down for the withdrawal of American troops, calling such deadlines "surrender dates." Now they find themselves potentially having to defend an underhanded escalation of troops in Iraq when a steadily increasing majority of Americans want a timetable for the end of our involvement.

The Democratic leadership in Congress, who reportedly agreed on Tuesday, May 22, 2007, to an Iraq war funding resolution without timetables, could also be in a bind. When Democratic activists learn of this report from Hearst news, they are going to be even more angry about the Iraq War funding bill.

This report of a surge, combined with the reported compromise between Bush and the Dem leadership, will also complicate the life of Hillary Clinton. She would dearly love to talk about things other than Iraq and why she supported the war resolution back in 2002. News reports like the ones from Hearst will make that more and more difficult.

Of course, the Republicans, the Dem leadership, and Senator Clinton should have learned long before now that Bush will do whatever he wants and you can never, ever trust him or believe what he says.

George "Bush Enabler" Voinovich Trying to Have it Both Ways

This is from an article about Bubble-Boy's veto that appeared in the Washington Post online edition: Some kind of compromise has to be worked out between the administration and the Democrats," said Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio). "That's how it's done. Everybody holds their nose, and maybe a couple of times vomits, but you get it done."

This is classic Voinovich. He won't do a damn thing to hold Bush accountable, but he will run to the media and give them a quote so it looks like he is being "moderate" and "reasonable". This way the inside the beltway pundits and talking heads will praise him as a "moderate Republican." Note, however, that when the chips are down, Voinovich will be found supporting Bush and helping him sustain his veto of the Democrats' funding bill. (You can read the whole article by clicking here.)

So-called "moderate" Republicans like Voinovich, Snowe, Collins, and sometimes McCain in the Senate and their counterparts in the House like Christopher Shays have perfected this technique. They talk "moderate" and vote to support Bush's agenda. They hope that the public won't catch on, and for a long time, they didn't, but that may be changing. The defeat of Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island shows that time may be running out for those GOP politicians playing this game. While the Washington chattering classes may not figure it out, voters are starting to understand the difference between supporting Bush and supporting the troops. You support the troops by getting them out of the middle of this Iraqi civil war.

Media Starts Talking About Cost of War

McClatchy News Bureau in Washington has a story out today about how the war is soon going to cost over 500 billion. According to the story this is about 10 times what Bubble-Boy and his band of idiots predicated this war would cost when he began it. In fact, again according to the article, he got rid of an economic advisor, Lawrence Lindsay, after Lindsay said that the war would cost around 200 billion.

What Democrats should start pointing out to people is that Bush and his radical right-wing followers would never spend that much money to help Americans. They would never spend it for health care, or for education, or to fight poverty, or for mass transit so we aren't dependent on foreign oil, no, not for things that help Americans. But they will gladly spend money to fight a a war to supposedly help the Iraqis build a democratic government.

Three thousand lives, 500 billion dollars, and no end in sight. If you know any Bush supporters, ask them if this war has been worth it.

Irony of the GOP's Position and the Media's Position Iraq War Funding Resolution

James Fallows is an award winning writer for the Atlantic Monthly. He wrote an article about the Iraq War that appeared in the Atlantic and included the following: There is no evidence that the President and those closest to him ever talked systematically about the "opportunity costs" and tradeoffs in their decision to invade Iraq.

No one has pointed to a meeting, a memo, a full set of discussions, about what America would gain and lose. The Administration apparently did not consider questions like "If we pursue the war on terror by invading Iraq, might we incite even more terror in the long run?" and "If we commit so many of our troops this way, what possibilities will we be giving up?"

Bush "did not think of this, intellectually, as a comparative decision," I was told by Senator Bob Graham, of Florida, who voted against the war resolution for fear it would hurt the fight against terrorism. "It was a single decision: he saw Saddam Hussein as an evil person who had to be removed." ... A man who participated in high-level planning for both Afghanistan and Iraq--and who is unnamed here because he still works for the government--told me, "There was absolutely no debate in the normal sense."

Think about what that means: this Administration took this country into a war with a country that had not attacked us, was not implicated in the attacks on 9-11, did not have any weapons of mass destruction, and before they started this war, they didn't bother to present Bubble-Boy with a memo outlining the calculated costs versus the expected benefits. Nor was such an analysis imposed on the Administration by the media. The media never asked Bush whether he had compared the costs to the benefits before starting this war. They never asked the Administration to produce a memo that Bush had been given in which the costs and benefits were set out. Instead they sallowed the Administration's BS hook, line, and sinker.

Now, however, both the GOP and the media want to impose such a debate on Democrats who want us to leave Iraq. Now we are supposed to weigh the costs of our leaving against the costs of our staying. Now that we are stuck in this awful mess, the GOP and the media want to do some cost-benefit analysis. Well, if we didn't have to do it to get into this mess, why do we have to do it to get out of it?

Quotes taken from a Fallows article about George Tenet, which you can read here.

The Hill Newspaper Reports Two Month Iraqi Funding Bill Likely

If you read the article that is linked to this entry's title you will learn that the Democratic Leadership in the House is thinking about presenting a two-month Iraq War funding bill after Bush vetoes the current legislation. Such a bill has several advantages for Democrats: It keeps the pressure on the administration; it forces Republicans who are vulnerable to a challenge next year to vote repeatedly on the Iraq War; it makes sure that Iraq dominates the national discussion; and it reinforces to Iraqis the need for some sort of political solution to their problems.

There are also down-sides to such a bill. Anti-war activists in the Democratic Party will be angered by what they may see as a sell-out by the Congressional Democrats. It puts Democratic incumbents from Republican leaning districts in a position of either angering potential voters or the activist base of the Democratic Party. All in all,though, it may be the best tactic following the expected Bush veto.

Official in Washington Post Story Says U.S. Could be in Iraq 5-10 Years

The Washington Post ran a story today, 4.8.2007, in which an official was quoted as saying that the effort to stabilize Iraq will take 5-10 years, minimum. The theme of the article was that the political timetable in Washington is different from the timetable that the military is operating under in Iraq. The military officers serving in Iraq see American forces being in Iraq for years while the politicians funding the war in Washington see us being in Iraq in terms of months.

One of things that Bush has managed to do is resist setting any meaningful standards by which the American people can measure the progress of the Iraq War. Saying things like "We will stand down as the Iraqis stand up" doesn't really say anything. How are we to measure whether Iraqis have stood up? By the number of civilian deaths in Iraq? By the number of instances of sectarian violence in Iraq? How is progress in Iraq to be determined?

Bush can't answer that question because he doesn't know. He keeps insisting on discussing Iraq as if there was an enemy in Iraq that is foreign to Iraqis, as if all we have to do is defeat that enemy and we will have "won" Iraq. The problem is that most of the killing is being done by Iraqis against other Iraqis. Unless Iraqis become convinced that killing each other is not in their best interests the killing won't stop. Apparently if the killing doesn't stop then Bush and his supporters see American troops staying in Iraq indefinitely.

If, in 2002, when he sought the resolution to go to war with Iraq, he had told the American people that this war would mean American troops in Iraq until 2008 or beyond, they would never have supported it. The American people weren't told that, instead they were fed a fantasy about how our troops would be greeted as "liberators" and that the Iraqi people would be eternally grateful for our efforts.

Now, of course, over 3,000 American deaths later, we are supposed to stay in Iraq because of all the bad things that will happen if we leave. Here's a question: if the Bush Administration was so wrong about what would happen when we went into Iraq, why should we believe them about what will happen if we leave?

Senate Vote on War Shows GOP is Southern Party

If you click on the link in this entry's title you will see a regional breakdown of yesterday's (3.27.2007) Senate vote on the Republican amendment to the Iraqi War funding bill. This breakdown was complied by the Washington Post. The amendment was an attempt to strip language from the bill that imposes a deadline for American troops to be in Iraq.

There were 48 votes for the Republican amendment. Of these 48 votes 22 came from Southern states, 12 from Western states, 8 from Midwestern states, and 6 from Eastern states. This is a small example of the regionalization of the Republican Party. Increasingly it is becoming a Southern based party.

Now on the one hand, given the small state bias in the United States Constitution as seen by the fact that each state has two Senators regardless of population and the Electoral College, this works for the GOP. On the other hand, though, you have to wonder how long a party that is increasingly playing to one section of the country can maintain its viability in national politics.

Lieberman Proposes "War Tax"

Sen. Joe Lieberman, (I-CT), proposed that Congress pass a special "war tax" to fund what he calls the "war on terrorism" and what the rest of us call the Iraq War. He pointed out in his remarks before the Senate Armed Services Committee that people have pointed out that the only Americans being asked to sacrifice are members of the military and civilians serving in Iraq, this blog among them.

This is actually an intellectually honest approach to funding the war, much more so than Bush's budget. It would also probably drive home to most Americans what this war is costing us in terms of money as well as American lives. Lieberman did not give any specifics on his tax idea and, of course, it won't get anywhere. Republicans prefer a borrow and spend approach to this war, as well as almost every other operation of the Federal government, and Democrats opposed to the war will find it very difficult to support any proposal of Lieberman's.

Politically, though, putting this idea in a bill form and discussing it would put pressure on Republicans to justify the cost of this war. As Lieberman pointed out in his remarks before the Armed Services Committee, funding this war will push out other domestic spending that the Democrats consider essential. His "war tax" would be an addition to Federal revenues and would theoretically free up more money for domestic spending.

Update: A better idea might to try and pass a law requiring that every time Congress authorizes military action it has to impose a special tax to pay for that military action. It might have the effect of making sure that our elected representatives think before they act and it would force all of us to recognize what military actions cost in terms of money since, with the advent of a volunteer military, most of us don't stop and think what they cost in terms of causalities.