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TechnoratiBlame it on the military but make it look like you're supporting the troops. That's been the convenient gambit of failed emperors throughout history as they witnessed their empires decline. Not surprisingly then, it's become the standard rhetorical trick employed by President Bush in shirking responsibility for the Iraq debacle of his making.Ignoring the fact that we have a system of civilian control over the military, which is why he, the elected president, is designated the commander in chief, Bush hides behind the fiction that the officers in the field are calling the shots when in fact he has put them in an unwinnable situation and refuses to even consider a timetable for getting them out.
He did it again Monday, responding to the prospect that both houses of Congress seem in agreement on setting guidelines for the "progress" that the president continually proclaims is at hand. "I will strongly reject an artificial timetable [for] withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job." This is disingenuous in the extreme, because Bush is the Washington politician who plotted this unnecessary war from the moment the 9/11 attack provided him with an excuse for regime change in a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attack.
It was Bush who sent the troops to invade Iraq with the mission of ridding it of weapons of mass destruction, which he should have known Iraq did not have, and to end ties with al-Qaida that, the record shows, he knew never existed. And it was the Bush administration that micro-managed every aspect of the occupation to disastrous consequences ranging from the de-Baathification that isolated the Sunnis to premature elections that put Shiite theocrats in power. The economic reconstruction of Iraq has been a failure for everyone except the U.S. corporations that have ripped off U.S. taxpayers to the tune of many billions of dollars. It is only now, when all of those policies for the economic and political reconstruction of Iraq have come a cropper, that a military surge has been ordered to provide a social order for Iraq that this president's policies have destroyed.
This president has been denied nothing by Congress in the way of financial underwriting for this boondoggle, yet he seeks to cast even the mildest attempt to hold him accountable for the results as unpatriotic. That is all that the Democratic congressional leadership has proposed with its timetable-marks to measure progress on the ground in a war that, as Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye pointed out, has lasted longer than World War II. It is a very limited, nonbinding attempt to hold the president accountable, for it does not ban him from using any portion of the whopping $124 billion in new funds; it requires only that he publicly and specifically defend his claims of progress.
It's a claim of progress that, until now, has not been met with any congressional review, even though it is the obligation of Congress to judge the effectiveness of programs paid for with the funds that Congress alone can appropriate. If the proposed timetable were in place, then it would be more difficult for the president to claim success for his surge, as he did Friday, insisting that "So far, the operation is meeting expectations" and then confusing his audience by conceding that recently "We have seen some of the highest casualty levels of the war."
It's gobbledygook, and the Democratic leaders of Congress have finally decided to call the president on it. "The longer we continue down the president's path, the further we will be from responsibly ending this war," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Not content any longer to take Bush at his word, the leaders in both the House and Senate finally posted some specific benchmarks of progress, accompanied by a nonbinding suggestion of an end to U.S. troop involvement in this quagmire within a year's time if genuine progress is not made. Even that minimum restraint on the president's ambition was accompanied with the caveat that sufficient troops would remain in Iraq to protect U.S. installations, train the Iraqi army and fight terrorists.
The proposal was the softest the Democrats could offer without totally repudiating the will of the voters who brought them to power in the last election. If the president vetoes this authorization bill, then the onus is on him for delaying funding for the troops and showing contempt for the judgment of the voters, who will have another chance in less than two years to hold the president's party responsible. But that will not restore life to the 85 U.S. soldiers killed so far in April alone, or prevent even greater sacrifices to Bush's folly.
Robert Scheer is editor of TruthDig.com and a syndicated columnist.
Copyright © 2007 Truthdig
15 Comments so far
Show AllThose of you complaining about the dems not doing anything since being elected have got to grow up a bit. The dems have a VERY small hold on power, and in the senate, it's next to non existent. Unless you have enough votes to override a presidential veto, you DON'T have that much power. It's a numbers game, and for you folks to blame those who don't have enouhg power for not giving you exactly what you want and when you want it is seriously weak.
Look at it, folks, the dems have had power for 3 months. In 6 YEARS of republican rule, you had NO investigations, and W got away with EVERYTHING. In 3 MONTHS you've got investigations all over the place, you've actually got subpeonas flying for a change (Over 1,050 for Clinton, a whopping total of 5 for W, 3 of which are in the last 2 days), and there is actually some accountability happening for a change. If it weren't for the recent elections, you would have seen NOTHING about the US Attorneys, the war (or should I be accurate and call it "the occupation") would STILL Not be discussed, and Gonzales would still be calling every shot without any scrutiny at all.
It's been so long since you people have seen accountability in gov't that you don't even recognize it when it's going on right in front of your faces. If you want the Dems to make a bigger difference, then you HAVE to vote more of them in so that any presidential veto is overridden automatically and in the first vote. If you are foolish enough to believe that republicans have ANYTHING but contempt for you, your life, your children and your future, then you will make the same mistake this country supposedly made 7 years ago. Republicans must NEVER be allowed in power again. They have proven what they will do with it EVERY TIME they have had it in my lifetime. And it WON'T be for your benefit, I GUARANTEE you.
The new US embassy in Iraq is to cover 104 sq acres and to be located on the site of Saddam's palace. Does anyone beside D'Oh-Bya miss the symbolism? Despite reassurances, we are still building 14 permanent US military bases in Iraq without Iraqi or real Congressional permission. As usual, the contracts for the embassy and the bases have gone to KBR, the same company that was recently slapped down with a $400 million fine for violation of contract, the same company the Pentagon has slam dunked as corrupt and incompetent, the same company that has been indicted for fraud, cooking books, bribes to get contracts and kickbacks.
George W. Bush started the invasion with lies, and he has continued with the lies such as 12 month cycles into combat extended into 15 month cycles, full year cycles at home shortened to 6 months, calling up a majority of the national guard in violation of the constitution, lying about the true cost of the war, etc... When he is in dire straits politically with the war he always uses the troops as a prop for his cause. In the meantime, he has overstretched the military to the breaking point, as it was in Vietnam (the war this deskwarrior never fought).
good article, except, bush didn't need to 911 as an excuse (it was already in the works before he took office) to go to war. if you will go back as far as the initial presidential debates, you can see where he pompously predicted a war with iraq. seemingly, no one cares to remember that. until we demand and create a viable third party, we will be forced to accept the bushes, the cheneys, the pelosis. oh yes, and liebermann.
Why doesn't the US army get this idiot out of office manu militari?
Perhaps the LA Times fired Scheer because he is incompetent? If the way he oversees his site 'Truth Dig' is any indication of his competence, he needed to be replaced, but not by a right wing nut.
Jonah Goldberg? This is the funniest thing I ever heard. The last gasps of the fascists, their desperate attempt to keep the Titanic afloat (see Bush on Charlie Rose) are becoming sadly comical.
When you read this article, please remember that the LA times replaced Scheer with jonah goldberg and then weep for the death of journalism in America.
Both parties are liars. If either party is serious about ending this illegal war, why don't they cut the fund's for the BILLION DOLLAR EMBASSY IN BAGHDAD? That's right folk's a billion dollar's for the largest Embassy in the world a city within a city on the Tigis River by the Green Zone.This is a total disgrace. Nancy Pelosi should be removed as Speaker and Harry Reid should step down as Majority leader.Jim Webb would be an ideal Majority Leader he is the only one with guts enough to stand up to the moron in the White House I'm a democrat but I'm ashamed of this bunch of spineless cowardly demo's
What Tony Christini and Frank1569 said.
To me, the only interesting part of this was how Reid and Pelosi were going to fulfill their promises. They clearly and publicly promised not to impeach Bush. And immediately after the elections, in interviews as soon as it was known they would be the new Congressional leaders, they were clearly and publicly saying that they would not cut war funding.
So, given the fact that massive numbers of Democrats support both the impeachment of Bush and Cheney and the immediate end of this war, the only interesting question was how were Reid and Pelosi going to fulfill those promises in the face of massive opposition within their own party?
That's what we've been watching. Its all smoke and mirrors and theater. The goal of the Democrats is to fulfill their promise to continue the funding of this war and to make sure Bush completes his term in office. What you are seeing is all the BS they spin to try to appease the massive numbers of their party that opposes these policies, while still fulfilling their promises to the people who bankrolled their rise to power.
The investigations into Bush are all timed such that they will bear fruit too late to actually remove Bush from office. Of course, they are also timed to try to help the Democrats trick people into voting for them again in 2008. And the whole bit about "withdrawal" from Iraq is a big giant smoke screen to provide political cover for the fact that they've given Bush and the Pentagon every dollar they requested for the war, plus some extra just to prove their loyalty.
This war was fought for the benefit of Big Oil. They own both the Democrats and the Republicans. The bill put forth by the Democrats is, in reality, a blank check to continue the war in perpetuity. It not only INCREASES funding for the war but makes withdrawal basically a suggestion. They intend to stay in Iraq forever. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a complete rube.
If the Dems really wanted to "fix" things, they would. Period. Instead, they talk and talk, and things get worse and worse.
Clearly, the Dems have no intention of pissing off their corporate bribers, whether they be Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Media, Big Religion, or big-anyone-with-a-big-check.
Said corporations, our "fellow Americans," care about only one thing. More profits.
George, are you trying to take the amorality trophy away from Nixon?
Defense industry contributions to Democrats increased from $3 million to $4 million between the 2004 and 2006 election cycles. In the current cycle, defense industries are giving more to Democrats than Republicans for the first time.
The energy and natural resources industry shows a similar increase of just a bit under a million dollars to Democratic candidates between 2004 and 2006, and similarly shows the Democrats now getting more money than the Republicans for the first time in the 2008 cycle.
Note of course that 2008 numbers are very early. But indicative of where the lobbyist payoffs so far in this legislative session are going.
Source: http://www.tray.com/cgi-win/x_sic.exe?DoFn=
I'm sure a couple extra million dollars in 2006, and now getting more than Republicans, has absolutely nothing to do with our wonderful public servants in the Democratic party telling the American citizens who want this war to end to go stuff themselves.
Too bad you can't see exact dates of contributions. I'd love to know how much was tied to Reid and Pelosi promising a) not to impeach, and b) not to cut war funding. Both promises were made during the election season, and I'd bet dollars to donuts they were tied to campaign money coming in to the Democrats.
If you voted Democrat to end this war, you wasted your vote. Don't repeat the mistake in 2008. Find another option. Preferably one that isn't a bunch of money-hungry whores like the modern Democratic Party.
this piece is hardly a revelation, and I agree with the concept stated in the title. The idea that the dems have done anything other than be complicit in the whole mess is bankrupt. The idea that you wouldn't do something in order to not appear too partisan is an oxymoron, if you don't want to appear too partisan then join the other party. Which belies the fact that there is even a two party system. Nancy(impeachment is off the table)Pelosi is one of the top ten wealthiest members of congress(both houses), she is making money off this war as well. The concept that holding the president accountable for his crimes would be too divisive, that there are more important things on the agenda, is pathetic. What is the point of the rule of law, or a constitution then? The administration keeps saying that everything is going well, that progress is being made and their goal is within reach. Anybody that thinks they are lying is fooling themselves, they are telling the truth, the situation is exactly the way they want it. They are making money hand over fist. The wealthiest .00001 percent of the people on earth have control of the largest most powerful military the world has ever seen. Kindly tapping them on the shoulder and asking them to please stop aint gonna work.