The Democrats who vote this week to give the president the additional billions he wants for his war without a “timeline of withdrawal” are acting on a rational calculation. Nothing, for them, outweighs the importance of 2008, when they look to wrest control of the White House from a demoralized Republican party. The only way to assure that result is to pin the war–all of it–on the president and his followers. You do it by letting them lose the war in their own way.
Let us concede the realism of the view. The pragmatists mean to watch as the president destroys himself and his party and as much of the U.S. Army and American prestige in the world as still remains for him to destroy. That could be quite a lot, but–so the calculation runs–when it is over it will really be over. The fault will be easy to recognize, heavy to lift, impossible to deny.
By comparison, the argument for declaring a schedule of withdrawal has rested on a vague blend of reasons. The opposition says the 2006 election was a mandate, and so it was–but the people never told the Democrats how to get out. Again it is said the risk to our soldiers has become exorbitant–and yet if the cause were righteous, would Americans not want to accept the risk? Finally, some opponents have treated the war as an accidental intrusion on our politics. “The Iraqi government by its quarrels and delays, and the Iraqi people with their bloodlettings, have disappointed us terribly. They have proved themselves at last unworthy of our generosity.” This excuse is congenial to all who want to pretend we had no part in bringing anarchy to Iraq. It is the easy thing to say; and people are saying it.
The argument that carries most force for ending the war now is a moral argument. It is known to the Democratic opposition, but they have mainly left it unspoken. It says that we have no justifiable cause for killing and dying in Iraq; that we can’t inflict this suffering any longer on our soldiers, or on the Iraqi people; that we have become a source and a stimulus of violence in that country, more than we can hope to be its remedy; that the only Iraqis who steadily tell us otherwise are America’s dependents and camp followers–the unfortunate minority who stand to lose more if we leave than if we stay. Only when this moral argument becomes a public fact will the opposition have found an answer to the calculation of the Democratic party realists and the wish by the president to be out of office before the blame descends.
Disgust with the war is general. Informed opposition has a distance to go. It must turn on something about us, not something about them. It must mention the tortures at Abu Ghraib, the massacre at Haditha, the house-to-house devastation of Falluja–the city we destroyed in order to save it. A country responsible for such things may have meant well, but it can’t expect others to grant its honorable intentions. There comes a time when past actions speak louder than present words. If the war has become intolerable and not just politically inexpedient–intolerable because of the things we have allowed ourselves to do to Iraq, and the things the world has seen us do–the Democratic opposition must say so. Their majority may then grow larger; it will certainly grow stronger. And it will have a reply waiting for General Petraeus when he says, as surely he will in September, that the situation is dangerous but getting better; that he needs a little more time, a few more walls, a few thousand more troops.
David Bromwich teaches literature at Yale. He has written on politics and culture for The New Republic, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, and other magazines. He is editor of Edmund Burke’s selected writings ON EMPIRE, LIBERTY, AND REFORM and co-editor of the Yale University Press edition of ON LIBERTY.
© 2007 The Huffington Post
You have to remember, “anti-war” is not “pro-peace”.
“Those who are truthful, nonviolent and brave do not cease to be so because of the stupidity of their leader.”
Mahatma Gandhi
A rational calculation that is willing to sacrifice the lives of many people as an electoral tactic is far from “rational.” It is criminal and all who do it should be charged with complicity in crimes against humanity. They certainly should not be considered worthy or qualified to hold public office.
Amen to Shane, for the tide will turn when the horrendous atrocities we no longer wish to live with are articulated next to the vision of Peace that Martin Luther King Jr. started to espouse that prophetic night in Memphis. A vision that includes the True feminine expanse to the farthest reach of the universe as well as the concentrative male energy that currently leads us to torturous war with the 10 word sound bite. A vision that gives to us oh so much more for our children than the fear mongering threats hurled from the tongue of the US President this week. A vision filled not with fear but with the opportunity for our children to go on their Senior Trip, or complete their Ph’d dissertation through the unleashing of the human nomadic spirit to search from the depths of the oceans to the tops of the mountains, reaching to the moon and beyond or to a modest mud hut in Guatemala. Yes, Shane, then the tide will turn.
Amen to Amos, for from forums such as Common Dreams, and from the hand shakes and hugs from the disenfranchised in the streets of our Cities and Ghettos, I stand in a Truth of Humanity that will not cease - a Truth of Justice passed on from Moses to George Washington to Frederick Douglas to Harriet Tubman to Mahatma Gandhi to King and to anyone today who would dare carry this most perilous and glorious vision. Yes, Amos, Truth will not cease.
Peace Be With You and All.
This is all doublespeak for playing politics with the lives of our troops as well as Iraqi lives. How chickenshit of our supposed leaders to care more about their political future than the future of true Americans who put their life on the line. The city on the hill needs an injection of reality. The vast majority of Americans want fundamental changes made in foreign and domestic policies. They don’t want business as usual. If America had a Statesman he or she would have millions and millions of Americans to lead.
Hoa binh
Let’s find the silver lining. Chavez is safe as long as Cheney and his monkey keep their GI Joes in Iraq.
Right on! Jaded Prole and Namvet and Puck Twain.
How ironic that the person who wrote this article is also the “editor of Edmund Burke’s selected writings,” the grandfather of Bush and co who virtually invented conservatism.
there is no doubt that petreaus will form his assessment “to fit the policy” of continuing the occupation. this precedent, firmly established, has not been either properly discredited or removed from the basic underlying principle of policy formulation. without knowing the various criteria for determining the success/failure calculus, he is freed from the task of justifying his recommendations.
” The range of debate between the dominant U.S. [political] parties tends to closely resemble the range of debate within the business class. ”
Robert McChesney
“Quite simply, there can be no popular sovereignty without a real belief in the value of government. If government does not assume and carry out public responsibilities, less accountable institutions such as the corporation will do the job in their own self-interest.”
Charles Derber, Corporation Nation
If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.”
Howard Zinn
“The goal of conservative rulers around the world, led by those who occupy the seats of power in Washington, is the systematic rollback of democratic gains, public services, and common living standards around the world.”
Michael Parenti
I apologize to those who read all the articles on commondreams, but I want to reach as many people as I can. This information has me completely freaked out.
A Presidential Directive was signed by President Bush on May 9th giving him unconstrained powers in case of a national emergency. In the case of a national emergency (terrorist attack), I don’t want that psychopath in charge of anything. How can he get away with this? It’s terrifying!!!
worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55825
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
President Bush has signed a directive granting extraordinary powers to the office of the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.
The “National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
” was
signed May 9, notes Jerome R. Corsi in a WND column
.
It was issued with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive.
The directive establishes under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator whose job is to make plans for “National Essential Functions” of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments,
as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president’s directives in the event of a national emergency.
“Catastrophic emergency” is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage,
or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”
It says the president can assume the power to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.
The directive says the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, currently Frances Fragos Townsend
, would be designated as the national continuity coordinator.
Corsi says the directive makes no attempt to reconcile the powers created for the national continuity coordinator with the National Emergency Act
,
which requires that such proclamation “shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register.”
A Congressional Research Service study notes the National Emergency Act sets up Congress as a balance empowered to “modify, rescind, or render dormant” such emergency authority if Congress believes the president has acted
inappropriately.
But the new directive appears to supersede the National Emergency Act by creating the new position of national continuity coordinator without any specific act of Congress authorizing the position, Corsi says.
The directive also makes no reference to Congress and its language appears to negate any requirement that the president submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists.
It suggests instead that the powers of the directive can be implemented without any congressional approval or oversight.
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke affirmed to Corsi the Homeland Security Department would implement the requirements of the order under
Townsend’s direction.
The White House declined to comment on the directive.
I see no distinction between killing Iraqi citizens and sacrificing US troops for profit on behalf of the current mis-administration or doing so for political gain by the Democrats. It’s time for a revolution.
IF this is the thinking of Democratic leadership — Emmanuel? Hoyer? Reid? — then we can only say that they are really smart about really stupid things.
Too much can happen even from now to September —
an attack on Iran, for instance. Nuclear weapons used, perhaps, by Bush?
We already have nearly destroyed this planet making it questionable as to whether humanity will be able to survive; and Bush seems to have already moved nuclear weapons into space.
Better to play it straight.
Though, I have to agree, luck seems to be with the ignorant and arrogant these days.
We need everybody to support a Third Party that won’t play games; playing politics.