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TechnoratiUS Peace Groups Hail Vote on Iraq Bases
SAN FRANCISCO - Peace advocates in the United States are welcoming a Congressional vote Wednesday that may be a political stepping stone to ending U.S. participation in the war in Iraq.
"It's a first step for Republicans who have thus far been raising questions about the war, but not voting against it," said John Isaacs, executive director of the Washington, DC-based Council for a Livable World. "Those same Republicans can be hammered in September when bills come up for a vote that could really make a difference."
A majority of Republicans joined Democrats in the 399-24 vote to bar the establishment of permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq. It was the seventh time the U.S. House of Representatives has voted on such a proposal.
The bill, sponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-California), forbids the Bush administration from spending any money "to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq" or "to exercise United States economic control of the oil resources of Iraq."
"The perception that the United States plans to maintain a permanent military presence in Iraq strengthens the insurgency and fuels the violence against our troops," Congresswoman Lee told the House.
"We must soundly reject the vision of an open-ended occupation as bad policy that undermines the safety of our troops and recognize it for what it is: another recruiting poster for terrorists," she added.
The vote comes after Bush's spokesman, Tony Snow, said last month that Bush favors a "Korean model" for Iraq where Washington would provide "a security presence" and serve as a "force of stability [for] a long time."
Fifty-four years after the armistice that ended the Korean war, the United States continues to maintain a force of more than 30,000 soldiers in South Korea.
Council for a Livable World and others opposed to the Iraq war say it's unlikely that passage of Lee's bill will cause an immediate change in U.S. military policy. Similar measures did not alter President George W. Bush's war-fighting strategy in the past, they note.
The Bush administration has increased by more than 20,000 the number of U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq since Democrats took control of Congress last fall.
Still, peace groups told OneWorld they saw the bill's passage as an important victory ahead of more meaningful votes expected in the Fall.
In September, Congress is expected to vote on a $470 billion spending bill that would continue to fund the Iraq war. There will also be multiple hearings in both the House and Senate, and votes on mandatory timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Congress will also likely receive two reports on the Bush administration's "surge policy": one from the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, General David Patreaus, and a second from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office.
"What happened in November 2006 [when the Democrats took control of Congress] and the reading of public opinion today shows that the public has given up on the war, but is not clear on how to get out of Iraq," Isaacs said. "That same split is reflected in Congress."
Hofstra University Professor Carolyn Eisenberg, who heads up legislative efforts for the umbrella group United for Peace and Justice, is working on the grassroots level to encourage citizens to pressure their Congresspeople to vote against continued funding of the war.
"During the Vietnam war, moderate Republicans came in to talk to Richard Nixon and told him that they would no longer vote money for the war unless he changed his policies," she said. "It was only after that that Nixon started drawing down the number of American soldiers there."
"If President Bush thought that a significant amount of Republicans were not going to vote him money, then he would have to respond to it," she added. "That's why it's very important for the peace movement to go to Republicans and tell them they can't go rush out to say bad things about the war and then vote with the White House."
Copyright © 2007 OneWorld.net.
14 Comments so far
Show Allelmysterio is correct. We have been launched into a state of permanent war. Cheney, Bush and the rest of the new royalty have no intention of relinquishing control in their lifetimes.
Sometime, in the next 6 months or so, American will experience another false flag "terrorist attack", a new and improved 911. Martial law is just around the corner.
Within the next 3 to 5 years we will see the North American Union become a global military dictatorship featuring Bush with his ball & Cheney as supreme commanders.
While we fiddle the world will burn.
relayer@q.com
This resolution is a carefully crafted piece of nonsense. All it says is that the U.S. can't establish any more bases in Iraq. It says nothing about the ones that are already there. Why do you think all those Repugs voted for it?
"What happened in November 2006 [when the Democrats took control of Congress] and the reading of public opinion today shows that the public has given up on the war, but is not clear on how to get out of Iraq," Isaacs said. "That same split is reflected in Congress."
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That quote says it all for me. The reason why these baby steps are necessary is that the American public is too timid in telling our legislature what we want. Obviously the points Al Gore makes about this is all valid - TV being a one-way medium and all - but the issue goes deeper. There are members of two generations alive today who saw through the one-way media mechanism and managed to produce truly progressive results. The current generation has access to a magnificent multi-directional communication extravaganza (this one), yet the people are more silent than ever about what they actually want done.
Yes some people want out of Iraq, but how? The second you get to that question, everything falls apart. This is what's been gnawing at the Democratic party for a while - all these competing interests who agree on the general direction, but differ entirely on the means and the priorities.
Everyone's all excited about talking about the issues, but when it comes down to making the decisions, no one wants to be left with the ball. Sheehan proved that quite aptly when she briefly took over John Conyer's office - even a man who once sought to challenge the legitimacy of Bush's election now won't be the first major player to sign on to Kucinich's impeachment bill. Guys (and girls) like Kucinich have little to lose - they're already long standing unabashed progressives, if they were going to get pushed out of office over it it would have happened already. And there just aren't that many of them anyway, and none with the real influence to get the ball rolling.
The problem is that our representatives are tiny reductions of thousands of people - distillations that are forced by their very nature to be more rigid. The thousands of people comprising these representatives have the dynamic power necessary to stand up and direct them - the politicians, except in rare, brilliant cases, do not direct themselves. In the 30's, the power vacuum left behind by the collapse of the stock market opened a wide towards people (who weren't very busy, since they were out of work) to participate and the result was practically socialism. There was also the women's rights movement of that era, fought in a wide array of public demonstrations. In the 60's, people protested on masse against war and for civil rights.
Despite these precedents, people have got it in their heads that demonstrations are worthless, that the politicians don't pay attention, that money controls everything. Heck, even I think that often. Money is very powerful, but barring electoral fraud (which must also be dealt with by the people, and not the fraudulently elected politicians), the bottom line is, that money is spent to curry your favor. Your vote is still (for now) necessary to put these people in power in the first place.
But we have to start speaking up soon. One of the easiest ways to quash demonstrations is not with political pressure or brute force, but simple economic pressure. If we're all dirt poor and forced to work 12 hour days to make a living while the rich get richer, who will have the time to go to a protest? Already now people hardly have time. When was the last time you were about to go out at 12 noon on a Monday and stand in the middle of the street for 4 hours?
Remember, the rule with the consent of the governed. They are of the people, by the people, for the people. I hate to take a line from the Republicans, but just where is the personal responsibility here? It's our fault, people. We can blame the Democrats for not performing all we want, but fact is, we aren't really giving them anything but the most vague direction. You're letting them tell you what your choices are - what are they again? Precipitous withdrawal, withdrawal but leaving behind people to train Iraqis and defend vital interests, "staying the course" (what is the course anyway?)? How about this course:
1) Big mea culpa to the world - hey, we screwed up, after all. Fess up.
2) Acknowledge that maybe we aren't the be all and end all we think we are
3) Start complying with international law, and putting pressure on our allies, particularly in the Middle East, to do the same.
4) Demonstrate to the world that leaving us to fix the mess alone is a bad idea (that shouldn't be that hard), and bring them in to help on their terms. Yes, that means relinquishing control!
We need to just deflate the situation. We and certain of our allies are causing it with overly agressive postures, political relics of the cold war bent on securing control of everything from the "other" - whatever that is, with the implied threat of nuclear holocaust. I mean, that is how we've managed to control everything - we are the only people to have ever deployed the god damned things in war. Why is it that in the economic arena, we're more than happy to establish partnerships with everyone - even the Chinese, the Saudis - but politically we come to the exact opposite conclusions? It's about cooperation, not control. But cooperation works both ways - you can't keep acting like you are entitled to rule the world, but share no responsibility for what has happened (it's the politicians' fault!), and haven't done anything wrong. We can do better than that. After all, we created this international system. We can work within it.
About that embassy....
Can't remember where I saw the testimony from a sub-committee a couple of days ago that is responsible for oversight of this monstrosity, but things aren't going well. First they are using slave labor shiped in from other countries to build the monster. Second, the materials used are substandard (blackmarket/fake?). An example is the electrical wire that they have installed. It says on the outside of the wire what gauge it is, but the actual copper in the wire is much smaller. Hence, when it is used for anything it is a fire hazard and won't run things like lights and stuff. Since KBR is subcontracting everything, I'm not surprised by any of this. And by the way, the State Department is in charge of this thing and they have NOOOOO idea what is going on.
Don't ya just love no bid contracts? Only $600 million of American tax dollars gone down the chute. AND that is WITHOUT any cost overruns.
Gotta love it!
Okay, no permenent bases permitted in Iraq. Umless there is a date cetain for the closure of places like Camp Anaconda or Balad Air Base this act means nothing.
Can't you just hear the Shrub or the Dickster saying with a straight face "it depends on what you mean by permanent" ala Bill Clinton and going merrily on their way.
Unless it sits there quietly until someone with some sanity gets into office and uses it as justification to close the bases, it accomplishes nothing.
Kudos to Barbara Lee for getting the vote on the record. How about a vote to drastically reduce the size of the Iraqi embassy to one tenth its projected size?
Any legislation such as this is as beautiful as a sand castle and just as likely to hold back the upcoming storm.
EveningLand writes:
"The next thing is to stop construction of the obscenely sprawling "embassy" housing complex, covering no less than 104 acres, in Baghdad."
Good Point. And who is naive enough in Congress to think that 104 acres of Iraqi soil is necessary to simply house embassy workers and diplomats? That's enough territory to house a freakin' brigade!
I'm afraid elmysterio right. This piece of legislation isn't going to change a thing about the policy. The US will continue its illegal occupation of Iraq and control of its resources. There is nothing to celebrate with the passage of this legislation. The time to celebrate is when we have a military coup.
Hoa binh
As I've said in another post – This bill says nothing about the Blackwaters having military presence in Iraq; or the Exxon-Mobils controlling the oil resources.
That aside – the U.S. can conveniently continue to say that our troops are not there "permanently" but only "temporarily."
A cynical view - Even if U.S. troops have to be stationed there on temporary status permanently, it's still only "temporary," right?
The BushCheneyCo record of sophistry and duplicity is far too lengthy to trust any of this wording. The fact that so many republicans are supporting it sounds a huge alarm in my mind. This truly sounds like whoever is doing the marketing/PR for BushCheneyCo drafted this "legislation."
My proposal – where are all those bills the democrats (when they were in the minority) put forward to stop the private contractors and their war-profiteering? Watch the Robert Greenwald film "Iraq for Sale," then pressure congress to add those measures to this bill. But then watch the republican support for it disappear.
It's not a start... it's a distraction!!!! Don't fall for it. They're lying to you. The US has NO intention of EVER leaving Iraq... Hell, they're still in Germany and Japan after 60 years. It's just another weapon of mass distraction. Don't believe it.
The next thing is to stop construction of the obscenely sprawling "embassy" housing complex, covering no less than 104 acres, in Baghdad.
See, for example, the article by David Phinney, "Complaints Mount at US Fortress in Iraq," October 26, 2005, Inter Press Service, also available at Common Dreams.
This is a start. (Though I expect this is one step forward, and now we have to wait for the three steps back)
Next we need to eliminate as a 'benchmark' the US Government's requirement that the Iraqi government turn over control of their oil assets to 'foreign investment.' In case you don't know what this means, it is to turn over the control of oil to the very same companies that this war was started for.
www.NotOneMore.US
"I'd rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don't want, and get it." - Eugene Debs
Checkmate... hope it passes.
Regrettably, Purvis Ames is right. The quotation below, taken from Norman Solomon's 7/26/07 Media Beat column, can be found at:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3145.
The matter of U.S. bases in Iraq is a prime example of how events on Capitol Hill have scant effects on war machinery in the context of out-of-control presidential power. "The House voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to bar permanent United States military bases in Iraq," the New York Times reported on July 26. But the war makers in the nation's capital still hold the whip that keeps lashing the dogs of war.
As the insightful analyst Phyllis Bennis points out: "The bill states an important principle opposing the 'establishment' of new bases in Iraq and 'not to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.' But it is limited in several ways. It prohibits only those bases which are acknowledged to be for the purpose of permanently stationing U.S. troops in Iraq; therefore any base constructed for temporarily stationing troops, or rotating troops, or anything less than an officially permanent deployment, would still be accepted. Further, the bill says nothing about the need to decommission the existing U.S. bases already built in Iraq; it only prohibits 'establishing' military installations, implying only new ones would be prohibited."