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Another McGovern Takes On a War
Massachusetts Congressman mobilizes foes of Afghan surge
It was a moment that brought Jim McGovern full circle. As a seventh-grader during the Vietnam War, he passed out antiwar campaign literature for the former South Dakota senator, and as a college student he interned in the senator's Washington office.
Representative James McGovern and a poster on his mentor, Senator George McGovern. (Brendan Smialowski for The Boston Globe) Now the Massachusetts Democrat, a 50-year-old whose parents still own a liquor store in Worcester, is assuming his mentor's mantle in more than name (they are not related). He has become one of the most outspoken opponents to President Obama's Afghanistan strategy, putting forward proposals to cut off funding for the 30,000 additional troops Obama plans to send there and to demand a clear-cut exit strategy.
McGovern said he has no qualms about tak ing on Obama. Even those with the potential to be "great presidents'' make mistakes, he said. "There is going to be a fight on this. The question is whether we get it sooner or later.''
While his quest may seem as quixotic as his mentor's presidential run and has made him a lightning rod for those who deem his antiwar stance misguided, the congressman says he is pushing forward in the belief that every antiwar campaign begins with modest steps.
"McGovern was right'' about Vietnam, the congressman said of the former presidential candidate. And he believes that he will be proven right about Afghanistan.
"The mission in Afghanistan does not reflect what Congress voted for in 2001,'' McGovern said of the resolution authorizing the military action following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "In 2001 we voted to dislodge Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda moved. They are in a different neighborhood now, a different country: Pakistan. What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan? Why do we need 100,000 American troops to go after less than 100 members of Al Qaeda that might be left in Afghanistan. It makes no sense to me.''
McGovern's emergence on the issue also makes him the most visible antiwar leader in Congress from Massachusetts, partly due to a confluence of factors. Senator John F. Kerry, who rose to fame by opposing the Vietnam War, generally supports Obama's troop surge. The late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who led the opposition to the Iraq war, has been replaced by Paul G. Kirk Jr., who opposes the surge but will be in office only a few more weeks. That has provided an opening for McGovern.
When most of the Massachusetts delegation met Wednesday night at a Chinese restaurant on Capitol Hill to discuss the Afghanistan strategy Obama had announced the night before, Kerry was openly in favor (although with some qualifications), while McGovern said he was strongly against it.
McGovern said it is "a little bit ironic'' that Kerry is a leader in the prosurge effort. Kerry played down the disagreement, praising McGovern as "enormously thoughtful'' and saying in a statement that the war "presents as thorny an issue as you'll find in American foreign policy. There are no good options, and even thoughtful people who care and think alike are inevitably going to find themselves in different places.''
George McGovern, who came to Worcester last month to celebrate his protégé's birthday, is counting on the congressman to warn Obama that the mistakes of Vietnam are being repeated.
"It is very similar,'' the former senator, 87, said in a telephone interview. Former president Lyndon Johnson "thought that by putting in more and more troops into Vietnam that we could make a mistaken war become correct. It just made it worse,'' he said.
But others, including Obama, dispute the Vietnam analogy, pointing out that the Sept. 11 attacks were plotted from Afghanistan and warning that it could become a terrorist sanctuary again.
Having learned his skills as a top aide to the late J. Joseph Moakley, the South Boston Democrat, Jim McGovern is following a familiar antiwar strategy focused on funding. As vice chairman of the Rules Committee, he has one of the most powerful positions in Congress, enabling him to be the traffic cop on countless pieces of legislation. He also has a key post on the Budget Committee.
In May, McGovern vocally opposed a funding bill that included money for Obama's request for 17,000 more troops in Afghanistan. McGovern's action infuriated the White House. Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who had worked closely with McGovern during his time as a congressman from Illinois, screamed obscenities at him in a phone conversation, warning that the president's agenda was at stake, according to McGovern. Emanuel did not respond to a request for comment.
That funding bill eventually passed, but McGovern then made another proposal that angered the White House. He authored a measure that would require the administration to provide Congress with a detailed "exit strategy'' for the military to leave Afghanistan. In June, the measure failed, but gained 138 backers, including a majority of Democrats and seven Republicans. While this week, Obama proposed pulling out troops beginning in July 2011, McGovern said that "no one believes'' that it is a commitment for withdrawal on that schedule.
Tom Andrews, a former US House member from Maine who is chairman of the Win Without War Coalition, said McGovern's call for an exit plan has been effective, calling it "a platform from which to build'' an effort in Congress to end the war.
But Tarah Donoghue, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Republican Party, criticized McGovern's position, saying, "Winning the war in Afghanistan is critical to our security.'' So far, however, the GOP has not come up with a candidate to run against McGovern next year.
McGovern wants the US military mission to be replaced with a massive humanitarian effort. With troops mostly withdrawn, he said, the United States could build schools and do other works that he said would be more helpful to winning support from Afghans.
He acknowledged that seeking a vote on the funding for Obama's troop surge could take months, perhaps after many of them are already in Afghanistan, which would make a funding cutoff even more politically difficult.
"There are some people who are very anxious about the policy, but say, ‘Let's low-key it a little bit,' '' McGovern said. But he said he hopes to win over skeptics by arguing that there should at least be a vote before more Americans are put in harm's way.
"There's no way,'' he said, "members of Congress can avoid taking responsibility for this.''
48 Comments so far
Show AllIt is simply a disgrace that John Kerry, the former Vietnam antiwar protester, is in favor of Obama's escalation plan. The Kerry of today would do well to listen to the words of the young John Kerry who asked almost forty years ago:
"Who will be the last man to die for a mistake" in Vietnam?
That question certainly pertains to the fiasco that is occurring in Afghanistan. Kerry's conscience now seems to have been bought and paid for by the Establishment.
Except that we all know that Vietnam was not a mistake, it was just poorly planned and executed. Afghanistan isn't a mistake either--it's just not working out very well. They'll keep plugging away though, til they get it right. Or everyone there ends up dead.
or you can put it another way:
To many americans, especially the leadership:
AMERICA IS NEVER WRONG...america only makes mistakes ...occasionally...but is NEVER WRONG.
The Vietnam War wasn't just a mistake, it was based on bs, lies, major anti-Soviet or -communist propaganda of deception, ... and, as always, RACKET. It was a HUGE mistake, but not a mistake in terms many people think of when using this term. The war on Afghanistan similarly wasn't a mistake and was pre-planned. Etcetera.
Bush Jr had plans for the war on Afghanistan on his hijacked presidential desk by no later than Sept. 10, 2001. The rest? Like clockwork; bad clockwork, anyway.
"But others, including Obama, dispute the Vietnam analogy, pointing out that the Sept. 11 attacks were plotted from Afghanistan..."
This thing that we all know is so, is it? I know no such thing. Before we attacked Afghanistan, the secret evidence was shown to Tony Blair, not the American public, on the grounds that everything our government was doing to keep us safe was so top secret that to even tell us endangered our defense.
The 9-11 commission itself says its finding were flawed, and some of it was based on "evidence" from torture. So I don't think we know where the attacks were plotted or who did the plotting. If I gave our government the benefit of a doubt - which I don't know why I should at this point - what kind of snipe hunt am I going on if we need to attack Afghanistan because the threat is in Pakistan. But when we get to Pakistan the threat will be... where? Is there some special geographical attribute for hatred of our empire? Are caves a requirement to achieve the long series of blunders and failures that allowed the attack to be successful in the first place?
The conclusions of the 9/11 commission are riddled with inconsistencies and illogical conclusions.
This is not due to some flawed process or by poorly formulated conclusions. It is because the powers that be were trying to create a LIE that would best suit their agenda and hide the truth. In essence the Commission did exactly as was intended and that to sell a fiction as fact.
They were presented a scenario. "The perpetrators of 9/11 were Islamic terrorists under the control of Osama Bin laden". Their task was then to manipulate or interpert the "evidence" in order to arrive at that conclusion.
They were presented the Scenario of who was responsible down to their very names BEFORE IT WAS EVER possible in any conceiveable way to GATHER that evidence.
The only logical conclusion one can make, is that the narrative of 19 hi-jackers using box cutters hi-jacking planes and flying them into buildings was one CREATED before the events of 9/11 occurred.
Just as the bulk of the patriot act was written up PRIOR to 9/11.
"They were presented the Scenario of who was responsible down to their very names BEFORE IT WAS EVER possible in any conceiveable way to GATHER that evidence."
Enough of that evidence, like identities of several alleged hijackers, was proven FALSE. The FBI doesn't even have OBL listed for the 9-11 attacks. A journalist inquired about this and was told that the U.S. DoJ has placed no charges against OBL for 9-11. "Cute".
We do NOT have real proof that any plane hit the Pentagon, but Flight 77 did go MIA, say. Two clips from cameras at the Pentagon show a stream of white exhaust (whatever) perfectly horizontal and very few feet above the ground. No plane is seen and NO plane of large size could be flown this perfectly horizontal this close to the ground. It'd crash; wouldn't have reached the building without first crashing into the ground.
There was no damage to the ground. And other so-called evidence consists of photos of some purported airplane parts. These few items, some technically questionable or debunked ones, too, could've been trucked in. This would've been very possible for there were no or hardly any outsiders at the Pentagon and evidently no one alive who was at the Pentagon witnessed the strike. If they had, then we'd have read about this.
I can only make very short posts again (same with sending email); hence the multiple posts.
Some civilians have been used as witnesses, but these accounts have been proven to be invalid in a number of respects. They're not proof that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, which, according to Ray McGovern and retired USAF or Army Lt Col. Robert M. Bowman, is a HIGHLY, heavily protected place against aerial attacks, etc.
Perhaps you mean the 9-11 Commission's final report. Several of the commissioners, now former, of course, have denounced the report as well as all of the (criminal) obstructionism by Bush Jr, Cheney and the CIA. The latter refused to constitutionally cooperate and withheld plenty of documents essential for the commissioners to do their work.
How would such obstruction during a real process in a real court of law be treated? Criminal, definitely condemnable, and, I'm pretty sure, punishable. The perpetrators would not be treated as innocent parties. Bush Jr, Cheney and the CIA were, though; were, and still are, that is. It wouldn't happen if there was nothing incriminating to cover up!
"But others, including Obama, dispute the Vietnam analogy, pointing out that the Sept. 11 attacks were plotted from Afghanistan and warning that it could become a terrorist sanctuary again."
Since at least one Al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, also helped plan 9-11, we must start dropping bombs on Germany right away. Germany could become a terrorist sanctuary again, too! And so could Canada. And Monaco. Or Texas, or... gosh, the list is so long--it includes every country!!!!! Let's just bomb them all.
"Since at least one Al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, also helped plan 9-11, we must start dropping bombs on Germany right away."
Correction: "Since at least one Al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, [allegedly] also helped plan 9-11, we must start dropping bombs on Germany right away."
And I don't think Germans would be particularly happy with the bombs part. Are you trying to give them indigestion?
"McGovern's action infuriated the White House. Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who had worked closely with McGovern during his time as a congressman from Illinois, screamed obscenities at him in a phone conversation, warning that the president's agenda was at stake . . ."
If Mr. Emanuel actually said this, then apparently the president's agenda is to be a one term president.
Peace through war is a conservative moronity.
Not if you're [sanely] conservative, but perhaps if you are insanely liberal or neoliberal. I emphasize "sanely", for we can also be conservatively insane, which is awfully bad way to choose to live one's life. But whether you're consertatively or neoliberally or liberally insane, psychopath, ..., oh, it mustn't be tolerated.
What's the difference between such liberals, neoliberals, and conservatives, who are all insane, ...? Well, to become evil, you first need to make the liberal choice of doing so. And once you do, and you come to lust for these ways, then you work to conserve them, that is, to continue them. Damn awful way to become and worse it is when we maintain it.
Americans call themselves liberals, progressives, ..., often oxymoronically, and that's putting it nicely. And they attack conservatives. But being for human rights is conservative. [Think] about it. We want our rights to be respected and in order to do this in an integral way, which is to be conservative, we want the same for other people. Liberally, evil people disagree. Conservatively, we oppose them.
So far, they win, we lose; but the jihad's not over yet. We conservatively fight onward, for [rights], respect for the U.S. Constitution; the international laws, etcetera, the U.S. is co-signatory to and which the Constitution makes [supreme law of the land] in and for the USA; the U.S. Bill of Rights; and so on. Liberals of one sort against liberals of another sort, evil, wicked, ....
mcgovern is right again! kerry is just a civil service in- dweller, hoping to fill the breech should obama falter. the taliban have already indicated their willingness to sign an agreement in which they formally renounce and sever ties with al qaeda. we should sign that agreement and leave it to an international police force to enforce it, if necessary. while we rained terror on vietnam, we still met with the communist delegation in paris. so, why aren't there formal and open peace talks going on right now? is it maybe because the well connected corporations that have over 114,000 employees in afghanistan will not prosper unless there is a bloody conflagration for our kids to die in? this whole thing makes me sick and depressed!
Kerry's a Skull & Bones member. Wife, Heinz family, I guess the same one involved in the fascist coup d'etat conspired against Pres. FDR, which former USMC Major General Smedley Butler testified about (this plot), but Congress kept the names of some or all "special" plotters secret? If it's the same Heinz family and Kerry's with S&B, then this is not a good marriage story, at all.
There would've also been Maxwell family or Maxwell House ..., but I haven't researched this Heinz and Maxwell part of the story of the conspiracy to overthrow President FDR, so am not sure; but such or similar "elites" were involved. I believe to have read that it's Prescott Bush who asked Smedley Butler to lead the military part of the coup. If not, then Bush was one of the conspirators, anyway.
And we know that the Bushes are S&B'ers, and, like Bohemian Grove'rs, etcetera, these people are all imperialist, etcetera. Heck, Opus Dei likely supports him and this should be an immediate indication that there's something awfully ... unvotable about this man. The RCC evidently doesn't have required courage, but The People of the USA, Mass. anyway, can kick Kerry out of the government.
Afghanistan is the new Vietnam. Needs more main stream publicity before this reaches the public consciousness. Thanks for trying for a quicker exit.
Rahm Emanuel's dirty fingers are in this pot, and Obama's failure to be a better judge of character will doom his presidency. Basically we have another group of thugs in the White House--better-educated and better-spoken--but thugs nonetheless. Who's getting rich on this war? Not the ones who will die, that's for sure.
Donna
Very well said. Your comment bring to mind this observation:
"The economic root of imperialism is the desire of strong organized industrial and financial interests to secure and develop, at the public expense and by the public force, markets for their surplus goods and their surplus capital. War, militarism and a "spirited foreign policy" are the necessary means to this end."-John Atkinson Hobson [1858-1940], English economist
As well as this:
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose-especially their lives."-Eugene Victor Debs [1855-1926], American labor and political leader
And this:
"It's our taxes that are paying for the wars in Afghanistan and Colombia. Bombs are being dropped that kill innocent people. And our money is paying for those bombs. We have to take responsibility. We have to say: This is our money. The check that I sent the IRS is being used to make bombs. And today, with the tightening U.S. budget, we're being asked for more money than ever before to make more bombs. We can look at it from a very personal viewpoint. When they talk about war, we're the ones who end up paying for it."-Dolores Huerta [1930-], co-founder of United Farm Workers of America
I totally disagree. The root of US imperialism is the crying need of us Americans to have a higher standard of living than the remainder of the world's people. Our need drives the Congress and the President to rely on military adventures to satisfy our cravings. We are all in it.
Crowsnest
Does not America's insatiable craving for war, with its obscene spending on that activity needed to keep the war machine afloat, as Hobson points out, also contribute to the United States's economic malaise? If you were to read Nick Turse's The Military Complex you would find that what keeps those tanks constantly rolling in the desert [where they average about 3 mpg] are constant and incredible amounts of oil and gasoline. As Turse points out, the Pentagon is one of the largest users and buyers of oil in the United States. It does not take an economics major to understand that just half of that money that is being used could be better spent on, say, health care, than what it is now being used for and that is to blow things up and kill people.
McGovernment would be exponentially better than WTF we the People have in the US now!
Yeah, Worcester!...central Mass. produces a few good ones. It's where Mike Gravel originally hailed from as well, before he moved to Alaska. McGovern has really tried to use his position as a Representative for some good. Not the first time he's stood up to the insanity of our military agenda. To my knowledge, he was a major voice against US funded violence in central America.
Rahm Emanuel's an ass; and far worse. John Kerry's not in the Congress, unless he's switched houses and I haven't read about it. And he's with the criminal Skull & Bones "society" or whatever it's called. No one in a right, sane and [intelligent] mind would accept to be represented by a S&B, Bohemian Grove, Bilderberger, Federal Reserve, ... member.
Mike,
"John Kerry's not in the Congress, unless he's switched houses and I haven't read about it"
The United States Congress is composed of two houses...The House of Representatives and the Senate.
Thought I would mention that for those not familiar with the structure of government in the United States
I like what this article says about Jim McGovern's positions on the war on Afghanistan, though don't like the reference to Al Qaida mostly being in Pakistan now, since such statements can seem to justify what the Obama admin.'s been doing there and it's totally unacceptable. It's not what the article says of Jim McGovern's position, or words, but can seem to be.
Re. Kerry's purported anti-Vietnam War words, a lot of people refer to these uncritically, at mere face value. What's usually said about the distinction between words and actions? Follow the actions; they speak LOUDER, more truthfully. He might've been aware that opposition to the war had grown very strong and could, there-upon, have been seeking some sort of political opportunity. I tire of reading these popular and uncritical references.
People forget about [deception] and the various "tricks" used for this faster than they can pronounce the word. Conservatively, I first want to [think]; before liberally stating or repeating lies, propaganda, reported, but possibly misunderstood and under-analyzed, truths, etcetera. Actions are important.
As a lawyer or whatever he was, Kerry purportedly did fine, in popular terms anyway. As a Senator? Evidently never good; in any manner of speaking. I think Dennis Kucinich said this about Kerry in 2004 or, else, it was Obama in 2008, or maybe both cases, but he said that the person, Kerry and/or Obama, "speaks out of both sides of his mouth"; and Kucinich was irrefutably [right].
Either way, they both "speak out of both sides of their mouths". And that must be quite a trick to perform. Oh well, they clearly manage.
McGovern is the type of person the Republicans needed during W's eight year reign. Was Ron Paul the Alan Grayson or McGovern of the Republican Party?
The point is, we need progressive voices to ring loud and clear. That's easy for me to say since I generally agree with Grayson, McGovern, Kucinich, Waters, Capps, and Captor (I'm sure I've missed a few more). Help me out, who else are our champs?
What about the Rep from Oregon? I've seen him out there speaking against the bank bailout, and it seems I saw him on the other day talking against this surge. Not sure what his stance is on other things, and I can't think of his name. Senator Wydon(sp?) could be another.
Eight of the accused 911 hijackers are alive in the middle east. When this fact became known, the explanation was that the hijackers were using stolen identities. So then, using the law of deduction, is it reasonable to assume that more of the hijackers were using stolen identities? Is it not a requirement that law enforcement conduct a thorough investigation into this tragedy to establish the real identities of the perpetrators? The world is entitled to such an investigation. We need to know who the real hijackers were, if indeed the aircrafts were hijacked. Of course, this type of investigation would not be forthcoming, because the real perpetrators are well known and alternative bullshit must be fed to the American public and the world at large so that the thieving and utterly corrupt subhumans who daily parade the halls of power, can continue their agenda with impunity. Many of those who are aware of the truth cannot go public because they know they will be quickly dispatched to the hereafter. Many Americans buy into the nonsense of Muslim hijackers but not the rest of the world. American indifference is a threat to the existence of the entire planet. This indifference will lead not only to the destruction of the innocent people they so despise but of themselves also. It is how the unwritten laws of nature are structured. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars are not wars in any sense of the term war, but a blatant display of force to seize the resources of these nations for the benefit of the oil corporations and to occupy the middle east for this specific purpose whether we care to admit it of not. The reason 911 was engineered was to mobilize the sheep to bleat war. Without 911 there would have been no excuse for war.
Hey, we got another McGovern and not a moment too soon. No McGovern didn't lose any bigger likely than other Democrats would have in 1972. It was a stacked deck in favor the GOP candidate to win, with his "peace with honor" slogan and prosperity at home. He was also "cutting and running" in Vietnam, just what the GOP what's to put down when it's a Democrat, but with a GOP president and Cold Warrior doing it, it simply made him less vulnerable as being too much of a war monger
Likewise with the British general election of 1983, the Tories or Conservatives won big not because Michael Foot the Labor leader then was any more of a loser for his party than any other Laborite, but simply because Maggie Thatcher and the Tories had a Khaki election as the British call it, one that the people vote on their patriotism or pride in their country, Britain in this case with the Falkland Islands war victory which the Tories got the credit for winning.
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The US Senate is one of the two houses of congress. John Kerry is a US Senator. The members of the US House of Representatives are called congresspersons or congressmen and congresswomen. The members of the senate aren't called congresspersons or congressmen or congresswomen. They are referred to as senators.
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When you refer to the whole bunch of them as part of one entity, CONGRESS, Senators and Representatives are Congresspeople.
Bring America Back !!!!..........!!!!You Go, James P.
McGovern====keep speaking Truth to the Powers which
need so badly to hear it !!!!
****Since Chief Prez Advisor Rahm Emanuel is in such good
command of 'curse words', what a shame he has not been able to find any of them to describe the Zionistic Genocide at
Gaza===1500 dead innocent humans including 300 to 400 helpless, defenseless, CHILDREN. Exactly one year ago.
****Just an innocuous Silence from the Emanuel and Obama
White House on the brutal massacre at Gaza by our little
sister Israel forces. Silence implies consent, just as King George and Prince Dick did all during the Israeli attacks on Lebanon--two years ago !!! Innocent US and UN
civilians in the direct line of Zion fire !!!
**What good is Rahm Emanuel !!!!! You Go, Rep McGovern !!
The plot against Franklin D Roosevelt had nothing to do with John Kerry, but with Wall Street and aligned types in 1934 Doug MacCarthur was one of them as far as I know. He was also a big time right winger all his life. He gloried in breaking up the First World War bonus vets in the US capital in Washington. Two Democratic presidential candidates preceding FDR were in on it-- John W Davis, a Wall Street lawyer as well and Al Smith. Prescott Bush as far as I know had nothing to do with it. Prescott Bush was supposedly laundering Nazi money in the Second World War, but Allen Dulles was making deals with hard core Nazi war criminals who were generals during the same war, and Dulles did this in Switzerland in March and April of 1945 when we were in a shooting war with the Nazis. Arthur Goldberg accurately called Dulles a traitor. When he ended up as the CIA director, we should have figured we were in for some real trouble. John Foster Dulles wasn't much better.
Kerry was actually a pretty solid on opposing the Vietnam War as well as exposing the contra drug connection, but the mainstream media attacked him for this all out. This gang also attacked Gary Webb, who was also right on the mark about this.
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