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Looking Behind the Numbers of House Afghanistan Vote
On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives failed to represent the majority of Americans who believe we should end the US led military occupation of Afghanistan and close the open ended military commitment to the second most corrupt government on earth. Instead, the US government will borrow an additional $33 billion to fuel the growing escalation of US military forces in the longest war in the history of the United States.
The vote was a disappointment, but there are some hopeful trend lines. The number of Democrats voting against borrowing and spending more money for war increased from 32 last year to 102 yesterday. And many of those who now oppose the war are key members of the Democratic leadership team and close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They include George Miller (D-CA), John Larson (D-CN), Rosa DeLauro (D-CN) and the Congressman in line to Chair the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, Jim Moran (D-VA). Not a single member of Democratic leadership spoke in favor of the president's request for war funding during yesterday's debate. Two weeks ago, Speaker Pelosi even took the unusual step of voting for a measure on the floor - Congressman Jim McGovern's amendment that would require the administration to close the open ended military commitment to the Karzai government and produce an exit strategy with a time certain for the withdrawal of US forces. No, these steps did not end the war, but they are steps in the right direction. We need to build on them.
Congressman Norm Dicks, next in line to Chair the House Appropriations Committee, and Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, point to two key components of success in the war: a competent and non-corrupt government and an army capable of taking over responsibility for Afghanistan's security. Progress toward both of them is non-existent and there is virtually no chance that will improve in the months ahead. Things are getting worse when it comes to the incompetent and corrupt Afghanistan government, a corrupt national police force that continues to prey on the Afghan population, and an Afghan Army that is seen by the local population in southern Afghanistan - the focus of the war - as foreign occupiers who do not even speak the language. Yet success in these areas is critical for our counterinsurgency strategy. Not a shred of evidence has been produced in the last nine years of war that they are improving. In fact, they are deteriorating.
The troop escalation has not only failed to bring security and stability to this desperate country, but has accelerated the violence, increasing the number of suicide bombings, IED attacks and the number of young American men and women killed in action. And it is fueling the recruitment efforts of the Taliban-led insurgency by providing further evidence of a foreign military occupation that most Afghans oppose. In the last five years, the ranks of the Taliban have ballooned eight-fold.
The classified reports on the war in Afghanistan released this week by WikiLeaks illustrate the impossibility of the mission that has been assigned to our men and women in uniform. It is unconscionable to send these young Americans to Afghanistan to risk their lives for a strategy that is built on quicksand. Congress failed these men and women this week and they failed the majority of Americans who want an end to this debacle.
But the fact remains that Tuesday's Supplemental Appropriation vote demonstrated growing opposition in the House to endless war in Afghanistan. All the more reason to increase the volume of the majority of Americans who want to bring this military occupation to an end and bring our men and women in uniform home.
There is no time to waste. The $33 billion approved for the war only gets the Pentagon to September 30. The administration is asking for $157.8 billion MORE dollars for the war for the fiscal year starting on October 1. That request will be on the floor of the House this fall.
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26 Comments so far
Show AllWhy does the media report on every minute to minute move of the stock market but does not report daily on the cumulative cost of two wars?
Afghanistan is "the second most corrupt govt on earth." Which is the most corrupt?
Which is the most corrupt?
Take your pick. Any such list is based on the 'perception' of corruption.
The LA Times - Somalia.
Forbes - Bangladesh.
I particularly like this - "Chicago would've been #1, but the other countries bitched about being outdone by a city."
I thought it was India !
I think D.C. would win hands down over Chicago!
"ranks of the Taliban have ballooned eight-fold."
While U.S. Recruiting needs a jobless society to boost it's ranks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Military Recruiting Numbers Climb in Weak Economy
http://www.america.gov/
st/peacesec-english/2009/February
/20090202163221sjhtrop0.1622583.html
Mr. Andrews wants us tp live in a dream world where the Democrats may someday oppose war. The fact is that 100 Dems voted no on the funding this time, because their votes were not needed to pass the bill. Back when the GOP was opposing the bill, Democrats overwhelmingly voted for it. Either way, the money keeps flowing to the Pentagon.
Excellent point GreenDragon. The Duopoly knows how to stage-manage the good-cop bad cop charade very well indeed - they have had so many decades to perfect it.
Good post!
Hmmmm...there's an approaching election and a new, supposedly progressive poster starts off on CD with long impassioned anti-Democratic vote spiels on two threads and a minor correction to a movie quote on another....
Makes me wonder.
Charles: Do you perhaps have some postings on other sites that would establish your progressive bona fides?
Did the wikileaks' report on murders and lies have any impact? Not one!
Did Obama mention that those murders were wrong and that DOD would be punished for targetting civilians? Not a mention, only that he will punish men for leaking that information when any soldier who knows that an order is illegal has the responsibility to refuse the order and report the crime.....Murder used to be a crime! Obstruction of justice used to be a crime.......
The Taliban are now the enemy....Yet, Congress approved 400 Million Dollars for the destabilization of Iran July of 2008......The main group receiving most of the money was Jundallah, A Taliban Rebel Group, and one of its past leaders was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, you know the guy that was tortured for 5 years and then brainwashed into confessing that he planned the attacks of 9/11....If he did, I would like to know how he convinced NORAD to have 5 practice exercises so that the 4 hijacked planes could not be intercepted.
Be real, "The Sheep in Congress" believe that money and power are more important than human lives and truth.
"Be real, "The Sheep in Congress" believe that money and power are more important than human lives and truth."
Also real: They represent the values of their constituents.
We have plenty to feel ill about, but some of this is knee-jerk pessimism.
Of course Wikileaks has had little effect: no one has had time to read it yet. The work of Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, and others working with them or like them is fit to arm a response to these policies.
The response has existed, and exists.
Whether that response succeeds, I grant, is another point. But not stopping a Congressional vote taken days after release cannot reasonably be taken as the divider between utility and inutility.
We need reading, discussion, and of course action. The Flying Monkeys of Both Houses knew they were bombing women and children and backing the world's largest opium biz years ago; we can hardly expect them to react to the information.
They will respond to masses of people refusing to recognizing their claims to legitimate authority.
Mr. Andrews is another example of extremely lazy commentators because he has completely overlooked one of the most fascinating voting patterns in the House of Representatives. Obviously he did not do any research himself but aped what he read in the public reports on the voting.
There are currently 41 members of the Congressional Black Caucus who have a seat in the house (the 42-nd is the Honorable Roland Burris who is a senator). Of these five did not vote for one reason or another. Six members voted yes. Thirty (!!!!) members voted no!!!!
Andrews also missed the fascinating statistics that the yes voters were from the following states: North Carolina (1), Georgia (2), Alabama (1), South Carolina (1), and Texas (1). Six "Southern Uncle Toms".
These no voters told the president that the black community of our country does not support his imperialist adventures in Afghanistan!
The Black Caucus was an oasis of progressive leadership during the bush years. I hope Obama shows more of that kind of leadership before it is too late.
Fire or resign the three bankster stooges Timmy G, Larry S, and Benny B, and make Rahm walk the plank before he sells us all out on everything.
Check the portfolios of all members of Congress who voted Yes..it doesn't have anything to do with idiology. It has to do with bottom line profits, nothing more. How many billions of this latest vote will go to fund for profit contractors? The lion's share? George Orwell is laughing over the fact that fiction has become a reality, except we aren't all wearing uniforms. Yet...
Neck ties are leashes that indicate subservience
Dress codes enforce conformity to the establishment
The media are the problem!
The MSM must be forced to become part of the solution in this global high-tech age. That entails a major reform. Law reform essentially. The people should take back the airwaves and accuse high officials in media of crimes. There have been serious prosecutions for war crimes on the media output in the international criminal courts.
Great post Nelson and Herbert!
Not only did Congress give 400m to destabalise Iran but that was supported in a global media hype on Iranian elections. The aim was to lie and decieve, propagandise and indocrinate. No objectivity present at all, just deliberate Stalinist/Nazi like instruments of power projection and utter distain tax paying citizens being properly informed.
Meanwhile, Congress sticks out in its voting patterns where Israel is involved in disgraceful conduct across Palestine.
9/11 must be investigated. Criminals are at large and their greed and as their self esteem grows and they contaminate the whole world with their poison of violence.
Lunatics are baying for blood!
The American people should reflect that everything must be paid for in the end.
LBANUS: I love your 2nd paragraph for its sheer strategy. Can you think of any group of attorneys that might dare to take this on, perhaps frame the matter as a class action suit on behalf of progressives who have lost THEIR voice in the media, and wish to assert that it belongs to the people (not the corporations, albeit a harder point to prove these days given the Supreme Court recently ruled that corporations ARE people) as the public's air waves...
And Rep. Alan Grayson, despite almost daily e-mails decrying the waste of money in Afghanistan, did NOT vote on this measure.
Since he's an "outspoken" Progressive, he STATED on July 1 how he intended to vote and he also entered it officially in the Congressional Record AFTER THE VOTE.....but he (& 2 other Florida Reps.) did not vote.
In the case of outspoken Progressives, talk trumps votes.
I would rather have the public vote on all money bills. The results may be the same stupid acquiescence, but it would be sincere stupidity.
Bills are crafted to deceive the public on who gets what and why.
The votes on those bills are crafted to continue the deception.
The real action in congress happens behind the theater stage of the floors of congress.
Dems are really pathetic in the 21st C. Back in the late 1960s anti-Vietnam war protesters and progessive Democrats got LBJ to decide to not seek reelection in 1968. And finally, years later, Democrats in Congress cut off all funding and ended the US war on Vietnam. Don't remember the REpubs squawking about "supporting the troops" that much; by 1968 our war was extremely unpopular with most people.
Now, the Dems are so corporatized and so cowardly that it seems that our evil criminal fascistic imperialistic twin occupations will never end.
Draft all 22-year-olds and these occupations will be quickly over. REpubs and chickenhawks and ruling class pigs won't stand to have their little Sally and little Jerry out occupying foreign lands...