[Sosfbay-discuss] Dems aren't urgent enough about withdrawal from Iraq (John Nichols, The Nation)

[JamBoi]

Dems aren't urgent enough about withdrawal from Iraq (John Nichols, The
Nation)
Date:	 Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:44:49 -0700 (PDT)
 
Dems Aren't Urgent Enough About Withdrawal  

By John Nichols
The Nation, March 9, 2007
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=173172
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0309-21.htm


If we accept scientific estimates of the Iraqi
death toll since the U.S. invasion of that
country, as detailed in the British medical
journal The Lancet, then it is fair to say that
an Iraqi dies from violence or deprivation every
ten minutes. An American dies every ten hours.
And, every ten days, significantly more than a
billion dollars from the U.S. treasury is spent
maintaining the occupation -- not on helping
veterans, not on assisting in the reconstruction
of Iraq, but on continuing the physical
occupation of a country where polling and
circumstances on the ground indicate that the
people do not favor the continued presence of
foreign forces.

There are those who suggest that America has time
to wait before we begin bringing our troops home
from Iraq. House Democratic leaders on Thursday
proposed legislation that would set benchmarks
for progress in Iraq. If those benchmarks remain
unmet, a slow process of extracting troops would
begin under the plan favored by House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, D-California; Wisconsin's David
Obey and Pennsylvania's John Murtha, the chair
and defense subcommittee chair respectively of
the appropriations committee; and Missouri's Ike
Skelton, who chairs the armed services committee.


The fact that Democratic leaders are talking
about attempting to impose a timeline for
withdrawal of troops is good. It puts the
opposition party in a position of actually
opposing an unpopular president's exceptionally
unpopular policies. 

Unfortunately, because the president wants to
maintain the occupation on his terms, Bush can be
counted on to veto legislation establishing
benchmarks and a timeline. So the Democrats find
themselves in a difficult position. They plan to
expend immense time and energy -- and perhaps
even a small measure of political capital -- to
promote a withdrawal strategy. Yet, the strategy
they are promoting is unlikely to excite
Americans who want this war to end. 

In other words, while Pelosi and her compatriots
propose to fight for a timeline, it is not the
right timeline. 

Theoretically, the Democratic leadership plan
would create the potential for the withdrawal of
some U.S. troops in six months. Realistically,
because the Democratic plans lacks adequate
monitoring mechanisms -- even Pelosi says
determinations about whether benchmarks are met
would be a "a subjective call" -- chances are
that there would be no withdrawals for more than
a year. The Speaker essentially acknowledged as
much when, in announcing the plan, she said, "No
matter what, by March 2008, the redeployment
begins." 

Forcing young Americans and Iraqis to die for
George Bush's delusions for another year, while
emptying the treasury at a rate of a billion
dollars a week, is not an adequate response to
the demands -- let alone the realities -- of the
moment. 

"This plan would require us to believe whatever
the president would tell us about progress that
was being made," says Congresswoman Maxine
Waters, D-California, speaking for the bipartisan
Out of Iraq Caucus. "This is same president that
led us into a war with false information, no
weapons of mass destruction, said we would be
(welcomed) with open arms, said that the mission
had been accomplished. Now we expect him to give
us a progress report in their plan by July?" 

Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Lynn
Woolsey, D-California, says of the legislation.
"There's no enforcement mechanism. We have had
the same thing in place for two years and [now]
we're expecting [Bush] to do something...?" 

Woolsey's question begs another question: Why?
Why are Democrats, who just wasted weeks arguing
about non-binding resolutions regarding Bush's
surge of 21,5OO more troops into Iraq, now
preparing to pour their energy into fighting for
what appears to be another vague and inadequate
proposal? 

Rather than try to answer that one, perhaps it is
best to note that Peace Action and other anti-war
groups are launching a massive, rolling call-in
campaign leading up to the vote on President
Bush's request for another $93 billion to fund
his approach to the war. Peace Action is asking
Americans to tell their representatives to stand
with Woolsey, who recently said "the only money I
will support for Iraq is funding that is used for
the withdrawal of every last US soldier and
military contractor from Iraq." 


John Nichols' new book is THE GENIUS OF
IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism.
Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a
"nervy, acerbic, passionately argued
history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich
examination of the parliamentary roots and past
use of the 'heroic medicine' that is impeachment
with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim
and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the
founders for the defense of our most basic
liberties.'" 

© 2007 The Nation

###

___________________

JamBoi
Jammy The Sacred Cow Slayer

"Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)
http://dailyJam.blogspot.com


 
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