[Sosfbay-discuss] Calling Nader: Benchmarks and Bullsh*t: Beware bipartisan 'consensus' on Iraq:

[JamBoi]

We Greens represent a major portion of the real
opposition in the U.S.  Along with the Peace and
Freedom, socialists, Libertarians and other 3rd
parties we are the real opposition parties.  Don't
bother counting the Dems.  We need to get ourselves
into elected offices so that the peaceful opposition
to the two-headed War Party has a voice.

Impeach for Peace!

Drew

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10963
Benchmarks and Bullsh*t
Beware bipartisan 'consensus' on Iraq
by Justin Raimondo

The news I have for "netroots" types and Huffington
Post liberals who see the Democratic Party as the
major if not only hope for the antiwar movement can be
summed up in two words: forget it. Majority leader
Sen. Harry Reid recently let the cat out of the bag
when he said, "There is new reason this week to
believe that a bipartisan consensus on Iraq is
emerging."

Translation: the sellout is coming, if it isn't
already here.

American voters sent a clear message to Washington
last November when they voted to put an ostensibly
antiwar Democratic Congress in power: they told
pollsters the war was the big issue, and, furthermore,
they wanted out of Iraq. They voted Democratic not
because they suddenly believed that party would end
"the culture of corruption" – which is a very
bipartisan phenomenon, and voters aren't dumb enough
to believe otherwise – but because they took seriously
Democratic promises to get us out of Iraq. Before the
election, leading Democrats called for a timetable
aiming at complete "redeployment" of U.S. troops out
of Iraq: immediately after the election, however, the
Dems capitulated to the "surge" (even as their
"antiwar" rhetoric waxed louder). Last week the House
voted down a measure that would have withdrawn the
troops in nine months. If you follow the link you'll
see that Madam Speaker allowed the withdrawal vote "in
the hope that her rank-and-file would then unite
behind the funding bill" – a two-part bill that would
release some $48 billion initially and then schedule a
summertime vote to appropriate $52.8 billion more to
cover expenses until the end of September.

The White House has threatened to veto the two-part
funding ploy but coupled this with an offer to
negotiate on the Benchmark Question. All eyes are now
on the Senate, reports the Christian Science Monitor,
"where majority leader Harry Reid and White House
officials have been hunkered down in secret
negotiations. Last week, Bush said he had empowered
White House negotiators 'to find common ground on
benchmarks.'"

Caught between the Democratic Party's antiwar base and
the War Party's control of the reins of power in
Washington, Pelosi and Reid have been walking a
tightrope between the two, but their balancing act is
increasingly untenable. Pressure from the ranks of
groups such as MoveOn.org – whose leadership initially
colluded with the Democratic sellout – has forced a
turnaround, and the MoveOners have now issued an
ultimatum of sorts to the Dems in the form of an open
letter: they're threatening to move "into opposition"!

Ralph Nader, you have a call on line one


The president is now holding out the bait of
"benchmarks" to increasingly restive Republicans in
Congress who are looking at the oncoming antiwar voter
tsunami with something approaching panic, and the
Democrats will in all likelihood fall for it – with a
sigh of relief. After all, Reid and Pelosi have been
looking for a way to fund the war without seeming to
own it, to prosecute a conflict and yet take no
responsibility for it – and now, finally, they may
have hit on the perfect formula.

The benchmark delusion was first perpetrated by the
Democrats, you'll remember: it was an aspect of the
House bill that would have made release of funds
conditional given the fulfillment of a whole brace of
benchmarks. The only problem was that each and every
one of them could be unilaterally waived by the
president. Why Bush didn't accept this I'll never
understand: methinks he's reconsidered, and it's a
good move. Now he can say he's compromised, the
Republicans who are taking incoming fire back home in
their districts will be given some political cover,
and the Democrats (and I include MoveOn.org in this
partisan category) can tout this as a concrete
legislative "achievement" for the party of peace.

And the war will go on, just as before. Nothing will
change. Nothing but the number of dead and wounded,
both Iraqi and American – the former rising in much
larger numbers than the latter, of course. The
extended deployments will be extended yet further, and
the war – this futile, unjust, morally indefensible
war of conquest – will drag on.

In voting down the nine-month withdrawal bill, the
Democrats acquired part-ownership of this war – and in
moving to endorse the final funding bill, they are
becoming full partners with the GOP in the annexation
of Iraq to the American empire. That's what these
famous benchmarks are all about: they are essentially
instructions to the Iraqis, telling them what they
must do before the funding spigot gets turned on. The
benchmarks dictate to the Iraqis how they will
"reform" the process of "de-Ba'athification," how they
will divvy up their oil resources, and when and how to
hold local elections, among other things.

Of course, the Iraqi parliament could always vote down
the American diktat, but then there would be no money
forthcoming – including, as Hillary Clinton has
proposed, no money to protect our Iraqi sock puppets
from their countrymen, who consider them collaborators
and traitors. Under the circumstances, it doesn't take
much of a tug on the leash to bring the Iraqi leaders
into line. This is how the Americans conduct their
battle for "hearts and minds" – by making local
satraps so widely and deeply despised that they are
totally dependent on their Washington overlords for
their sheer physical survival. The real "benchmark"
the Iraqis have to display to the Americans'
satisfaction is an infinite capacity for obedience.

While Congress dickers, both "major" parties are
entering a deal in which they become equal partners in
empire. The "benchmarks" bill, coupled with the
"surge," will seal this agreement in blood.

MoveOn.org is running antiwar television ads in
Republican-held swing districts – but will they run
those same ads in the districts of the 59 Democrats
who voted against the nine-month withdrawal plan?
Don't hold your breath.

The Democratic Party is not about to end this war. Far
from ending it, they seek to organize and formalize
the occupation. Their "compromise" spending bill signs
them on to constructing a viable colonial
administration based on a two-tiered system of
administration – with the Iraqi legislature
rubber-stamping decisions made in Washington and the
money flowing in at the same speed as the Iraqis carry
out their orders. Four years after "mission
accomplished," the nature of the mission – the carving
out of an American province in the heart of the Middle
East – is all too apparent.

The U.S. is embarked on an openly imperial venture,
and the structure of a rising American Empire is
taking shape before our eyes. It's a fantastic castle
with many rooms and antechambers all leading to the
seat of power, the imperial throne-room of the Oval
Office. Here, at the very apex of the imperial
pyramid, the most powerful man on earth contemplates
his next move, while his co-emperor, who holds court
in an undisclosed location, whispers in his ear: Iran.

The Democrats will go along with that one, too. Madam
Speaker agreed to strip a provision from the Iraq
funding bill that would have required the president to
come to Congress before launching an attack. Indeed,
none of the major Democratic candidates have ruled out
attacking Iran. The loudest voice against such a move
has come from among the Republicans. Rep. Ron Paul,
who recently made such a splash in the GOP
presidential debates, has warned of the possibility of
a new Gulf-of-Tonkin type "incident" that would draw
us into war with Tehran and ignite a regional
conflict.

Democrats are in favor of all sorts of warning labels
on products, right? I propose a warning label be
placed over Democratic Party headquarters in
Washington, especially directed at antiwar voters,
which simply says "ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER
HERE!"

What is needed is not just a revision of our Iraq
policy, or our Iran policy, or even our Middle East
policy. We need to reevaluate – and, yes, reverse –
our entire foreign policy from top to bottom, starting
with its central premise, which is that we must be the
dominant military and political power on the planet.
Neither of the major parties is prepared to do this:
since World War II, both the Democrats and the
Republicans have been explicitly committed to a
foreign policy of global intervention, and this
bipartisan consensus has been maintained right up to
the present day. After 9/11, this messianic tendency
in American foreign policy metastasized like a cancer
cell and gave birth to the neoconservative mutation,
which seized control of the policy-making apparatus in
Washington.

As Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan put it in their 1996
foreign policy manifesto, a founding document of the
neoconservative foreign policy platform, the new
American imperialism is to be a "benevolent global
hegemony." For the first time, the real nature of the
bipartisan consensus, with its emphasis on
"internationalism" and America's role as the "world
leader," was made consistent and explicit. While
disagreeing over means, both parties generally agree
on the proper ends of U.S. foreign policy: global
military dominance by the U.S.

This goal is simply not attainable, and, even if it
were, it is unsustainable – and, even if it were
sustainable for any significant length of time, it
would not be desirable. World hegemony, "benevolent"
or otherwise, is not so much a policy as a
megalomaniacal fantasy, a symptom of an underlying
sickness that has infected the minds of our rulers –
an illness that can only end in madness, death, and
mayhem on a scale not seen since the last world war.

The cure is not to be found in partisan politics or in
the wishful thinking of Hollywood liberals who invest
their hopes in whatever rising star in the Democratic
political firmament is fashionable at the moment. The
only antidote is a third-party effort to expose and
defeat both wings of the War Party and hold them to
account. A nationwide antiwar electoral campaign
pledged to defeat all pro-war members of Congress –
especially Democrats– and actively campaign against
all pro-war candidates for president would do much to
set the stage for a complete cure.

Before that is possible, however, grassroots activists
must lose their illusions about the Democratic Party –
and recognize the necessity of defeating pro-war
Democrats, not just in primaries but in the general
election. The third-party option must be considered,
and this will separate those whose first loyalty is to
the Democrats from those whose allegiance is to the
cause of peace.

Let's separate the wheat from the chaff, the
"benchmarks" from the bullsh*t, and the partisan hacks
from the healthy body of the antiwar movement. Because
ending this war isn't a partisan issue – it's a moral
imperative. 

___________________

JamBoi: Jammy, The Sacred Cow Slayer
The Green Parties' #1 Blogger
http://dailyJam.blogspot.com

"To the brave belong all things"
Celt's invading Etrusca reply to nervous Romans around 400BC

"Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)


       
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