Democrats’ responsibility for Bush radicalism

From Common Dreams:

Democrats’ Responsibility for Bush Radicalism
by Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
August 4, 2007

It is staggering, and truly disgusting, that even in August, 2007 — almost six years removed from the 9/11 attacks and with the Bush presidency cemented as one of the weakest and most despised in American history — that George W. Bush can “demand” that the Congress jump and re-write legislation at his will, vesting in him still greater surveillance power, by warning them, based solely on his say-so, that if they fail to comply with his demands, the next Terrorist attack will be their fault. And they jump and scamper and comply (Meteor Blades has the list of the 16 Senate Democrats voting in favor; the House will soon follow).

I just finished a discussion panel with ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero which was originally planned to examine his new (superb) book about the work his organization has done for years in battling the endless expansion of executive power and presidential lawbreaking. But the only issue anyone in the room really wanted to discuss — including us — was the outrage unfolding on Capitol Hill. And the anger was almost universally directed where it belongs: on Congressional Democrats, who increasingly bear more and more responsibility for the assaults on our constitutional liberties and unparalleled abuses of government power — many (probably most) of which, it should always be emphasized, remain concealed rather than disclosed.

Examine virtually every Bush scandal and it increasingly bears the mark not merely of Democratic capitulation, but Democratic participation. In August of 2006, the Supreme Court finally asserted the first real limit on Bush’s radical executive power theories in Hamdan, only for Congress, months later, to completely eviscerate those minimal limits — and then go far beyond — by enacting the grotesque Military Commissions Act with the support of substantial numbers of Democrats. What began as a covert and illegal Bush interrogation and detention program became the officially sanctioned, bipartisan policy of the United States.

Grave dangers are posed to our basic constitutional safeguards by the replacement of Sandra Day O’Connor with Sam Alito, whose elevation to the Supreme Court Congressional Democrats chose to permit. Vast abuses and criminality in surveillance remain undisclosed, uninvestigated and unimpeded because Congressional Democrats have stood meekly by while the administration refuses to disclose what it has been doing in how it spies on us. And we remain in Iraq, in direct defiance of the will of the vast majority of the country, because the Democratic Beltway establishment lacks both the courage and the desire to compel an end to that war.

And now Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, with revealing symbolism, cancel their scheduled appearances this morning at Yearly Kos because George Bush ordered them to remain in Washington in order to re-write and expand FISA — a law which he has repeatedly refused to allow to be revised for years and which he has openly and proudly violated. Congressional Democrats know virtually nothing about how the Bush administration has been eavesdropping on our conversations because the administration refused to tell them and they passively accepted this state of affairs.

The intense rush to amend this legislation means that most of them have no idea what they are actually enacting — even less of an idea than they typically have. But what they know is that George Bush and Fox News and the Beltway establishment have told them that they would be irresponsible and weak and unserious if they failed to comply with George Bush’s instructions, and hence, they comply. In the American political landscape, there have been profound changes in public opinion since September of 2001. But in the Beltway, among our political and media establishment, virtually nothing has changed.

I don’t have time this morning to dissect the various excesses and dangers of the new FISA amendments, though Marty Lederman and Steve Benen both do a typically thorough job in that regard. Suffice to say, craven fear, as usual, is the author of this debacle.

There are many mythologies about what are the defining beliefs and motivations of bloggers and their readers and the attendees at Yearly Kos. One of the principal myths is that it is all driven by a familiar and easily defined ideological agenda and/or a partisan attachment to the Democratic Party. That is all false.

The common, defining political principle here — what resonates far more powerfully than any other idea — is a fervent and passionate belief in our country’s constitutional framework, the core liberties it secures, and the checks and balances it offers as a safeguard against tyrannical power. Those who fail to defend that framework, or worse, those who are passively or actively complicit in its further erosion, are all equally culpable. With each day that passes, the radicalism and extremism originally spawned in secret by the Bush presidency becomes less and less his fault and more and more the fault of those who — having discovered what they have been doing and having been given the power to stop it — instead acquiesce to it and, worse, enable and endorse it.

Democrats halt Senate debate on Iraq war

The World Socialist Web Site, one of the only publications I usually agree with these days, because it's one of the only ones that refuses to sell out its principles, has this article condemning the Democratic Party for its "unspoken collaboration with Bush" in continuing the American occupation of Iraq.

Democrats halt Senate debate on Iraq war
By Patrick Martin
World Socialist Web Site
20 July 2007

Senate Democrats abandoned an effort to impose restrictions on the Bush administration’s conduct of the war in Iraq after losing a procedural vote Wednesday to halt a Republican filibuster. After 24 hours of desultory debate on Iraq war policy, the Democratic leadership caved in to the White House, effectively conceding that there will be no change in US policy in Iraq for as long as Bush has congressional Republican support to continue the present course.

Just before noon the Senate fell well short of the 60 votes required to force a vote on the plan offered by Democrats Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, which would give the Bush administration 120 days to begin withdrawing combat troops from Iraq. The amendment to the defense authorization bill would have set an April 2008 deadline for withdrawal of all combat forces, but allowed tens of thousands of US troops to remain in Iraq indefinitely for the stated purpose of fighting terrorists, training Iraqi troops and protecting US assets.

Only four Republicans joined 48 Democrats and one independent to support the amendment. Majority Leader Harry Reid switched his vote at the last minute in order to preserve his right to seek reconsideration at a later stage, making the final margin 52-47. But minutes after this parliamentary maneuver, Reid announced he was pulling the defense bill from the Senate calendar and would not permit votes on any other amendments related to the Iraq war.

This sudden change of tack—votes on various amendments had been planned, including a measure to require closure of the US concentration camp at Guantánamo Bay—was actually decided upon at a private conclave of Senate Democratic leaders Monday.

According to press reports, the Democrats feared that several more modest war-related measures might pass if they reached the floor for a vote, including a bipartisan measure to adopt the report of the Iraq Study Group as government policy, and an amendment by Republicans Richard Lugar and John Warner requiring Bush to develop operational plans for a draw-down of US troops, while not mandating any actual pullout.

Both amendments would have given Senate Republicans an opportunity to go on record in a vote against Bush administration policy in an effort to appease public antiwar sentiment, while doing nothing in practice to interfere with the ongoing escalation of the war. By blocking their consideration, Reid was essentially saying that the privilege of offering toothless amendments that do not end the war would be reserved for the Democrats, who need the political cover even more than the Republicans.

One prominent Republican, Senator Lugar, spoke sympathetically of Reid’s difficulties. “He recognizes that Iraq is the major issue that brought Democrats into a majority in both houses,” Lugar said. “That constituency is unsatisfied and restive, and therefore politically this becomes the top priority by quite a distance.”

The additional amendments would also have brought to the surface divisions among the Senate Democrats. The Republican filibuster has obscured those divisions. It is not even certain that the Levin-Reed amendment would have passed if it had come up for a vote, as several Democrats who voted to end the filibuster were not committed to vote for the amendment itself.

One of the Democratic candidates elected in November 2006, Senator Jon Tester of Montana, emphasized that he believed the Senate should neither order removal of all troops nor set policy for the conduct of military operations. He backed a vote on the Levin-Reed amendment more as a symbolic gesture of the need for a change in policy. “It still gives the commander-in-chief the flexibility he needs as commander-in-chief,” Tester said.

The Montana senator added, “[T]here was a significant number of troops in the Middle East before we started this thing; there’s going to be some troops in the Middle East; there’s US interests involved and that’s the nature of the beast.” Indicating his support for an open-ended US presence in Iraq, he said, “We’ve been there for four years and I don’t think you can anticipate that everybody is going to be out. I don’t think that’s going to be the case. There’ll be some left, as needed.”

The decision to end further consideration of war-related legislation, at least until mid-September, means that scores if not hundreds more American soldiers and thousands more innocent Iraqi civilians will be slaughtered. But Reid was the picture of complacency. “You cannot fight against the future,” he told his Republican counterparts. “Time is on our side.”

Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin declared during the debate, “This war was born in deception. At the highest levels of our government, it has been waged with incompetence and arrogance.” These are, however, empty words, given that the Democrats have flatly rejected any effort to remove Bush and Cheney from office.

In a fundamental sense, the entire framework of the Senate debate was a fraud, since Reid, Durbin & Co. have already pushed through the emergency funding bill required by the Bush administration to finance the war through September 30. Pentagon officials had warned that they would be compelled to halt military operations in Iraq for lack of funding, but the House and Senate buckled and passed the appropriations bill with top-heavy bipartisan majorities at the end of May.

The congressional Democrats have thus foresworn both the constitutional method for ending the US occupation of Iraq—using Congress’s “power of the purse” to force a withdrawal of US forces—and the constitutional method for removing those responsible for a criminal and aggressive war, impeachment.

Instead, they have devoted their efforts to a public relations campaign aimed at portraying themselves as opponents of the war while permitting Bush and Cheney to continue it unhindered. This has included such measures as non-binding resolutions, resolutions that will not be brought to a vote (in the Senate), and resolutions that cannot survive a presidential veto (in the House), combined with passage of the bill providing $100 billion to continue military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In this duplicitous attempt to delude the vast majority of Democratic voters who oppose the war, the congressional Democrats have received political assistance from liberal pressure groups like MoveOn.org and United for Peace and Justice, and publications like the Nation, which have portrayed the legislative play-acting as though it were a titanic battle for the soul of the republic.

Tom Matzzie of MoveOn.org hailed Reid’s decision to pull the defense authorization bill from the Senate calendar, declaring, “I think Senator Reid took an important step toward confronting Republican obstructionism and ending the war.” Matzzie told the Washington Post that his organization would focus on the 21 Senate Republicans facing reelection next year, with the goal of “forcing the entire Republican Party to look over the side of the cliff” in contemplating the electoral consequences of continued support for the war. “Ultimately, we end the war by creating a toxic political environment for war supporters like the Republicans in the Senate,” he said.

A similar group, Progressive Democrats of America, admitted in an email to supporters Tuesday, “The Levin-Reed Amendment does not end the occupation and it leaves too many troops and all military contractors behind in Iraq.” Nonetheless, it said that passage of the amendment would be “a good first step” and offered the prospect of further action in the fall when senators would be urged to “step forward to offer an amendment to bring the troops home by the holidays.”

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, an umbrella for the pro-Democratic Party groups critical of the war—including MoveOn.org, Center for American Progress, the Service Employees International Union, Win Without War, and the Campaign for America’s Future—said it would encourage lobbying to “keep the heat on” the Republican senators who claimed to oppose the White House on Iraq policy.

It was left to the Nation magazine to make a bald admission that the antiwar pretense of the Senate Democrats was wearing thin. In a column hailing the beginning of the round-the-clock debate on war policy as a vigorous new effort by the Democratic leadership, the magazine observed that because of the continuation of the war, more than eight months after the Democratic victory in November 2006, there was the danger that “more and more Americans came to see Reid and the Democrats as, at best, ineffective; and, at worst, in unspoken collaboration with Bush.”

This is, in truth, the real state of affairs in official Washington. None of the crimes perpetrated by the Bush administration, whether in Iraq or at home, could have been carried out without that “unspoken”—and frequently overt—collaboration by the Democratic Party.

The New York Times and the crisis of American imperialism in Iraq

The World Socialist Web Site has a thought provoking analysis of the New York Times's anti-war editorial. Excerpt: "The New York Times, considered the most authoritative organ of the US ruling elite, outlines a crisis of historic proportions and describes a level of irresponsibility, incompetence and criminality in the White House that has no precedent. A serious response, from the standpoint of the interests of American imperialism, would begin with the demand that the current government resign, or that Congress initiate immediate impeachment proceedings against both Cheney and Bush. That would be the prerequisite for the 'candid and focused' conversation on the war which the newspaper claims to desire. But the Times proposes nothing of the kind. In fact, it proposes no measures to hold any of those responsible for dragging the country into an 'unnecessary' war accountable. This, above all, is what gives its entire pronouncement an aura of unreality."

The New York Times and the crisis of American imperialism in Iraq
By Barry Grey
World Socialist Web Site
9 July 2007

The New York Times on Sunday published a major statement on the war in Iraq. Running the entire length of the newspaper’s editorial page, the statement was clearly conceived of as a definitive pronouncement on the failure of the Bush administration’s strategy in Iraq and the assertion of an alternative policy.

The editorial is an expression of the enormity of the crisis facing the US ruling elite. In its own way, the statement acknowledges that what was intended to be a demonstration of American might—the conquest of Iraq—has dealt a shattering blow to the US drive for global hegemony.

Exuding a sense of hopelessness and despair, riddled with internal contradictions, raising more questions than it answers, the editorial reflects more than anything else the perplexity of the US political establishment in the face of a catastrophe of its own making.

Beginning with its title, “The Road Home,” the statement reveals as well the duplicity of the Democratic Party and the liberal wing of the political establishment for which the Times speaks. As one reads the statement, it becomes clear that the newspaper is not really calling for a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, but rather a redeployment leading to a permanent US military presence in Iraq and an expansion of American forces in the region. Such is the real content of the alternative to the Bush administration’s policy being promoted by the Democratic Party in the name of “ending the war.”

The editorial begins with the somber assertion: “It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.”

It continues: “Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.”

In fact, as the editorial later admits, the majority of the American people reached the conclusion that the war must be ended months ago. That was the unambiguous meaning of the Republican rout in the November, 2006 congressional elections, and since then opinion polls have shown an ever-rising tide of antiwar sentiment.

In the course of its ensuing attempt at a balance sheet of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Times editorial paints a picture of devastation and chaos in Iraq and recklessness, irresponsibility and criminality in the highest echelons of the US government that amounts to a colossal indictment of not only the Bush administration, but the entire political and media establishment of which the Times is a part.

What the Times admits

Among the facts listed in the course of the statement are the following: the United States has destroyed “Iraq’s government, army, police and economic structures;” the “security forces Washington has trained behave more like partisan militias;” civil war in Iraq “is raging, right now, and it may take years to burn out;” a “slow-motion ethnic and religious cleansing... has contributed to driving one in seven Iraqis from their homes;” there are “already nearly two million Iraqi refugees, mostly in Syria and Jordan, and nearly two million more who have been displaced within their country.”

The penultimate paragraph of the editorial states: “President Bush and Vice President Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans’ demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened—the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.”

Far more important to the Times than the devastation of Iraqi society are the disastrous consequences of the war for American imperialism. Even as it excoriates the Bush administration for its failed policy in Iraq, the newspaper uncritically upholds the overarching political framework and pretext for the war and the broader eruption of American militarism—the so-called “war on terrorism.”

On this score, the editorial asserts that Bush’s stated goal of “building a stable, unified Iraq” is “lost;” acknowledges that “additional military forces poured into the Baghdad region have failed to change anything;” complains that the war “is sapping the strength of the nation’s alliances and its military forces;” warns that it has given Al Qaeda “new base camps, new recruits and new prestige;” and declares that it has “alienated essential allies in the war against terrorism.”

What the Times proposes

When the Times turns to proposing a way out of the Iraq quagmire the perplexity and disorientation gripping the American ruling establishment emerge even more palpably. It soon becomes clear that the newspaper has no coherent policy to reconfigure US forces in Iraq while averting a disastrous defeat for US imperialism.

It begins by acknowledging that its proposals could very well exacerbate the bloodbath in Iraq and lead to a fracturing of the country along sectarian lines.

“When Congress returns this week,” the Times writes, “extricating American troops from the war should be at the top of its agenda.

“That conversation must be candid and focused. Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could be tempted to make power grabs. Perhaps most important, the invasion has created a new stronghold from which terrorist activity could proliferate.

“The administration, the Democratic-controlled Congress, the United Nations and America’s allies must try to mitigate these outcomes—and they may fail. But Americans must be equally honest about the fact that keeping troops in Iraq will only make things worse.”

Reprisals, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide—such are the potential consequences of a drawdown of US troops, the Times declares. Even the mechanics of a withdrawal of the present occupation force presents massive and possibly disastrous problems.

The editorial states: “The United States has about 160,000 troops and millions of tons of military gear inside Iraq. Getting that force out safely will be a formidable challenge. The main road south to Kuwait is notoriously vulnerable to roadside bomb attacks. Soldiers, weapons and vehicles will need to be deployed to secure bases while airlift and sealift operations are organized. Withdrawal routes will have to be guarded. The exit must be everything the invasion was not: based on reality and backed by adequate resources.”

What is the newspaper saying here? What are the implications of establishing “secure bases,” carrying out “airlift and sealift operations,” guarding withdrawal routes and providing “adequate resources?” How much more Iraqi and American blood will be shed? Does the Times contemplate an even larger deployment of US troops to effect a “withdrawal?”

The editorial continues: “The United States should explore using Kurdish territory in the north of Iraq as a secure staging area. Being able to use bases and ports in Turkey would also make withdrawal faster and safer. Turkey has been an inconsistent ally in this war, but like other nations, it should realize that shouldering part of the burden of the aftermath is in its own interest.”

Why would the Turkish ruling elite, which considers the consolidation of a Kurdish stronghold in Iraq’s north a mortal threat to itself, consent to US “staging areas” in the region and even agree to facilitate such a development by making its own ports and bases available to the US military? The Times does not say.

Permanent bases

As for the prospects for Iraqis of a US “withdrawal” as envisioned by the Times, the newspaper writes that the war has “created a new front where the United States will have to continue to battle terrorist forces and enlist local allies who reject the idea of an Iraq hijacked by international terrorists. The military will need resources and bases to stanch this self-inflicted wound for the foreseeable future.”

This can only mean a permanent US military presence and continual bomb and missile attacks against alleged “terrorists,” punctuated by US Special Forces raids on Iraqi towns and communities. This scenario is spelled out somewhat more concretely in a section entitled “The Question of Bases.” The editorial declares:

“The United States could strike an agreement with the Kurds to create those bases in northeastern Iraq. Or, the Pentagon could use its bases in countries like Kuwait and Qatar, and its large naval presence in the Persian Gulf, as staging points.

“There are arguments for, and against, both options. Leaving troops in Iraq might make it too easy—and too tempting—to get drawn back into the civil war and confirm suspicions that Washington’s real goal was to secure permanent bases in Iraq. Mounting attacks from other countries could endanger those nations’ governments.

“The White House should make this choice after consultation with Congress and the other countries in the region, whose opinions the Bush administration has essentially ignored. The bottom line: the Pentagon needs enough force to stage effective raids and airstrikes against terrorist forces in Iraq, but not enough to resume large-scale combat.”

Again, what does this really mean? How much force is “enough?” 50,000 troops? 100,000? 500,000? Will it require the restoration of the military draft?

How exponentially must the already massive US military presence in the region be increased to “stage effective raids and airstrikes against terrorist forces in Iraq?” How many, and which, governments in the region will be destabilized by a permanently expanded US military presence in the region? Jordan? Saudi Arabia? Kuwait? Egypt?

Partition: the Bosnian solution

There follows a section entitled “The Civil War,” which states: “Iraq may fragment into separate Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite republics, and American troops are not going to stop that from happening.”

It continues: “Iraq’s leaders—knowing that they can no longer rely on the Americans to guarantee their survival—might be more open to compromise, perhaps to a Bosnian-style partition, with economic resources fairly shared but with millions of Iraqis forced to relocate.”

It was not so long ago that “Bosnia” was a watchword of the US political and media establishment for war crimes and genocide. Indeed, the charge of genocide leveled against the Serbs—a deliberate exaggeration of the crimes of Serb militia against Bosnian Muslims—played a central role in the preparing public opinion for the eventual air war against Serbia in 1999. Now the Times calmly proposes such a solution for Iraq—euphemistically using the term “relocation” to denote the brutal ethnic cleansing and sectarian warfare that would inevitably result in a country where Sunnis and Shia still live side by side in many regions.

Next, the Times raises the specter of massive refugee flows further destabilizing the entire Middle East, spreading “Iraq’s conflict far beyond its borders.” It declares that all six countries bordering Iraq—Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria—along with other nations must cooperate in containing the refugee crisis. They, along with the nations of Europe and Asia, must, the newspaper asserts, join with the US in contributing cash to defray the costs of such a project.

The new governments in Britain, France and Germany, the Times writes, must do their part to deal with the crisis because “to put it baldly, terrorism and oil make it impossible to ignore.”

“One of the trickiest tasks,” the editorial continues, “will be avoiding excessive meddling in Iraq by its neighbors—America’s friends as well as its adversaries.

“Just as Iran should come under international pressure to allow Shiites in southern Iraq to develop their own independent future, Washington must help persuade Sunni powers like Syria not to intervene on behalf of Sunni Iraqis. Turkey must be kept from sending troops into Kurdish territories.”

Exactly how the US will impose its will on these countries, under conditions in which a fractured Iraq has brought long-standing tensions and rivalries in the region to the boiling point, the Times does not say. By diplomatic blackmail? By military force?

At one point, the editorial declares, “The administration should use whatever leverage it gains from withdrawing to press its allies and Iraq’s neighbors to help achieve a negotiated solution.” This underscores one of the most glaring of the contradictions that abound in the editorial.

What international leverage will the United States gain from tacitly admitting defeat and pulling out the bulk of its combat forces from Iraq? Why should other countries, allies and adversaries alike, be more inclined to tow Washington’s line after it has suffered a military and political humiliation?

No accountability for an “unnecessary” war

There is, however, an even more fundamental contradiction. In its opening passages, the editorial announces that the Times has dropped its previous opposition to setting a withdrawal date because, “It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor.”

Thus the premise for the policy shift outlined by the Times is the unwillingness and inability of Bush and Cheney to change course and avert a full-scale catastrophe. Yet the statement repeatedly appeals to the White House to do precisely that.

It states, for example, “Congress and the White House must lead an international attempt at a negotiated outcome. To start, Washington must turn to the United Nations, which Mr. Bush spurned and ridiculed as a preface to war.”

The New York Times, considered the most authoritative organ of the US ruling elite, outlines a crisis of historic proportions and describes a level of irresponsibility, incompetence and criminality in the White House that has no precedent. A serious response, from the standpoint of the interests of American imperialism, would begin with the demand that the current government resign, or that Congress initiate immediate impeachment proceedings against both Cheney and Bush. That would be the prerequisite for the “candid and focused” conversation on the war which the newspaper claims to desire.

But the Times proposes nothing of the kind. In fact, it proposes no measures to hold any of those responsible for dragging the country into an “unnecessary” war accountable. This, above all, is what gives its entire pronouncement an aura of unreality.

There are many reasons for this glaring silence. In the first place, the entire political establishment, including its liberal wing, is implicated in the Iraq disaster. The Times itself supported the invasion, with whatever tactical quibbles, and played a critical role in promulgating the lies about weapons of mass destruction that were used to justify the invasion. To this day, it has concealed from the American people the scale of the death and destruction the US was wreaked on the Iraqi people.

Beyond that, there is the organic cowardice of the liberal, Democratic Party establishment, and its fear of the political consequences within the US of an attempt to dislodge the current administration. These sections of the ruling elite sense that an open attack on Bush and Cheney could unleash pent-up social anger and popular forces that could spiral out of the control of the entire political establishment.

An international disaster for US imperialism of such magnitude as that which the Times describes cannot but have the most far-reaching economic and political consequences within the US itself. This side of the matter is not even broached by the newspaper.

But the US debacle in Iraq will have profound ramifications for which American working people must prepare. The crisis of American imperialism in Iraq cannot be left as a matter for debate within the ruling elite. Those responsible for an illegal and unprovoked war that has already cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and killed or maimed tens of thousands of Americans cannot be allowed to prepare further atrocities in Iraq and new wars of aggression. The decisive question is the independent political intervention of the working class in opposition to imperialist war and the capitalist ruling elite in whose interests it is waged.

Cindy Sheehan's farewell to the left

Cindy Sheehan's farewell letter, from Common Dreams, parallels some of my own experiences with the left. I guess every party and every cause has good and bad in it, no matter how noble its intentions. Reactions here.

Good Riddance Attention Whore
by Cindy Sheehan
Common Dreams
May 29, 2007

I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called “Face” of the American anti-war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such “liberal blogs” as the Democratic Underground. Being called an “attention whore” and being told “good riddance” are some of the more milder rebukes.

I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt “two” party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an “attention whore” then I really need to be committed. I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others. I have spent every available cent I got from the money a “grateful” country gave me when they killed my son and every penny that I have received in speaking or book fees since then. I have sacrificed a 29 year marriage and have traveled for extended periods of time away from Casey’s brother and sisters and my health has suffered and my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings. I have been called every despicable name that small minds can think of and have had my life threatened many times.

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. This group won’t work with that group; he won’t attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions.

Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death by people worried more about elections than people. However, in five, ten, or fifteen years, our troops will come limping home in another abject defeat and ten or twenty years from then, our children’s children will be seeing their loved ones die for no reason, because their grandparents also bought into this corrupt system. George Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity.

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford, Texas? I will consider any reasonable offer. I hear George Bush will be moving out soon, too... which makes the property even more valuable.

This is my resignation letter as the “face” of the American anti-war movement. This is not my “Checkers” moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.

Good-bye America…you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.

It’s up to you now.

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is a co-founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace and the author of two books: Not One More Mother’s Child and Dear President Bush.

American Congress surrenders to Bush, part 2

More on the complete and total surrender of the American Congress to Commander-in-Chief Bush, from the World Socialist Web Site. Excerpts:

It is no doubt puzzling to many that, despite the massive popular opposition to Bush and the Iraq war, the Democrats are powerless against the Bush administration. In the past—in the run-up to the 2003 invasion and in the 2004 presidential election—the Democrats justified their prostration and complicity by the supposedly overwhelming popular support for the president.

The fundamental reason for the Democrats’ impotence is the character of the Democratic Party. It is, no less than the Republicans, a party of US imperialism. The Democrats have from the onset supported the basic imperialist aims underlying the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the broader striving of the American financial elite to utilize its military power to dominate the world’s resources and markets.

The war was never simply “Bush’s war.” The Democrats repeated the lies used by the administration to drag the American people into the war and supplied the necessary votes in Congress to give Bush the authority to launch an unprovoked war of aggression. Their criticisms have been directed not against the war itself, but rather against the administration’s incompetence in conducting it and the military and political disaster it has produced.

The Democrats have done, and will do, nothing to actually halt the war or impede its expansion, because the overwhelming consensus within the US ruling elite is that any outcome perceived as a defeat for the United States would have catastrophic consequences for the global position of American capitalism.

The Republican Party, no matter how unpopular and discredited among the people, prevails because it represents most directly the interests of the most determined and ruthless sections of the ruling elite. The Democrats, on the other hand, serve a very specific function within the political establishment. They defend the basic interests of the ruling class, while promoting the fiction that their party is something it is not now and never was—a party of average working people. This is what imparts to the Democratic Party its inveterate duplicity, half-heartedness and cowardice.

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It is instructive to review the process by which the Democratic leadership has come to its final capitulation to Bush. When the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress last January, propelled into power by the massive antiwar vote in the November 2006 congressional elections, they began by relegating the entire question of the war to the background.

Pelosi’s “100 hours” legislative agenda at the start of the 110th Congress entirely ignored the issue of the war. The resulting anger and indignation among Democratic voters, intensified by Bush’s January 10 announcement of a “surge” of tens of thousands of additional troops into Iraq, compelled the party leadership to shift tactics. What followed was an elaborate and carefully calculated effort to dupe the population into believing that the Democrats were seeking to end the war, while they swore off any actions that would actually impede its prosecution.

This included the non-binding resolutions against the “surge” in February. Beginning in March the Democrats passed measures in the House and Senate that gave Bush his requested funds to continue the war, with various timetables attached for partially withdrawing US combat troops. All of the Democratic proposals allowed for an indefinite continued presence of tens of thousands of troops after the supposed deadlines for withdrawal.

When Bush, on May 1, vetoed the Democratic bill that resulted from negotiations between the House and Senate, the end game was already clear. Democratic leaders in both houses gave repeated assurances that they would under no circumstances cut off funding “for the troops,” even as the toll of American soldiers killed and wounded soared, and Iraq sank ever further into a state of hellish chaos, death and destruction.

They announced that they would come up with a bill acceptable to Bush prior to the May 28 Memorial Day holiday, producing the inevitable and final capitulation that has now occurred.

At every step of the way, the Democratic leadership was aided and abetted by supposedly antiwar Democrats such as the Out of Iraq caucus, who provided the necessary votes to pass war-funding measures, and left-liberal forces such as the Nation magazine and the leaders of protest groups such as United for Peace and Justice, who presented the Democratic Party as a genuine vehicle for opposing and ending the war.

These events have fully confirmed the analysis and perspective of the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site. On November 8, one day after the midterm elections, the WSWS published an editorial board statement that said:

“The Democratic Party is the beneficiary of overwhelming antiwar sentiment that it did nothing to encourage and which stands in stark opposition to its own pro-war policy. There is a vast chasm between the massive antiwar sentiment within the electorate and the commitment of Democratic Party leaders to ‘victory in Iraq’ and continued prosecution of the ‘war on terror.’...

“Those who voted for the Democratic Party in order to express their opposition to the Bush administration and the war will rapidly discover that a Democratic electoral victory will produce no significant change in US policy, either abroad or at home.”