Republicrats.
With their endorsement Wednesday of a Republican-drafted resolution pledging to continue funding for the Iraq war, Congressional Democratic leaders have exposed their supposed opposition to the Bush administration’s troop “surge” as a rebellion on their knees.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, announced the decision by party leaders to abandon their own toothless nonbinding resolution in favor of an even more innocuous measure introduced by Senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
On Thursday, Senators Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, declared that they too would back Warner’s measure. The two were sponsors of another resolution more sharply critical of the administration’s decision to send 21,500 more US troops to Iraq, The third sponsor of that resolution, Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, had joined Warner’s camp the day before.
Warner revised his resolution to include specific language foreswearing any cutoff of funding for the Iraq war, ostensibly with the aim of attracting more Republican backing. At the same time, the measure does not include language incorporated into the Biden-Levin-Hagel resolution describing the escalation as against US national interests.
The clause inserted into the new proposal reads, “Congress should not take any action that will endanger the United States military forces in the field, including the elimination or reduction of funds for troops in the field.”
[...]
There is a an air of unreality about the political machinations in Congress, unfolding as they are against the backdrop of steadily escalating violence in Iraq, the “surge” of troops already being implemented and growing indications that the administration is preparing to launch yet another war against Iran.
What they make clear, however, is that there is no way to advance the struggle against war through the US Congress and America’s two big business parties. The mass opposition to war that exists must find its expression in the emergence of a new mass independent political movement of working people challenging the entire political establishment and the financial elite that it represents.
Full Article Here
With their endorsement Wednesday of a Republican-drafted resolution pledging to continue funding for the Iraq war, Congressional Democratic leaders have exposed their supposed opposition to the Bush administration’s troop “surge” as a rebellion on their knees.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, announced the decision by party leaders to abandon their own toothless nonbinding resolution in favor of an even more innocuous measure introduced by Senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
On Thursday, Senators Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, declared that they too would back Warner’s measure. The two were sponsors of another resolution more sharply critical of the administration’s decision to send 21,500 more US troops to Iraq, The third sponsor of that resolution, Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, had joined Warner’s camp the day before.
Warner revised his resolution to include specific language foreswearing any cutoff of funding for the Iraq war, ostensibly with the aim of attracting more Republican backing. At the same time, the measure does not include language incorporated into the Biden-Levin-Hagel resolution describing the escalation as against US national interests.
The clause inserted into the new proposal reads, “Congress should not take any action that will endanger the United States military forces in the field, including the elimination or reduction of funds for troops in the field.”
[...]
There is a an air of unreality about the political machinations in Congress, unfolding as they are against the backdrop of steadily escalating violence in Iraq, the “surge” of troops already being implemented and growing indications that the administration is preparing to launch yet another war against Iran.
What they make clear, however, is that there is no way to advance the struggle against war through the US Congress and America’s two big business parties. The mass opposition to war that exists must find its expression in the emergence of a new mass independent political movement of working people challenging the entire political establishment and the financial elite that it represents.
Full Article Here
