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Now
"Every gun that is made,
every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the
final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those
who are cold and are not clothed."
-President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
Talk about stepping into the abyss.
George Bush and his Pentagon allies are considering increasing
the number of troops in Iraq by 40,000. The idea is supported
by some members of Congress, with John McCain being the first
member to express his support publicly. Democratic leader Harry
Reid chimed in over the weekend, saying that he would support
an increase just as long as it was only for "a few moths."
This is despite the fact that over 60% of US residents want
the troops out of there sooner rather than later. Reid's position
also conveniently ignores the fact that once roops are in country,
it becomes a lot harder for politicians and generals to pull
them out. The current situation makes that all too clear. The
White House position not only represents another blow to the
idea that the people of the US run the country, it is a blatant
kick in the voters' face. Yet, as long as Congress continues
to give the White House and Pentagon whatever monies they want
to fight the war, any other legislative actions mean less than
zero. In a reversal of Bush's domestic initiatives like the
No Child Left Behind act--an act which demanded individual states
to follow certain mandates from the federal government without
providing any funding, Congress provides unlimited funding of
the war effort without asking for any guidelines, much less requiring
any show of success.
It's not like this is unusual.
Certain funding requests rarely get a careful examination in
Congress. Two of the most obvious ones both concern the Middle
East. One is the constant funding that Tel Aviv gets no matter
what they do or how they do it. The other is the budgeting that
concerns those countries that contain big oil's profit source.
Sometimes the money for the latter is to prop up a regime friendly
to Washington's interests and sometimes it's used to destroy
a regime with different ideas. In Iraq, the former is taken
to its historical extreme. In other words, a regime that appears
to be barely holding on to its power is being supported with
unabashed US military power--to the tune of approximately 180
million dollars per day. This is only the financial cost, of
course. Human costs are immeasurable, but here are some raw
numbers regarding them: over the course of the war, US troops
have died on the average of more than two per day; somewhere
around a half million Iraqis have died (probably more rather
than less), over 20,000 US troops have been wounded, along with
unknown numbers of Iraqis.
Despite these statistics, the
war continues. In fact, as noted above, it may very well escalate.
The Democrats squeak a lot about their frustration with the
war and say they will do things differently, yet very few have
made any genuine indication that they will refuse to fund the
war. Instead, a good number have signed on to the suggestions
of the essentially irrelevant Iraq Study Group, whose report
suggested a continuation of the war by renaming the mission of
the troops on the ground and eventually withdrawing the combat
troops--a move that a Washington Post report said would leave
75% of the troops in country. In addition, not a single Democratic
Senator voted against the appointment of CIA man and war apologist
Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. Now, I don't know about
you, but that sounds like more business as usual. The Democratic
Congress' first test will come soon after they are seated. it
will come in the shape of a $100 billion request for continuing
the Iraq war. Other than a few noises from the left wing of
the party--mostly from Congressman Kucinich of Ohio--there has
been no indication that this request will not be granted. Indeed,
a cursory reading of newspaper reports regarding the request
leads me to believe that the only problem the Democrats have
with the administration's war funding request is the manner in
which he requests them. Instead of the emergency requests Messrs.
Bush and Cheney tend to prefer, the Democrats want the war funding
requests to be included in the annual budget.
Recently, antiwar vet Mike
Ferner, speaking for the groups Voices for Creative Nonviolence
and Veterans For Peace, announced their call to antiwar protesters
around the country to occupy the hometown offices of Representatives
and Senators who have voted money for the war. These actions
will take place in February, since Congress convenes in late
January and the aforementioned funding request will be one of
the first pieces of legislation on its agenda. This is a good
idea. Indeed, I say let's go even further. Let's take up the
call for the mass march on the Pentagon scheduled for March 17th
and stage a sitdown protest there. Take over the lawn and refuse
to leave. Sure, the upcoming antiwar marches on January 27th
and March 17th are important, but, if all indications are correct,
manifestations such as these have so far only succeeded in getting
our elected officials to say they oppose the war, but not to
do anything concrete about it. It's up to us to make them stick
to their words. Sitting in their offices until they answer our
questions or call the police is a logical next step. So is the
idea of a massive sit-in on the Pentagon lawn. It's called heightening
the contradictions. The United States could use some of that.
Think about it.
If these ideas don't work for
you and your people, perhaps another one will., or a combination
of other ones. If we recall the protests in Seattle in 1999
against the WTO, we will remember how effective they were in
raising the level of awareness and opposition to the aims of
global capitalism. We will also remember how effectively the
protests were organized. Everything was done on a local level.
Sure, the actual protests took place in Seattle (and several
other places in the following years), but if we are to believe
the polls, there are enough US residents opposed to the war that
we can sit in on the Pentagon lawn AND take local actions. It's
in our interest to stop this war now. We have to make it in
Congress' interest , too.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
