Green Zone money changer, 2004. Here’s hoping he got out alive.
Photo: hdroads
–we can maintain our military presence in Iraq for guess how much longer?
House Democrats are beginning to coalesce around a $19 billion bill — enough to fund the war for about 60 days — without any withdrawal dates, according to aides. The measure would include additional funds for military health care; new standards for resting, training and equipping troops before deployment; and prohibitions on torture and permanent bases in Iraq. Benchmarks would be included, but with no punishments for failing to meet them.
Punishment is so negative, you know, and so unnecessary when we’ve got an administration that responds so well to gentle suggestions about how to end this disaster.
I’m really baffled by this love of useless benchmarks, although the next paragraph provides a clue to what motivates Democrats to propose this asininity:
The idea would be to pass the measure quickly, as soon as early next week, to deprive Bush of the argument that Democrats are withholding needed funds from the troops. Then negotiations would begin immediately on yet another bill.
Okay, look:
I get that Democratic lawmakers fear the you-don’t-love-the-troops card, and I get that the White House plays that card all the time. I guess what I don’t get is when exactly the Democrats were planning to point out that sentencing young Americans to flag-draped coffins is a pretty fucked-up way of showing you care? Because it’s past time someone mentioned that:
Attacks killed a total of nine U.S. troops over the weekend, including five whose deaths were announced Monday. The weekend’s fatalities brought the toll for the month to 104 Americans killed, in the sixth most-lethal month for American forces since the U.S.-led invasion four years ago.
I know well enough what the pro-war party line is here: Don’t be defeatist; the troops can’t accomplish their mission if they sense that the people back home don’t believe in and support that mission; if we cut and run now things will only get extra-super-bad in Iraq, as opposed to the merely excruciatingly shitty way they are now–and that’s just the obstinacy the pundits and the bloggers will trot out. For real pigheadedness, the kind that leaves you slack-jawed with disbelief, stunned by the stupid, you’ve got to go to the source:
“That’s not to say I’m not interested in their opinions. I am,” [Bush] said of congressional leaders. “I look forward to working with members of both parties to get a bill that doesn’t set artificial timetables and doesn’t micromanage and gets the money to our troops.”
Artificial timetables? As opposed to organic all-natural timetables, or . . . ? And this is from the INVENTOR of the artificial timetable, the guy who wanted the mission to be accomplished four friggin’ years ago so badly that he just arbitrarily declared it so. If that’s not an artificial timetable I don’t know what is. The whole Iraq war has been nothing but artificiality from the start. Except the dead, the maimed, and the fleeing–they’re all real enough, but like to everyone except George W. Bush.
And you know, you can complain about micromanagement when things are going well, when over-supervising would only stall further progress. When you can’t even maintain what little good you’ve accomplished, that’s when it’s time to consider micromanagement. That’s when you need some anal-retentive i-dotters and t-crossers running around making sure there are things like, say, potable water and working electricity. Of all the problems in Iraq right now, “micromanagement” shouldn’t even make the list. This is a bigger problem. So’s this. And that’s before we even get around to looking at how much it all costs, both in lives and in dollars.
It’s completely insane, and benchmarks without consequences are not going to stop the insanity. When even Congressional Republicans are talking about needing benchmarks and clearly defined goals and measurable achievements, that is hardly the time for Democrats to issue a 60-day notice that doesn’t even hint at, much less threaten, eviction. Bush is going to veto it anyway, so what is there to lose by taking a stronger stance?
All that stuff pro-war Republicans like to hype about strong and weak horses and respect for one but not the other?–Sure, it was something Osama said, but it’s also what they believe themselves. They don’t respect this non-punitive benchmarking nonsense (and I can’t blame them, because who would?), and they’re never going to give up claiming that liberals hate America and the troops anyhow, no matter what, because it’s been too good to them for too long. Why even try to appease these people? Every time you hear a pro-war type yakking about how appeasement never works, it’s worth recalling that they’re also telling you appeasement never works with them.
UPDATE: Strong horse time beginning . . . now. Yep, that’s Bruce Bartlett in the National Review saying he doesn’t think the Republicans have a chance in hell in 2008, and are losing momentum and support daily even now. Thanks, Hugo–made my day too.
40 Responses to “For the Low, Low Price of Only $19 Billion”
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When calling your representatives please remember to speak in a respectful tone. Don’t name-call, don’t raise your voice. Just calmly and eloquently tell them that you expect them to continue to send the same bill, with time-tables, to the President until he finally signs it.
Let your representatives know it is time to bring the boys home. Just do be calm when you make that phone call.
Bring the women home, too, Dave.
The Dems are handling this all wrong. The public is behind them on the issue of withdrawal from Iraq. What should happen is this: Deliver this bill, with the (for the love of god) NON BINDING time table for withdrawal and say “This is it. You wanted a bill, you got a bill. You won’t get another one.”
Make it loud and on every single talking head and blog they can find to get the word out, that Bush –who has known about his war since *before* 9/11 if we are to believe Tenet and Clarke and O’Neil — should have put the funding for the war in the general budget. He didn’t. He decided to play games with the troops and use them as props to shore up his mal-administration. Let Bush know that he wanted a bill, he got a bill. If he vetoes it, then HE is the one who isn’t supporting the troops.
The Dems control the agenda. So, control it. They gave him more than the money he asked for, and, remember: “elections have consequences.” One of those consequences is, he doesn’t get to do things his own way anymore. He now has to listen to the people.
Alas, the Dems in Congress are too busy listening to GOP-Lite DLC for anything like that to actually happen.
Wasn’t the entire war suppose to cost something like $14 billion?
I’m kind of torn on this… cause I actually do understand the strategy, which is to basically have Iraq dominate the Congressional agenda and the news media from now until Bush either signs the bill or we pull enough GOP to override the veto. As long as the deadlines don’t change and the bill remains identical to its current form [minus the 19 bil they’re throwing down now], then I can tentatively support this. Those are big “IF”s, but I’m gonna wait for Bush to veto the bill and then see how the override attempt goes…
I should add, that the reason more GOPers would come on board is because they would be under constant pressure at home. The more they have to vote against bringing the troops home, the more unpopular they will become.
We have a winner:
I should add, that the reason more GOPers would come on board is because they would be under constant pressure at home. The more they have to vote against bringing the troops home, the more unpopular they will become.
There simply is not the will, in early May 2007, for either impeachment or a hard bill to end the war. The Congressional GOP (whose votes on this really matter the most) are still loyal to Bush. But the tide is running hard against this failed Presidency. Every new revelation of criminal malfeasance, every new horror in Iraq, put Congressional Republicans on the defensive. Some have already started bucking Commander Codpiece — and it’s only May. Does anyone really think the situation will be brighter in August? Of course not.
It’s sick to contemplate all the unnecessary death that has to be inflicted in the meantime. But there is really no choice, short of a sudden awakening among Republican ranks — something that hasn’t happened yet in six years. These guys need a 2x4 of reality upside the head before they’ll desert their Leader. And that’s what they’re getting, day in and day out.
Exactly right, Amanda. El Jefe Maximo and his minions can only be stopped with power, not persuasion. That should be very clear by now.
Présidentielle USA 2008 : la mémoire des blogs peut couter cher…
Il n’y a pas qu’Alain Duhamel qui ait payé pour ses prises de position passées. Il a ete trahi par une vidéo diffusée sur Internet. C’est aussi le cas de la blogueuse américaine Amanda Marcotte (Pendagon) trahie par des billets……
[grits teeth, bites tongue, nurses wounded vanity]
Although, actually, it’s a fine compliment.
Heh, I once thought a post written by jedmunds was by Amanda. Egg all over my face…
Where is that rascal anyway?
Ummm…why? Why on earth should we be calm about people getting murdered?
I think it’s propably good if legislators get the idea that people DON’T ACTUALLY LIKE THEM VERY MUCH on account of their letting people die on their watch. Let lawmakers know that they’re going to have to earn people’s respect if they want people to be respectful. They haven’t yet.
Is the reasoning behind this that they won’t listen if you’re not polite and calm? That they’ll write it off as some crazy hippie phoning them? Maybe they will but I anticipate if lawmakers start getting hundreds of crazy hippie phone calls they’ll be inclined to at least pay some attention.
This is the best option. This forces a vote every 60 days to continue funding. A bill with a timetable is useless to an administration that would just ignore the timetable. Make Bush sigg off on the war every 2 months.
[…] UPDATE: What Ilyka said. I suppose I could be wrong, but it really seems to me that the public will support the Democratic majority if they stand up to The Decider on this issue of ending the war. They should make it very clear that he should have included war funding in the regular budget, but dishonestly decided to play political games using the lives of American soldiers as pawns instead. So, now he wants a funding bill. And he got one. And they should continue to send him exactly that same bill over and over again until he signs it. And if he (and the D.C. village idiots like Broder and Kurtz) start talking about how they’re Putting The Troops In Danger, the Democrats need to be willing to remind everyone that The Decider put them there, and The Decider can bring them home to safety at any time. Any danger our soldiers may find themselves in is 100% the responsibility of George W. Bush, who is willing to hold them hostage rather than submit to the will and judgment of the American people who are his employers. […]
In a perfect world both the House and Senate would pass a bill including binding timetables with overwhelming, veto-proof majorities. Unfortunately the deadenders just haven’t come around yet. Without peeling off a substantial subset of Republicans there is little that can be done.
4 years ago, Bush said “we have prevailed.”
Yeah, we prevailed in making a functioning if oppressed State into a collection of tribes and religious groups all at war with each other and threatening to destabalize the whole of the middle east.
That’s good work. And we did it on the cheap too . . . only half a trillion bucks and a few thousand dead Americans. None of those dead folks are big campaign doners though, or real of any account whatsoever until someone comes along a points out the illegal, ignorant, arrogant and entirely unjustified and unjustifiable nature of the Iraq war . . . then it’s “We have to honor the sacrafice of those brave men and women who lost their lives bringing freedom and democracy to the oppressed.”
Rhetoric still sways opinion. Noone likes to admit that we are the oppressers and prety well reviled and despised throughout the world as a direct result of the Bush administrarion. He’s administered us right into the ground.
The Dems are cautious cuz they don’t want to blow it, and that sort of makes me laugh.
In 2001~2002, caution and restraint and foreberance were called for in the part of the Repubs, deciding what to do after 9/11. Pretty much the opposite happened.
Now, bold, decisive and risky action is called for, to try and begin to undo the damage of the last forever since Bush has been in power, and pretty much the opposite is happening.
“Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose . . .”
Am I the only one who doesn’t understand how “benchmarks” are supposed to work?
From what I’ve heard of “benchmarks” the concept is “unless you achieve X, Y and Z” we will go away” aimed at the Iraqi government.
But it seems that most Iraqis really, really want us to go away. So such a benchmark give added incentive for violence. Because if those fighting the US and the Iraqi puppets can prevent the benchmark, we’re out of there.
Benchmarks of the “when you achieve this, we’ll leave” sort make more sense. The US leaving is something that is quite wanted, and perhaps more likely to get people to cooperate. Of course, it would also require this administration, and the US in general, to accept that it isn’t a wanted, benevolent presence.
I like that a columnist in the National Review is all but endorsing Hillary as the best hope for conservatives (about time someone noticed she isn’t a liberal). Still his prediction has one fatal flaw. Those idiots are never right about anything EVER.
We’re doomed!
Wellll,
This offers Bush the option of getting his hands dirty. If he vetos it, so be it. At some point, the Speaker (who has immense power over the agenda) can simply not allow another funding bill to come to the floor. The only thing the R’s could do would be to start a discharge petition which they don’t have enough signatures to get. There is more than one way to skin a Shrub.
Excellent post, ilyka. Welcome back.
The NY Times piece about failed reconstruction “successes” is especially damning. It’s one more demonstration that even the silver linings of this miserable failure are garbage.
I like the idea of making the admin ask for money every so often (one month, two months, no more). Remind the people over and over of how much this war is costing in lives and dollars. People don’t pay attention for very long - as the admin knows. So bringing this up constantly, the drumbeat, will at least get their attention more often than once a year.
Ursula ftw!
Actually, I think breaking the war funding down to 60 day increments in probably the best strategy the Democrats have at this point. They just don’t have the votes they need to overturn Bush’s veto, and actually letting the troop’s funding run out would be very damaging to them, politically. So lets force Bush to come groveling every other month for more money, and let the Republicans in Congress continue to defend remaining in Iraq.
Yeah, it’s not as much as we’d like, but we’re not going to get what we like, so we may as well take what we can get - which is the White House in 2009 and an even larger majority in both branches of Congress. Until, then, though, we need to acknowledge the reality that Bush still has enough of a base that have to work around.
A. You’re not yelling at the legislator; you’re yelling at his aides. As a former receptionist, I fucking HATED it when people would yell at me for the sins of my company/boss, and it usually resulted in - whoops! - the message getting lost in the paper shredder.
B. Because you are right - they will absolutely dismiss you as a raving lunatic. It doesn’t matter how right you are to be angry or how justified your furor is, they will dismiss you as a crazy person.
You can call and rant and rave and scream all you want, but if you actually want to get something done, instead of just feeling self-righteous in your anger, then I’d recommend being polite. You know, more bees with honey and all that.
Right on, caitlin.
You can call and rant and rave and scream all you want, but if you actually want to get something done, instead of just feeling self-righteous in your anger, then I’d recommend being polite. You know, more bees with honey and all that.
I used to work in customer service for a mail-order computer company and it’s completely true: if you were an ass to me on the phone, I found a million excuses to not get your stuff to you on time. If, on the other hand, you were polite and explained to me what you actually wanted (rather than screaming at me about how horrible the company is), I’d do everything possible to get your problem taken care of.
Yelling and screaming at support staff does nothing but make them want to spit in your food. Remember that next time you decide it’s your waitress’s fault that your food is cold when it gets to the table.
Labryus:
We are the voice of reason. We speak in complete sentences. We spell and grammar check our letters. The only reasonable solution is to get our men and women out of Iraq as quickly and expeditiously as possible.
We are not talk radio.
We are not the blogosphere.
We are America.
We are reasoned.
We are calm.
We are deliberate.
We want American soldiers out of Iraq now.
I think the 60 day increment thing is a mistake.
There are 630 days until the next president is inaugurated.
Funding this war in 60 day increments means funding it 10 more times until it is the next president’s problem.
We can have this argument again in 60 days. Then 60 days after that we can debate the issue again. Only 8 more times now.
Bush may have owned a baseball team but he has a football mentality. Run out the clock. He has no intention of letting the other side get to bat. His plan is to take the snap and sit on the ball until the game is over.
I say fine. Run it right up the middle. Here is your war funding bill. If you don’t like it, well there will not be another. This is the only funding bill you are going to get. Veto this bill if you want but be warned there will be no other options.
Colorado Dave, I heart you. But then, I always was a sucker for mixed sports metaphors.
ilyaka,
In raising children I have found it helpful to raise the stakes.
You have a choice between A and B. No C is not a choice however D which you really won’t like WILL happen unless you choose A or B.
Bush is a spoiled brat, let’s treat him like one.
ilyaka,
I guess I did mix my metaphors.
The beauty of baseball is that everyone gets 27 outs. It doesn’t matter how good your team is, you cannot deny your opponent those last three outs.
This reasoning needs to be challenged, when it shows up. Congress has authorized funding. If anyone is letting it run out, it is Shrub, who’s the one who is doing the veto, knowing the troops need the money.
He’s a three year old having a tantrum because he wants to be able to do whatever he wants, with no one questioning him, no matter the harm it causes.
The 60 day stuff will just let him keep running the clock, going through this over and over again, while thousands continue to die from his bad judgment. It gives him what he wants, and it lets him “win” in his mind and in the eyes of his supporters, every time he gets another authorization without the condition of leaving.
It is going to take a showdown to stop him, if he can be stopped at all. Putting it off just puts him in a stronger position, with less time where he has to hold out before leaving office and dumping the problem on someone else.
The alternative might be to tie funding to other liberal causes - each round of funding comes with a repeal of anti-abortion laws, or funding for stem cell research, or other needed legislation attached. Each time he vetoes funding, send it back with one more thing he hates added. So if he doesn’t accept the deadlines now, next time he has to accept deadlines and legal abortion, and the time after that it is deadlines, legal abortion, and stem cell research, and the time after that is deadlines, legal abortion, stem cell research, and a higher minimum wage…
Whatever the outcome the Republicans will claim the Democratic Congress abandoned the troops,
Give Bush everything he wants and more — The Democrats turned their backs on our brave troops!
Give Bush the funding for 60 more days — The Democrats turned their backs on our brave troops!
Pass a bill setting a timetable for withdrawal — The Democrats turned their backs on our brave troops!
Pass a bill mandating an immediate withdrawal — The Democrats turned their backs on our brave troops!
Refuse to fund this mistake for one more day — The Democrats turned their backs on our brave troops!
Giving Bush another 60 days is simply delaying the inevitable. At some point congress is going to have to say no to George Bush.
Congress sent him an Iraq spending bill. He vetoed it. I say move on, either send him an identical bill or better yet do not him another Iraq sending bill at all. He had his chance.
Bang on Ursula!
And the core problem is that even the Dems refuse to accept that the US is not a benevolent presence. As long as they’re stuck with this ridiculous idea of the US as the “indispenible nation”, the “best hope for the world”, they will continue to murder people, for their own good, on an industrial scale.
Face it, America - you are the world’s leading terrorist organisation. You are the number one force for evil in the world today. You are the friend of dictators and torturers, and the enemy of democracy and freedom. You can do no good. You are the anti-Midas.
And once again, Arthur Silber is right on the money.
How does this make any sense? What’s supposed to change in the next two months that didn’t change in the last four years? What exactly is the long-term plan of democrats funding this? It’s as though they think Bush is going to sign a bill that will withdraw any troops, under any circumstances, ever–and he’s not. Are they just sticking their fingers in their ears and trying real hard not to think about what’s going to happen in two months? I didn’t vote for this, damn it–the dems didn’t run on “Vote for us, and we’ll continue the worst foreign policy idea since Operation Ajax in pretty much the same way the other guys would have… but we’ll be all wishy-washy about it!”
$19 Billion?!!!! For 60 days?!!!!
NASA’s budget is only about $14-15 billion a year. I know a lot of liberals consider NASA a waste of money, but I hope most agree that it would be preferable to give that money to NASA than blowing it in Iraq.
This liberal believes we should triple or quadruple NASA’s budget and that cutting funding for NASA back in the ’70s was a colossal mistake.
‘Zackly, grendelkhan. Exactly.
Caitlin and Colorado Dave:
I suppose you think the reason the vietnam war went on for so long was because anti-war protesters just weren’t being polite enough? People tried the whole “catching flies with honey” idea back when this thing started, or do you not remember countless peace petitions, respectfully worded letters and spokespeople for anti-war groups who were careful to explain that the pro-war side was simply making an honest mistake that needed correcting.
Honestly, politicians don’t listen to reason. They don’t listen to courtesy. If you think they do - well, I won’t call you stupid, but I think you haven’t been paying attention.
They listen to political consequences, and thus far, the political consequences for supporting the war have been next to nothing. Even anti-war politicians have to make a big stupid show of how pro-military they are even if they don’t like the war.
Sorry if I’m not being polite here, but trying to dress up what is a life or death issue for millions of people as some sort of polite disagreement between equals is something that I find deeply offensive. I don’t think the global public needs to be the voice of reason at this point - we’ve been doing that since 2003 when the largest anti-war movement ever opposed the war and articulated a lot of great reasons to. It’s about time we be the voice of power. Let the US government know that the decision’s been made, and they’ll follow it or else.
After all, we’ve come so far! Not to dig all the way to the center of the earth would render all our past sacrifices for naught!