By it’s nature the Out Of Iraq Bloggers Caucus is, as our tagline describes, a “coalition of the willing”, not a top down organization speaking with one voice, but a gathering place for bloggers united in opposition to the Iraq occupation, each with their own motivations, each with their own ideas on how the occupation can be ended.
I want to talk today about my own views, and also about a short conversation I had yesterday about whether and about how the Iraq occupation could be ended – but first I want to provide some background against which to express my own thoughts. I also hope here to encourage other OOIBC members to post their thoughts. I speak only for myself here.
OOIBC is subset of a much larger “coalition of the willing”, a microcosm of the tens of millions of people who, expressing, in the words of Keith Olbermann “the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies”, in the 2006 midterm elections repudiated the Republican party and I think George W. Bush’s foreign policies, and swept the Democratic Party into a Congressional majority on the strength of one single issue, one overwhelming mandate.
A mandate they have since, in my view, grievously insulted the people who gave them the Congressional power they now hold by ignoring.
Keith Olbermann described that mandate more clearly than anyone else, I think, in his May 23, 2007 “Special Comment” MSNBC broadcast:
The entire government has failed us on Iraq:
Few men or women elected in our history-whether executive or legislative, state or national-have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:
Get us out of Iraq.
Yet after six months of preparation and execution-half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this:
- The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president-if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish, in our history-who happily blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as hostages to his asinine demand, that the Democrats “give the troops their money”;
- The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans;
- The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the only caveat being, not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
- The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.
Now, a little more than three months later, nothing has changed and it appears that there is no movement by the Democratic controlled Congress toward ending the financing of “the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans”.
In some comments beginning here replying to a post by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft yesterday, Glenn Greenwald made it clear that he now feels there is no possibility of the Democratic leadership ending the occupation of Iraq in the near future, if ever.
I’m not advising Democrats to give up on Iraq. I think they ought to force the President to withdraw.
But I’m not going to lie to my readers to make them feel better. Everything I’ve seen from Democrats makes me conclude that nothing that anyone does will ever make them stand up to the President with sufficient unity and in sufficient numbers to force him to stop the war.
That’s just reality. They can’t even restore habeas corpus or defy the President’s demand for vast new warrantless surveillance powers. The idea that they are going one day soon wake up and Stop the War is fanciful, no matter how much you wish it were otherwise (and, contrary to your weird praise of Atrios, he has made that point more emphatically and more continuously than anyone I know).
I’m not writing prescriptively, but descriptively. I’m not recommending that Democrats not try to stop the war. I’m not recommending that anyone stop trying. I’m just giving my honest assessment that they are not going to do it.
I earnestly hope that Glenn is wrong on this, but I believe he is not, and I agree with him.
I also have come to believe that the Democratic Leadership has no motivation to end the Iraq occupation. I think that they believe they will retain and perhaps increase their control of Congress next year, and that Democratic presidential frontrunner candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton believe that they can count on winning the presidency without ending the Iraq occupation, almost if not fully on the strength of one message – that they are not Republicans.
I think they are counting on the fear of another four if not eight years of Republican government to provide the votes for them, without having to live up to their implied promises and the expectations of them that three quarters of voters hold. I think that they are not afraid they will pay any political price whatsoever in 2008 for not living up to those implied promises and the expectations.
But I think they are not simply afraid of nothing.
I think that they, like the Republicans, are afraid of one thing.
They are afraid that the US economy cannot and will not continue to dominate the world economy, and will collapse, unless the US is able to dominate the energy resources of the world, and that cannot be done if the US withdraws from Iraq.
The invasion and the occupation of Iraq was not done to deliver ‘freedom and democracy’ to Iraq. It was done in the hope of ensuring US economic dominance.
Larry Everest writing at ZNet shortly before the last Emergency Supplemental funding the occupation was passed in May (the first one passed by a Democratic controlled Congress after years of supplementals passed by Republicans) described the problem much more succinctly that I am able to:
What the Bush Regime portrays as a noble effort to make the world safe from terrorism and bring democracy to the Middle East is actually a vicious war of empire to deepen the U.S. stranglehold on the Middle East and Central Asia –a war that is part of a broader effort to create an unchallenged and unchallengeable imperialist empire.
This goal is not viewed as capricious or incidental by those in charge–whether Democrats or Republicans–rather it flows from the deepest needs and drives of their system: U.S. hegemony in the Middle East and global dominance is crucial for U.S. capitalism’s ongoing functioning and U.S. global power.
…
So when Bush says, “Even if you thought it was a mistake to go into Iraq, it would be a far greater mistake to pull out now,” he’s expressing a fear — from an imperialist viewpoint – that a U.S. pullout would leave the empire weaker. And he is saying this in opposition to other forces in the U.S. ruling class who, also coming from an imperialist viewpoint, now think it’s a big mistake for the U.S. not to withdraw.This whole dynamic of riding the anti-war vote to power, then voting to fund an ongoing war while claiming to be ending it, reflect the conflicting necessities the Democrats face. As representatives of U.S. imperialism, they are committed to maintaining U.S. global dominance. Yet they fear the U.S. is sliding toward a strategic debacle of epic proportions and may already have lost the war in Iraq.
Glenn Greenwald yesterday was expressing his belief of the reality of the situation with “Everything I’ve seen from Democrats makes me conclude that nothing that anyone does will ever make them stand up to the President with sufficient unity and in sufficient numbers to force him to stop the war.”
I agree with Glenn. They will not end it. They have no reason or motivation to, if they can count on voter support in 2008 without ending it.
The evidence states that Democrats are basically on board with Bush.
This has been obvious for some time. Since the supplemental in the spring at least. The FISA Amendment should have been the clincher for anyone who doubted it.
They are not capitulating to Bush. They are complicit with Bush. They are confident that the electorate will capitulate to them next year out of fear of the republicans. They are playing people. This, in my view, is Democrats using the same fearmongering tactics the Republicans used so successfully for the past few years.
It’s very difficult to imagine a political reality developing under which current Democrats (again I refer to leadership and presidential frontrunners) will end the occupation of Iraq.
But it is not at all difficult to imagine how it can happen.
I believe that people would feel energized if they saw and heard enough people leading us in the right direction on Iraq, and that if leading Democrats heard enough people say to them that they will not vote for ANY Democrats next year EXCEPT Democrats who have been vocally, and by their votes on supplementals, calling for total withdrawal from Iraq they would quickly notice.
They are politicians after all, and they are concerned with winning elections.
They would notice if enough people turned the tables on them and used fear to motivate them, instead of voting simply out of fear of republicans.
If Democrats were filled with fear that they would lose Congress and the presidency UNLESS the occupation was ended before the 2008 elections, they would end the occupation of Iraq.
I hope that Glenn Greenwald will use the voice and the reach and the influence he has to encourage people to threaten the Democratic Leadership and presidential hopefuls with loss of support unless they do the job the voters who gave them the Congressional majority they now hold expect of them.
As Keith Olbermann also said in May:
Those who seek the Democratic nomination need to-for their own political futures and, with a thousand times more solemnity and importance, for the individual futures of our troops-denounce this betrayal, vote against it, and, if need be, unseat Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi if they continue down this path of guilty, fatal acquiescence to the tragically misguided will of a monomaniacal president.
tonva said:
I agree w. all you say. We are going to have troops in Iraq for the next 30 years or until the oil runs out. Troops from Anbar will have to go to Basra now bc there is alot of oil there that could fall under Iranian influence. And I agree that the Dems are complicit. Too bad they just can’t tell us so and then we can stop going door to door for them
Fishingriver said:
If Democrats don’t intend on ending the war, we should at least be responsible to end the charade. We got them elected in 2006 because they promised to end the war in Iraq. They need to be held to account for abandoning that promise. If they don’t intend to pursue ending the war any further, I feel responsible to let everyone I can know that they have now gone from failing to stop Bush to being a willing partner in keeping us in Iraq. As far as “handing the republicans the keys” is concerned, what would the difference be? Democrats voted to fund the war after saying they’d end it. They voted to make Bushs warrantless spying legal after promising to protect our rights. The only thing I can see that they have done that will make any difference is in raising the minimum wage, and it is so little spread out over such a long period of time that it will do as much in keeping wages low as it will in improving them. If the Democrats can’t muster the courage to end the war when they have a majority that could stop it dead in its tracks by cutting the funding, then how are they ever going to stand up to the insurance lobby to do anything serious about healthcare? As far as I am concerned, the war vote reveals more about what to expect from Democrats than all their campaign rehtoric combined. If they don’t end the war, I won’t vote Democrat. I won’t vote Republican regardless of what happens, but a third party candidate or write-in will replace them. Hillary and Obama have already conceded that they invision an ongoing military presence in Iraq. They both claim they will bring troops home, but neither will say how many or when. I don’t trust either of them or the democrats and it isn’t because I am untrusting. It is because of what I have seen. What Democrats do in September regarding the war will be the only testimony I will entertain for 2008.
Fishingriver said:
There are a few issues that are especially disturbing to me. One is the war. I have done everything I can to encourage Congress and the President to end this. I have worked to help elect Democrats, written letters, signed petitions, called my Congressman and Senator, registered voters, blogged, on and on. The Democrats got themselves elected to a majority because of the war, and have made plenty of promises that they would end it. If I voted for them now, after being lied to, I would be assuring that the republican agenda would go on unencumbered. I would be supporting a group of politicians who call themselves Democrats, but vote with the Republicans. You seem to think that it is wrong to use my vote as a protest. But it is the only leverage I have left to use. I am disgusted by Republicans who surely know that Bush is a liar, but mindlessly voted for him anyway. Witholding my vote is the only way I have to let Democrats know that they had better start voting for their consituents, or they won’t have them anymore. You on the other hand would reward them. The message your vote sends is that it is ok to lie to us, and that they need not worry about keeping their promises. The Iraq war is costing $3 billion dollars a week. If the Democrats don’t stop the war now, there isn’t going to be any money for universal health care, increased education funding, or the enviroment. In my estimation, you would be advancing the Republican agenda by voting for Democrats who have no intention of changing things.
Michael Bersin said:
I call Claire McCaskill’s office in Washington at every opportunity. 202-224-6154
tonva said:
I am not sure that Iran is that unfriendly. Yes they have a little mouthpiece w/o too much power in the person of Ahmadinezhad. He is their Bush and they don’t like him either. Ahmadinezhad really hasn’t too much power outside of the domestic arena. The mullahs retain the power and they hedge their bets with great care. I don’t think they are going to respond to Bush’s catcalling tatics. Bush will have to make the first move, create the crisis, and he is itching to do that. He is the one to watch. But Iran is pushing for increased influence in Iraq which, if achieved, would give them (or at least the Shiite majority) control over Iraqi oil. Light sweet crude, easily extracted from sandy terrain for about $1.00 a barrel. Quite a prize and the reason we are in Iraq.
But I thought that was obvious to almost everyone, especially to politicians. This is so not a war. It is so obviously an occupation, and will continue until the very resistant Iraqis give up control of their oil as Bush demands. It is the primary “benchmark”. My question to sitting Democrats would be to ask if they were aware that the ‘benchmarks’ that they sign off on is to wrest control of Iraqi oil from overwhelmingly resistant Iraqis and if they don’t know , then why not? My second question to them would be why they have removed (and I know Pelosi did it) the contingency in the Iraq spending bill, that Bush should not attack Iran. If the sitting Dems don’t know about that, well then, you know…
I am not trying at attack anyone’s candidate. I just want a saner world. But if Dems can’t work for me, I can’t work for them.