As I was walking across Memorial Bridge a young man I know ran up to me.
He's a veteran of this war and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
After saying hello and a few words, he burst into tears. He said he had
just been spat on, and it had just hit him what that meant. The people
who spat on him were part of a relatively tiny group of pro-war
demonstrators. The young man I was talking to did not spit back at them.
He joined a group of other vets for peace and led the march to the
Pentagon nonviolently.
The leaders of the marches for peace care what the war supporters think of
them. The reverse is also true. The pro-war demonstrators were not
executives of weapons and oil companies cynically promoting their own
profits. Many of them were aging veterans of a previous war that had sent
them into the horrors of death and violence for previous power and profit
motives that they do not want to think about.
These people have identified themselves so closely with war and obedience
that they feel compelled to denounce and threaten and spit on other people
wearing the same uniform and waving the same flag. And they waive signs
that come from such a different world view from mine that the words on
them appear to me at first to be calls for peace. I saw a sign that said
"Congress, Stop the Treason!"
Of course, to me that looks like a call for Congress to retake the power
the Constitution gives it and put an end to the activities of Cheney and
Bush. If a double-agent had done to Valerie Plame Wilson what Bush,
Cheney, Rove, Libby, and gang did, many of those pro-war vets would be
screaming "Treason!" Their resistance is to questioning authority. If
Bush ends the war tomorrow, they will favor ending the war. But to their
minds Congress engages in treason when it makes any gestures in the
direction of opposing the war. Congress to them does not qualify as an
authority worthy of obedience. When we challenge the president's
authority, they believe we are endangering them and siding with their
enemies against them. But a majority of Americans understands that this
is not true. A majority of Americans are able - despite the force of
television - to draw on deep roots of democracy to understand that the way
our government works now is not the way it is supposed to be. A
governmental system in which every four years we choose a new king is not
the system created by the US Constitution.
Now, there are other Americans who believe for other reasons that it would
not be best to bring our troops home right away. Some believe that Iraq
will be worse off if US troops depart. I think there are several reasons
why this is wrong. First, it underestimates the utter hell that Iraq is
now. Polls suggest that Americans have no idea what Iraq is like.
Americans believe on average that about 10,000 Iraqis have been killed.
The only scientific study done, and done several months ago, put the
figure at 655,000 Iraqi deaths in excess of the high death rate under the
prewar sanctions. Americans tell pollsters that Iraqis support the
occupation and oppose the so-called insurgents, when the opposite is the
case. And my impression is that even the pollsters themselves in the US
are unaware of the millions of Iraqis who have fled their country since
its so-called liberation.
Second, the idea that Iraqis will be worse off if US troops come home now
assumes that there is a way they might be better off if the occupation
continues. We've been told that for four years now. But we've been given
no reason to believe that Iraqis will ever accept the occupation or a
government set up by the occupation. With each year of occupation, chaos
increases and the post-occupation outlook worsens.
But, third, when we set aside all of our sense of racial and religious
superiority, it is clear that only by ending the occupation can we give
Iraqis a chance - not a guarantee, but a chance - to find a decent future.
Fourth, most Americans are probably unaware that the new oil law that we
are imposing on Iraq, the one that Democratic Congressman Rahm Emanuel is
insisting be part of the Supplemental spending bill, effectively transfers
huge oil profits from the people of Iraq to foreign corporations.
Fifth, the longer we leave the occupation in the hands of the occupiers,
the more firmly we eliminate the rule of law in international affairs,
increasing the likelihood of future wars of aggression.
And finally, sixth, we have not just killed hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis. We have also killed hundreds of thousands of people around the
world who could have been saved with the same money spent on the war and
occupation. The minute we stop spending hundreds of billions on war, we
can start spending at least some of that money on improving the lives of
Iraqis, Americans, Africans, and others through non-military spending.
If you love this land of the free
BRING EM HOME
BRING EM HOME
Bring them back from overseas
BRING EM HOME
BRING EM HOME
But there is another group that does not want to end the occupation just
yet, a group that agrees with everything I've just said and includes
people I think of as generally on the right side of things. This group
believes that by far the most good can be done for the world in the long
run if in 2009 we have a Democratic President, Senate, and House, and that
the Democrats will do best in the 2008 elections if the war is still going
on. There's even a more radical view which holds that despite all the
damage Cheney and Bush have done and will have done by 2009, they have
given birth to a stronger progressive movement that will do so much good
in the long run that we'd have been worse off had Gore taken his rightful
place in the Oval Office. I think such arguments should be seriously
considered and rejected.
We do have a two party system. When things get worse, it can motivate
people to make things better. But electing Democrats is only as useful as
the specific Democrats. Joe Lieberman is not Lynn Woolsey. Even if we
cannot elect Dennis Kucinich, either John Edwards or Barack Obama will
make a better president and stand a better chance of winning and winning
by a margin that cannot be stolen, if the Democrats end the war now.
Inaction and cowardice and muddled middle of the roadism do not win
elections. But even if keeping the war going were good for elections, it
would be impossible for that to justify the hundreds of thousands of lives
sacrificed in the next two years.
If the Democrats won in 2006 because it was Bush and Cheney's war, and if
they win in 2008 in the same way, they'll want to continue the war until
2010. Hillary Clinton has already said she'll continue it.
If a new Democratic Administration begins the work in earnest in 2009 of
undoing the damage done by Cheney and Bush, that project will take many
years, if it can be done at all. In the past six years we have seen a
dangerous proliferation of nuclear weapons. We have seen people around
the world persuaded to hate the United States. We have seen global
warming advance closer to the point of no turning back. So, whether you
care about elections of other political issues or not, if you care about
peace and security, the conclusion has to be this:
It'll make the politicians sad I know
BRING EM HOME
BRING EM HOME
They want to tangle with their foe
BRING EM HOME
BRING EM HOME
Now, assuming we want to bring the troops home, what's the best way for
Congress to make that happen? Most Republicans and some Democrats are
firmly against it. Other Democrats claim they are for it but oppose using
the power of the purse to make it happen because that would somehow hurt
our troops. They're happy to stop funding the war once the war is over.
In the meantime, they insist that they must fund the war for how ever long
the president continues it, and they must do so for the sake of the
troops. As in the march on the Pentagon yesterday, the executives of the
oil companies are nowhere to be seen. AIPAC, whose agenda is at odds with
that of over three quarters of American Jews, is nowhere to be seen.
Instead we are told in grand Orwellian fashion that wars are fought on
behalf of the young and usually poor men and women who are sent to kill,
die, and be injured.
I recently read the words "You are not what you think you are, and I know
it." These words were written in a letter to US military commanders by a
US soldier. They were the concluding words of his suicide note.
Congress, too, should hear those words. You are not what you think you
are and we know it. Because we know that Congress has no responsibility
to fund this war and occupation at all. Congress can fund the only thing
that would protect our troops, a withdrawal. And that is what Lynn
Woolsey's bill does. And that is what Barbara Lee's amendment does.
The Supplemental spending bill proposed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
Congressman David "Idiot Liberals" Obey, and Congressman Jack Murtha does
something very different. First and foremost, it funds the war. It gives
Cheney and Bush roughly another $100 billion. And you can be quite sure
they will spend it as they choose, which may include attacking Iran. In
fact, a measure in the bill requiring Bush to get Congress's approval
before attacking Iran (an attack that would violate the US Constitution
and the UN charter) has been removed. And, as I mentioned, the bill also
requires Iraq to turn much of its oil profits over to foreign
corporations.
Beyond that, the bill does a number of things to nudge Bush in the
direction of limiting the war, but most of them are for show. That's why
I saw the pro-war crowd with anti-Murtha signs yesterday, but no anti-war
people with pro-Murtha signs. In this bill, Murtha pretends to ban
torture. Torture was always illegal. The framers of our Constitution
sought to leave such practices behind in England. The US is a party to
international treaties banning all torture. Nonetheless, the last
Congress, the Republican Congress, banned torture, and Bush used a signing
statement to announce his intention to ignore the ban. Now Murtha wants
credit for pretending to ban torture again. You cannot ban torture under
a dictator who has publicly announced that he will ignore your bans. You
can only end torture by ending the pretense that there is not a dictator
living in the Vice President's house. Murtha also intends to pretend to
limit how many days a soldier or marine can be kept in Iraq. The
Republican Congress did this in 2003, and Bush threw it out with a signing
statement.
Some previous presidents had used signing statements, but never to
announce their intention to disobey the law. And in many cases, including
the two I've just mentioned, we know that Bush has in fact disobeyed those
laws.
And don't imagine that Jack Murtha is unaware of this. He's a step ahead
of you. He's included in the bill a right for the president to waive the
restrictions. So, this time, no signing statement will be needed.
Instead we'll get a waiver. I'm sure that'll make the soldier on his or
her third tour of Iraq fell better when they're told that they're going to
stay a little longer this time. In polls last year our troops in Iraq
said they wanted to all come home last year. They weren't asked, but I'm
guessing they would have liked that better than a yellow ribbon on a car
bumper.
What else does the Pelosi bill do? Well, it requires Bush to report
periodically that progress is being made, and then at sometime next year,
depending on what Bush claims, it requires at least some troops to move to
Afghanistan. Congressman Obey says that's where the war should be. The
bill says nothing about bringing anyone home, and nothing about leaving no
permanent bases in Iraq. In fact, it includes so many loopholes - for
protecting bases, protecting other troops, training Iraqis - that most US
troops will be able to stay in Iraq forever.
That doesn't sound like much of an anti-war bill. It gets worse. The two
most disturbing things about the bill to my mind are the way it treats the
president and the way it throws in unrelated benefits in order to bribe
various congress members to support it. The bill asks Bush to report on
progress in Iraq. A reporter asked Pelosi if there was any mechanism for
determining whether Bush tells the truth. Pelosi replied that she was
sure he would.
There's that pretense again, that everything-is-normal
it-can't-happen-here pretense.
The bill also includes many measures that could easily be addressed in
other bills, many of them worthwhile and long overdue, including aid to
veterans, Katrina victims, farmers. The dishonesty involved in packaging a
war bill this way was made clear when Congressman Obey yelled at military
mother Tina Richards that she needed to support this bill or she would be
opposing health care for veterans. In the last Congress, Obey declined to
support a bill to provide health care to veterans.
Barbara Lee's amendment takes a different approach, one that does not
involve micromanaging the war or funding it. The amendment would restrict
spending to withdrawing troops. We have a list at afterdowningstreet.org
of which members are saying they will vote No on the supplemental unless
it has Lee's amendment. It's a short list, and we need your help to add
to it, confirm it, update it. Pelosi and gang are threatening progressive
Democrats with election challenges and everything else you can imagine to
get them to vote for more war. Most of them are folding under the
pressure. Lynn Woolsey has not folded. Your job is to make sure that the
same can be said of Jim Costa and Dennis Cardoza.
If Pelosi's bill passes and survives in a recognizable form following a
conference committee, Bush has promised to veto it. But there's a decent
chance he'll signing statement it instead. He wants the money, and he
knows Pelosi won't fight for the toothless restrictions in the bill if he
deletes them with a signing statement. To do so, she would have to call
him a criminal. Instead, she's already saying that if her bill does not
pass, she'll have to support one the Republicans like, one with no
limitations at all. But it is not true that she'll have to do that. She
can support a bill like Lynn Woolsey's and pressure conservative Democrats
to join the rest of her caucus. That has to be what we push for - and in
the Senate too.
We'll send no more brave young lives
BRING EM HOME
BRING EM HOME
For the gleam in someone's eye
BRING EM HOME
BRING EM HOME
But now comes the tough question: What if Congress funds a withdrawal,
cuts off the war, and Cheney and Bush refuse to end the war? According to
the Congressional Research Service, Bush took $2.5 billion from other
sources, illegally, and launched preliminary actions in and around Iraq
prior to Congressional authorization and full-scale invasion. Cheney's
lawyers have produced a position called the unitary executive, the idea
being that the president's powers are absolute. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice has said that Bush will ignore limitations on the war
considered micromanagement. What reason do we have to think Bush will end
the war if Congress cuts off the money? They cut off the money for
illegal spying, and he kept doing it. They cut off the money for building
permanent military bases in Iraq, and he keeps building them. Of course
with war we're talking about a lot more money. But we're still talking
about a fraction of the military budget, which is approaching a trillion
dollars a year. There's so much money sloshing around that, according to
Seymour Hersh, the Bush-Cheney gang has been giving some to al
Qaeda-connected groups in the Middle East. Again it may be appropriate to
say:
Congress, Stop the Treason!
So what can we do if Congress and the rest of us recognize that we are up
against a dictator? What if we come to see the proper contest not as one
between Democrats and Republicans for seizing the throne in 2008, but as
one between Congress and the White House? What power does Congress
actually have? What is the one thing that cannot be vetoed, signing
statemented, or ignored? What does the Constitution prescribe as the
remedy for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors?
Impeachment, Congressman Dennis Kucinich said on the floor of the House on
Thursday, now looks like the only way to block an attack on Iran.
Impeachment may also be the only way to give Congress the confidence to
try to end the war on Iraq prior to impeachment. Nixon backed off on his
war, and Congress pressed ahead to end it because of the looming threat of
impeachment.
Following Nixon's impeachment, by the way, the Democrats won big. When
they let Reagan off, they lost. When the Republicans held Truman
accountable they won. Lincoln challenged Polk's aggressive war and rose
in popularity and later became president. The Republicans impeached
Clinton against the will of the public and held onto power. The
electorally smart thing as well as the only morally decent thing to do now
is impeachment.
But electoral concerns are of far less significance than impeachment. And
punishing Bush and Cheney because we do not like them is of far less
significance than impeachment - in fact has no place in a progressive
agenda. If we just wanted to punish them, we might elect Hillary. She
hates them and will probably try to nail them for relatively petty crimes.
But would she hold them accountable for signing statements or leave open
the possibility of using them herself? Would she expose their spying on
political enemies or leave open her ability to do the same? Would she
seek to have them prosecuted for an illegal war, use of illegal weapons,
targeting civilians, detention without charge, torture, and murder? It
seems unlikely she would do that while continuing the same war.
Impeachment is not about revenge or partisanship. Impeachment is not a
way of spitting on the other side's team. Impeachment is a way to restore
Congress to power, place future presidents under the rule of law,
re-establish international law, and re-awaken our democracy.
All across this country, people have gotten active in a movement for
impeachment who were not active before. Many of them have also joined the
movement to end the war. They've passed resolutions for impeachment in
dozens of cities and at least 16 state Democratic parties, not to mention
the national Green party. And resolutions have been introduced in several
state legislatures. This activity has awakened some Americans to the idea
that participation in a democracy goes on primarily in between elections.
If you think impeachment is called for, as a majority of Americans do,
please go to
www.kucinich.us and tell Dennis Kucinich thank you for his
words but ask him for action. It has nothing to do with whether you want
him to be president. The question is whether you want to have presidents
or dictators. Please also go to
www.impeach07.org and see how you can get
involved.
At Easter, Cindy Sheehan and I are going to hold an impeachment hearing
outside Bush's house in Crawford, Texas. On April 28th, people everywhere
are going to say to Congress: Do we have to spell it out for you? And
they're going to form the word impeachment on the ground with their
bodies.
Dolores Huerta spoke at an impeachment rally at the US Capitol about 33
years ago. From the report I've seen, there were excellent speakers and a
good sized crowd, and several nude streakers.
Whatever works!
Actually, let me change that: use anything nonviolent that works. That
includes massive civil disobedience and strikes and boycotts. Go to
www.impeach07.org for all the details.
They want to test their grand theories
BRING EM HOME
BRING EM HOME
With the blood of you and me
BRING EM HOME
BRING EM HOME
