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davidswanson (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Thu Oct-08-09 09:00 PM Original message |
Rep. Obey Joins Us Idiot Liberals |
Congressman David Obey (D., Wis.) is the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. He's in charge of spending our money. And until this week, he has always maintained that spending hundreds of billions of our dollars on wars was something he just had no choice about. Two years ago, 183,000 people watched this Youtube video, which was also shown on tv news shows, of Obey screaming at a military mother and denouncing "idiot liberals" for suggesting that Congress use the power of the purse to end wars. Liberals debated other liberals on the question of whether we really were idiots. Now Obey has taken a step in the direction of joining us.
On Tuesday, the leaders of the two parties went to the president and told him that he could continue or escalate wars, or not, that the matter was entirely (albeit unconstitutionally) up to him. But Obey has released a statement suggesting otherwise. After all these years of professed helplessness, Obey is now speaking as if he recognizes the power of Congress to fund or defund wars. Obey expressed his view on how to proceed in Afghanistan: "We need to more narrowly focus our efforts and have a much more achievable and targeted policy in that region, or we run the risk of repeating the mistakes we made in Vietnam and the Russians made in Afghanistan. There are some fundamental questions that I would ask of those who are suggesting that we follow a long term counterinsurgency strategy." And then Obey begins his first question with the key phrase: "As an Appropriator…." "As an Appropriator I must ask, what will that policy cost and how will we pay for it? We are now in the middle of a fundamental debate over reforming our healthcare system. The President has indicated that it must cost less than $900 billion over ten years and be fully paid for. The Congressional Budget Office has had four committees twisting themselves into knots in order to fit healthcare reform into that limit. CBO is earnestly measuring the cost of each competing healthcare plan. Shouldn't it be asked to do the same thing with respect to Afghanistan? If we add 40,000 troops and recognize the need for a sustained 10 year or longer commitment, as the architects of this plan tell us we do, the military costs alone would be over $800 billion. And unlike the demands that are being made of the healthcare alternatives that they be deficit neutral, we've heard no such demand with respect to Afghanistan. I would ask how much will this entire effort cost, when you add in civilian costs and costs in Pakistan? And how would that impact the budget?" Obey is not just finally offering the same commonsense opinion that the rest of us have been promoting for several years. He's indicating that "as an Appropriator" (his capitalization) he may just possibly be willing to withhold funding. Twenty-two of his colleagues introduced a bill last Thursday (H.R. 3699) that would block any funding of an escalation in Afghanistan. But they need to find 196 more votes. Obey, as chair of the committee through which funding bills must pass, need only find his own backbone. In June, 30 Democrats and a handful of Republicans were willing to vote against war funding in a "supplemental" bill. This Thursday, the House passed a "defense" bill, which included $128 billion explicitly for wars, and while 131 Republicans and 15 Democrats voted no, at most a handful of no votes were cast in opposition to the war funding. Obey, of course, voted yes. But more money will be needed, and will be needed sooner if there is to be an escalation. And no funding has yet been appropriated for an escalation. The American public is opposed, and the Constitution requires that Congress make this decision. We just may see David Obey join the side of the public and our Constitution this time around. Throughout the 110th Congress (2007-2008) a myth was spread very successfully by the Congress and the media that Congress could only end the occupation of Iraq (or Afghanistan) by passing a bill. This would have required the support of 67 senators to override a veto, and 60 senators just to invoke cloture and break a Republican filibuster. But this was a stalling tactic. It simply was not true that Congress had to pass a bill at all. In order to end the legal funding of the occupation, Congress simply had to stop passing bills to fund it. The Democrats had a large majority in the House and a narrow one in the Senate. But if your goal is stopping a bill, rather than passing one, you only have to succeed in one house or the other. It is possible for a majority of members of the House to force a bill to the floor over the wishes of the Speaker. To do this, 218 Congress members would have had to take the highly unusual step of signing a discharge petition. Even if a lot of Republicans had done that, it is highly unlikely that many Democrats would have opposed their party leadership and the will of the public to force a funding bill to the floor for a very unpopular war. Pelosi persuaded a lot of Democrats to vote for the war and could have used the same techniques to persuade a smaller number not to oppose her effort to end it, had she wanted to end it. And she still could. Any proposal to fund the war in the Senate that might have been brought by Republicans or pro-war Democrats could have been blocked by 41 senators, and the Democrats had 51, now 59, soon 60. While not all bills can be filibustered (appropriations bills can be, budget reconciliation bills cannot), you can hardly claim you need 60 votes to get past a filibuster without admitting that with only forty-one you could launch your own filibuster, and that with fifty-one you could defeat any bill at all. In addition, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid alone could have refused to bring a bill to the floor, and any other senator could have put a secret hold on a bill, and still could. What’s more, the Democrats could have brought to the floor of both houses, as many times as necessary, bills to fund only a withdrawal of troops and nothing else. Of course, this would have been comical, given that the cost of withdrawing all troops and equipment from Iraq (or Afghanistan) is pocket change to our bloated Pentagon. But it would have headed off the nonsensical attacks in the media that would have claimed that defunding a war was somehow an attack on the men and women sent to risk their lives in it. And this strategy would have made efforts to pass war funding over the heads of the leadership even less likely to gain traction. Not only did millions of Americans, organized by United for Peace and Justice, Progressive Democrats of America, and many other groups, including those in the After Downing Street Coalition, lobby Congress to fund only withdrawal, but Congresswoman Barbara Lee introduced a bill and attempted to introduce an amendment to accomplish just that. At one point, ninety-one members of Congress signed onto a letter from the Progressive Caucus committing them to voting only to fund withdrawal. (Most of them went back on their word). And, of course, Congressman Dennis Kucinich -- a lone voice for peace in the wilderness -- constantly hammered home the point that Congress simply had to refrain from bringing up a bill at all. Congress has acted successfully in this manner before. The Vietnam War was de-funded by Congress (albeit after most troops were home). In 1970, Congress banned the use of funds to put US troops in Cambodia or to advise the Cambodian military. Then in 1973 Congress set a date to cut off funds for combat activities in all of Southeast Asia. Congress had cut off the funding for the Contras in Nicaragua, and Reagan had secretly and illegally sold weapons to Iran and given the money to the Contras, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal during which Democrats carefully avoided impeachment in order to "focus on the elections" that they proceeded to lose, thus handing us the Bush dynasty. In 1994 Congress set a date to cut off funding for military operations in Somalia. In 1998 Congress set a date to cut off funding for military operations in Bosnia. In January 2007, as the 110th Congress was just beginning, Senator Russ Feingold sought to remind his colleagues of all of this, chairing a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "Exercising Congress's constitutional Power to End a War." Feingold said, "The Constitution gives Congress the explicit power 'to declare War,' 'to raise and support Armies,' 'to provide and maintain a Navy,' and 'to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.' In addition, under Article I, 'No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.' These are direct quotes from the Constitution of the United States. Yet to hear some in the Administration talk, it is as if these provisions were written in invisible ink. They were not. These powers are a clear and direct statement from the founders of our republic that Congress has authority to declare, to define, and ultimately, to end a war. Our founders wisely kept the power to fund a war separate from the power to conduct a war. In their brilliant design of our system of government, Congress got the power of the purse, and the President got the power of the sword. As James Madison wrote, 'Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded.'" The rest of the Senate and most of the House were not listening. I don't mean they disagreed. I mean they literally were not paying any attention. In October 2007, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was interviewed on the Ed Schultz radio program. Schultz asked Reid why he didn't just stop funding the war, and I got the impression that Reid had never seriously considered the idea: SCHULTZ: But Senator, don't you have the power to say you're not going to get the money even without 60 votes? How'd that work out for ya, Harry? Schultz is a former Republican who still has trouble fathoming the cowardice of Democrats. But, so do we all. The complete obliviousness of the Senate Majority Leader and most other members of the Senate and House to the message that hundreds of thousands of activists were constantly e-mailing, phone calling, faxing, lobbying, and interrupting public events with was extremely frustrating. Even those who had begun pushing for an end to the war gave up hope. When asked in a public meeting to lead a filibuster of the next funding bill, Senator Feingold refused to attempt it. Feingold, and the rest of us, were done in by a piece of childish nonsense repeated endlessly and unanimously by the univocal US corporate media: ending the funding would conflict with "supporting the troops." When we frame the debate over war money with the idea that funding war amounts to "supporting troops," the debate gets constrained: should we fund the war, or fund the war more and faster? If, on the other hand, a debate over funding a war were framed by the idea that what you're funding is not troops, but a war, then one possible position in the debate would favor cutting off the funds. While you can cut off funds for war or Halliburton or Blackwater, you can never cut off funds for troops. I don't mean that you physically can't. I mean that politically it is impossible that any politician is going to support something understood to mean "cutting off funds for troops." But if we understood that the troops are going to have better living conditions and a higher chance of living, period, if we bring them home, and if we could talk about cutting off funds for profiteers, then cutting off the funds would become politically possible. Then Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified as follows before the Senate Judiciary Committee: "Be careful about criticizing the Department." Gonzales suggested that criticizing him amounted to "attacking the career professionals --in the Justice Department--." Senator Dick Durbin responded to this by blurting out a bit of seldom-spoken truth: "That’s like saying anyone who disagrees with the president's policy on the war is attacking the soldiers." Yet Durbin and his colleagues were in the press every single day defensively promoting the idea that refusing to fund war amounts to not supporting soldiers. The troops would have been amazed and bewildered to learn that they might be receiving funding and that bringing them home would constitute an attack on them. The majority of those serving in Iraq had told pollsters in 2006 that they wanted the war ended that year. I tried to call the bluffs of all the "support the troopsers". Each time they passed another "supplemental" it amounted to approximately $1 million per troop in Iraq. I proposed actually giving the troops that money. If the money was for the troops, then give the troops the damn money, I said, a million dollars each. Put it right in their hands. The troops that wanted to give part or all of their share to the contractors and mercenaries and profiteers could do that. Those who wanted to fund a continued occupation could do that. Some would probably share a little with Iraqis. And those who chose to could buy a plane ticket home. After all, General David Petraeus had bragged to Congress about how the United States was selling commercial airplanes to Iraq. Somebody needed to use them. Alas, Congress ignored my proposal, as well as all serious proposals and bills that involved cutting off the flow of funds. In fact, if Congressman Obey was at all typical, Congress members considered any proposals to stop funding the war to be ideas suited only to "idiot liberals." Obey was a top Democrat in charge of drafting the bills to fund the wars. Tina Richards was the mother of an Iraq War veteran about to be deployed to Iraq for the third time. They spoke in the hallway of a Congressional office building, and the encounter was captured on video: RICHARDS: Hi, I'm Tina Richards. I had left a poem that my son had written --with one of your staffers--. I was wondering if he ever got it to you? He's a United States Marine, he's done two tours in Iraq. He's going to be deployed for a third tour. How'd that work out for ya, David? The occupation of Iraq is as strong now as then and no serious withdrawal is underway. At this point, Pete Perry, a peace activist who was with Richards, joined the conversation: PERRY: What about the Church amendment that helped end the Vietnam war back in ‘72, ‘73? The corporate media was playing along with the notion that the Democrats were opposing a war by funding it. It's not surprising that Obey would not appreciate being confronted with the grotesqueness of this. Imagine if Obey or Pelosi had decided to mortgage their house, empty their bank accounts, max out their credit cards, and give all that money to Halliburton with a little gift card expressing their sincere opposition to everything Halliburton did. They would have looked no more foolish than they did, and I'd have preferred that scenario because they'd have been leaving the rest of us out of it. In the spring of 2008 Democrats.com commissioned a poll from a corporate polling company asking questions that none of the other pollsters were asking. It found that a majority of Americans wanted Congress to cut off the funding and demand that the president end the war within six months. That was a majority of the rightful sovereigns of this country, and they had heard more about Iraq than any other topic in the news over the preceding six years. If Obey wouldn't trust us on this one, what would he ever trust us on? Perhaps on Afghanistan. Here is Obey's statement from Thursday, and it begins by framing defunding war as supporting troops: We owe it to our troops to bring hardnosed realism to whatever we ask them to do This is stunning progress for Congressman Obey. He is moving ever so slowly, as the bodies continue to pile up, in the direction of the only real leader in Congress, Dennis Kucinich, who released this statement the same day: Why I voted No on the National Defense Appropriations Bill David Swanson is the author of the new book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by Seven Stories Press, from which part of this article is excerpted and modified. You can order the book and find out when the tour will be in your town at http://davidswanson.org/book |
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BrklynLiberal (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Thu Oct-08-09 09:07 PM Response to Original message |
1. Too bad it takes the loss of so many lives for some people to see the light... |
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Altoid_Cyclist (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Fri Oct-09-09 01:34 PM Response to Reply #1 |
9. This is directed towards politicians in general. |
I don't enjoy saying this, but I really get the feeling that a lot of our elected officials only see us and the troops as people with lives and feelings when they are up for re-election.
The rest of the time, we're just numbers or statistics on a piece of paper that can be crumpled up and tossed or on a screen that can be shut off at will. |
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madrchsod (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Thu Oct-08-09 09:09 PM Response to Original message |
2. the monetary cost of war.... |
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3110829
are we seeing the beginning of the end? |
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waiting for hope (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Thu Oct-08-09 09:42 PM Response to Original message |
3. Keep it up David - You are fighting the good fight |
here. K&R.
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Enrique (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Thu Oct-08-09 10:15 PM Response to Original message |
4. Obey made much stronger statements during the Bush administration |
you say that Obey is now somehow suggesting he might not fund the war? I'm not seeing that.
He did say this to Bush: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2007/10/approps_chair_obey_says_hell_block_funding_for_war_without_withdrawal_date.php “I would be more than willing to report out a supplemental meeting the President’s request if that request were made in support of a change in policy that would do three things. -- "Establish as a goal the end of U.S. involvement in combat operations by January of 2009." -- "Ensure that troops would have adequate time at home between deployments as outlined in the Murtha and Webb amendments." -- "Demonstrate a determination to engage in an intensive, broad scale diplomatic offensive involving other countries in the region." “But this policy does not do that. It simply borrows almost $200 billion to give to the Departments of State, Defense, Energy, and Justice with no change in sight. “As Chairman of the Appropriations Committee I have absolutely no intention of reporting out of Committee anytime in this session of Congress any such request that simply serves to continue the status quo." Saying that to Bush is one thing, saying that to Obama is another. I hope he does, but I would be surprised, and imo it is false to say that he is doing that now. |
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bertman (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Thu Oct-08-09 10:25 PM Response to Original message |
5. These guys get so caught up in the procedural hoo hah that they forget the simple way of |
doing things.
Either that or BOUGHT AND SOLD to the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Corporate Complex. |
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bvar22 (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Thu Oct-08-09 11:13 PM Response to Original message |
6. Standing with you. |
Well past time to pull the plug!
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Myrina (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Fri Oct-09-09 07:15 AM Response to Original message |
7. I normally agree with your op eds, but ... |
Edited on Fri Oct-09-09 07:16 AM by Myrina
... Rep Obey has long, long questioned the wisdom of bottomless-pit war funding. His overall record is actually probably one of the more liberal & worker friendly in the House.
While I didn't really understand his comments in the YouTube fiasco ( I suspect he was as frustrated as the protesters were, and possibly even moreso because they were making his job even more difficult), a rare slip is easy to forgive when you compare it against the rest of his incredible record. I stand by Dave Obey, grouchy old fart that he is. :patriot: |
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TommyPaine (300 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Fri Oct-09-09 12:31 PM Response to Original message |
8. So our Congresspersons actually understand their jobs, they just pretend not to... |
...which wouldn't be remotely acceptable in most professions, such as medicine or crime fighting. Yet the people we vote into office either don't fully get their roles, or they do but claim that they don't for various reasons. I'm tired of living in political Bizarro World.
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RDillon (14 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore | Fri Oct-09-09 05:35 PM Response to Original message |
10. Obey... |
Has long been a voice of reason. I must comment more before posting my own diaries here, but I wrote up Obey's comments on my blog:
http://www.hillbillyreport.org/diary/713/obey-questions-afghanistan-direction |
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