On top of that, the Democrats began to buy the war like Republicans had and as talk of a “surge” increased more and more anti-war Americans were seeing how cowardly the Democratic Party is as it could barely get a timetable passed for getting troops out in a year let alone three months, which was how long Kucinich’s 12-point Plan said it would take later this year.
As March came and the madness was burgeoning, the Democrats made plans for our troops that did not stop Bush’s surg e (which he had chosen as the solution to solving the problems in the Iraq Study Group report), did not stop the prospect of a war with Iran, and did not defund the war so troops could be brought home now as promised but instead, allowed for Bush to do just about whatever he pleased with the troops. The legislation allowed him to continue to “sacrifice” American lives for his capitalist gains.
By March 9th, the Democrats had totally caved to the Bush administration and were now linking pet projects to the Iraq war plan so that they could get something out of this mess (like votes when the next election rolled around) and spent the remainder of March linking more and more nonmilitary projects to this bill that would continue the war , which effectively meant that it would pass.
Ah, but the Democrats did pass a bill with a troops out now deadline. While it had just as much if not more loopholes and vague language than the tax code for Enron, it earned the Bush veto and was sent back to the Congress with a demand for a better and less anti-American plan. And when it came back what happened? It was defeated in the House and never had a chance in the Senate.
March came and went and so did the steadfastness Americans had seen in the first 100 days. The Democrats were pushed around by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who declared they were emboldening the “enemy and by Tony Snow who asked (nope, pleaded and whined) who would deny the soldiers reinforcements. They were pushed around by Bush and his administration, which they had claimed they would hold accountable. Cheney was willing to bet the Democrats would cave and cave they did.
The Democrats agreed to “the surge” under the conception that the situation in Iraq would be reassessed after the summer was over. In the meantime, leaders like Russ Feingold and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich denounced the cave as frustrated like Keith Olbermann found ways to express the political frustration being experienced. Talk of impeachment increased and was ignored despite the remarks of Republican Chuck Hagel and the introduction of articles of impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. The Democratic-controlled Congress having tied their hands by giving in to a criminal Bush administration successfully alienated its anti-war base which had elected so many Democrats in 2006 could do nothing for our soldiers in harm’s way and instead of wallowing in their filth alone they spent the summer hanging out with lobbyists like they had been doing since the beginning of the year.
By the time the Democrats returned and were met with a shot at redemption, they quickly reminded us that top candidate for president, Democrat Hillary Clinton, only promised to bring some of the troops home, another top candidate, Democrat Barack Obama would consider unilateral action, senators like Dick Durbin had prewar knowledge they failed to act on, and that Harry Reid had admitted the party had “set the bar too high” when it came to dealing with Iraq.
Nobody wanted to “play chicken with our troops,” as Obama said, which means defund the war and force our troops to be brought home by Bush or else face removal from power. No Democrat wanted to stick their neck out and be seen as not “supporting the troops” or going against the grain of conventional wisdom on the Middle East lies we had been fed involving Iran and Iraq at this point. Instead of doing what should have been done, when it came time to stand up when MoveOn came under attack for going after General Petraeus, the Democrats and Republicans did not take this as an opportunity for getting our troops out but instead wasted time debating and condemning the ad.
The year was spent by Democrats waffling to the nth degree. Harry Reid flipped and flopped more than a fish out of water. Nancy Pelosi, slave woman to AIPAC, could not be bothered with the sacrificing of our troops. Dianne Feinstein was forced to quit a committee for suspicious ties. It was discovered that Democrats like Pelosi had known about torture for a long time and were complicit in allowing it. The Democrats could barely articulate a position on Iraq in the race for the presidency let alone figure it out in Congress among party members and there was no chance that they would fight to stop unfair laws being forced through by the Bush administration in Iraq's government and no chance that they would stand up and stop threatening an illegal war on Iran. (*A Lieberman-Kyl amendment proved that.)
Under the terms dictated to Americans in the 2006 election, the Democrats had one job to do this year: Stand up to the Bush administration and bring our troops home now (which reasonably would have meant in three months time get them back home with their families).
Instead of letting Bush dictate the terms for sacrifice, the situation in Iraq should have been handled like the “Black Hawk Down” incident was in Somalia. Democrats should have been pointing out like Republicans had when Clinton went into Somalia all the atrocious things happening especially to our troops because we were giving terrorism a field to practice its tactics on and because we were disregarding American lives. Democrats should have framed it in a way that would have made it clear that by not bringing the troops home when the war was defunded Bush and Republicans would not be supporting our troops. Framing it this way would have made every supporter of the war feel guilty as it became known the mission was over but Bush and his Project for the New American Century cult would not let Americans be brought home out of harm’s way. Moreover, he would allow the carnage to continue between our troops and so-called al-Qaeda which would further damage a country we claimed to be liberating four years ago.
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