the nation
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives maintained its track record of providing absolutely no checks and balances on the Bush administration's warmaking this week, when it voted 351-67 to authorize another $66 billion in "emergency" spending for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
While the House will hold a symbolic "debate" on the Iraq imbroglio Thursday, that endeavor has been so constrained by the House Republican leadership that it will be of no more consequence than the discourse in a mock legislative exercise for high school students – although, in fairness to the students, a mock Congress would undoubtedly take the Constitutional imperative of shared responsibility for warmaking more seriously than does the actual Congress.
What was truly frustrating about the House vote on the emergency funding was the general failure of the Democrats – who have again delayed announcement of their agenda for this year's election campaign – to mount a coherent opposition to a war that an overwhelming majority of Americans characterize as a mistake.
Of the 351 votes to continue no-strings-attached funding of the Bush administration's wars, 204 came from Republicans while 146 came from Democrats. Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders cast the final vote in favor of the "emergency" funding package, which also included $28.5 billion for Hurricane Katrina assistance, border security and farm subsidies.
Democrats who voted in favor of the spending included Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rahm Emanuel, D-Illinois. Fresh from a primary campaign in which she made anti-war sounds in order to fend off a challenge from the left, California Democrat Jane Harman returned to her pro-war voting pattern. And Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin, who is locked in a tight Democratic primary contest for his state's open Senate seat with anti-war candidate Kweisi Mfume, also voted to hand the Bush administration another blank check.
Voting against giving the administration everything it asked for and more were 48 Democrats and 19 Republicans. The Democrats included most of the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including co-chairs Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey, both of California. The Republican votes came from two camps: war foes such as Texan Ron Paul, Tennessee's John Duncan and North Carolina's Walter Jones Jr., and budget "hawks" such as Arizona's Jeff Flake and Wisconsin's James Sensenbrenner, who opposed what they saw as pork-barrel spending in the disaster-relief expenditure.
A few of the Republican fiscal conservatives were courageous enough to complain about the blank-check character of the war funding. "I support our troops, I support the war on terror, but I do not believe we should finance the war through emergency supplemental appropriations," Texan Jeb Hensarling said when explaining his "no" vote. "That approach evades whatever spending discipline we have."
More pointed were the remarks of anti-war Democrat Dennis Kucinich, of Ohio, who began his remarks on the House floor by declaring, "Mass death on the installment plan. That's what this supplemental vote to keep our troops in Iraq is all about."
Kucinich, who recently one a landslide Democratic primary victory against an aggressive and well-funded challenger, argued that, "The Administration went into Iraq without an exit strategy not because they are incompetent, but because they have no intention of leaving.
"We are spending hundreds of millions building permanent bases in Iraq. The Administration recently announced deployment of no less than 50,000 troops in Iraq far into the future. We are looking at the permanent occupation of Iraq.
"And so the long cadence of lies has led to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Haditha, soon to be replaced by more lies and more tragedies. "What can you say when you are watching your nation descend, sleep walking, into something like the lower circles of hell in Dante's Inferno?
"You can say stop it! You can say enough blood is enough blood!
"You can stop it! Bring our troops home!
"You can say no to any more funds for this war! And then we can begin a period of truth and reconciliation about 9/11 and Iraq. Begin the healing of the soul of America."
While the bases will be permanent, the period of truth and reconciliation has been indefinitely delayed.
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