April 11, 2007
"And still we wear our uniforms, follow
The cracked cry of the bugles, comb and rush
Our pride and prejudice, doctor the sallow
Initial ardor, which keeps it fresh.
Still we applaud the President’s voice and face.
Still we remark on patriotism, sing,
Salute the flag, thrill heavily, rejoice
For death of men who too saluted, sang.
But inward grows a soberness, an awe.
A fear, a deepening hollow through the cold.
For even if we come out standing up
How shall we smile, congratulate; and how
Settle in chairs? Listen, listen. The step
Of iron feet again. And again - wild." --Gwendolyn Brooks (1971)
Bush wants Democrats to come to the White House so he can bare his ass to them in person. In a weak attempt to give the appearance he's ready to listen to Congress, Bush has signaled his willingness to meet with Democrats at the White House about his insistence they fund his occupation; not for negotiations, but to further dictate to them his reasons for escalating his Iraq folly far beyond the will of Congress and the American people.
Having spurned the results of the last congressional election which replaced his legislative majority in both houses with Democrats pledged to end his occupation, Bush is trying to shrug off the will of Congress, expressed in their withdrawal legislation, that he bring our soldiers home from Iraq. Promising to veto legislation which hasn't even been reconciled in conference over provisions mandating a gradual withdrawal, Bush is stamping his foot like a spoiled child who wants to keep playing instead of cleaning up like he's been told.
In a joint
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=ind_focus.story&STORY=/www/story/04-10-2007/0004562977&EDATE=TUE+Apr+10+2007,+05:23+PM">statement, Democratic leaders Pelosi and Reid complained that Bush is demanding they "renew his blank check for a war without end."
"Congressional Democrats are willing to meet with the President at any time," the leaders' statement read, "but we believe that any discussion of an issue as critical as Iraq must be accomplished by conducting serious negotiations without any preconditions," they said.
Senate Majority Leader Reid went further; describing Bush's continuation of his occupation as a continuation of a slaughter:
The president is inviting us down to the White House with preconditions," Reid said. "Things are not OK in Iraq. As the Pope said on Easter Sunday, a slaughter is taking place in Iraq. The Pope further said nothing good is coming from Iraq. The president must realize that. He has to deal with Congress. We are an independent branch of this government, and by our Constitution we have equal say that he has. And he's got to listen to us. Because we are speaking for the American people; he isn't."
There isn't a more direct way for Bush, outside of our elections, to measure the will of the American people than though listening to the representatives and senators they just sent to Congress. Polling has demonstrated a consistent rejection of Bush's strategy and course in Iraq by Americans. All throughout the congressional campaigns last year, and as recently as this week, polls have shown a plurality of Americans who don't believe in Bush's escalation and who want our troops out of Iraq by 2008 or earlier.
Yet, Bush and his generals have decided that they know better than the majority of us, and are intent on moving forward with their escalated occupation, with or without money appropriated from Congress. Yesterday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the Pentagon will send Congress a notice of their intention to transfer $1.6 billion from other parts of the defense budget to cover whatever funding for troops they want to continue to limp our soldiers along. Together with the 1.7 billion dollars already transferred in March, Bush hopes to string out the debate over funding as far as he can while he packs even more of our troops into the middle of the chaos and killing in Iraq.
Whatever Bush intended for the money transferred in March, it certainly isn't reaching the soldiers in Iraq that he claims to be so concerned about. The majority of those called up for repeated deployments from the Reserves and National Guard have run into severe shortages of equipment, and are preparing to ship many of their recruits to Iraq without proper training.
One of our nation's governors provided Bush with yet another measure of the will and support in the country the 'decider' presumes he represents. Ohio's Gov. Ted Strickland told Bush in a
letter Tuesday that the repeated, stepped-up deployments meant the government was "not keeping faith with the men and women who had volunteered to serve." He called the moved-up timeframe for deployments a "breach of faith" by the president.
"The brave men and women who serve in the Ohio National Guard are putting their lives on the line," the governor's letter read. "I am asking for your assurance that prior to deployment, every Ohio soldier has the most up-to-date equipment, including individual body armor systems, M-4 rifles and other weapons systems, night vision devices, and up-armored type wheeled vehicles. I am also asking for your assurance that every Ohio soldier has appropriate training," he wrote.
There is, perhaps, no more important representation of the will of our citizens, outside of our elections and the actions of our national legislature, than the concerns expressed through our nation's governors. Outside of their increasing concern that their states are one disaster away from suffering from the loss of so many of their Reserve and National Guard troops to Iraq, the nation's governors are now forced to question the strategy of sending so many of their state's soldiers into a battlezone unprepared, along with their continuing concern about leaving their states vulnerable to the after-effects of a natural disaster.
The question these governors and others who express concern about our troops' readiness should be asking is why Bush is insisting on escalating deployments for his Iraq occupation beyond the will of Congress to fund them? It's one thing for Bush to ignore the colloquial expressions of the will of Americans in the last election; it's another to swagger beyond the legislative will of the representatives and senators they sent to Washington to hold him accountable.
As Congress rejects Bush's budget request for Iraq and replaces it with funding tied to a withdrawal, it is the White House's responsibility to explain how they intend to continue if they reject it. Bush has certainly decided who he thinks he should be confronting behind the sacrifices of our nation's defenders, but it is clearly Congress' role (not his) to declare war, and, by extension, to decide who our forces should be leveraged against.
There is no mandate left from the original Iraq War Resolution which Bush assumed gave him unlimited power in Iraq. There are no WMD's in Iraq, and Saddam has been deposed and killed. That mis-direction from Congress is now moot. There are no provisions in that document for nation-building or the 'spreading of democracy' that Bush has unilaterally chosen as the new mission for our forces.
It's a dishonest argument to make, as Bush has tried this week, that his re-election in 2004 was a mandate to continue his militarism in Iraq indefinitely. He has no more of a mandate from the American people to continue his bloody occupation, than does the new Iraqi regime from elections held years ago under an increased U.S. military occupation.
Bush, Tuesday, explained why he's decided to escalate his occupation in Iraq instead of bring it to an end as voters demanded:
"I made the decisions after -- to reinforce," Bush explained. "But I didn't do it in a vacuum. I called in our military commanders and experts, and I listened to a lot of opinions -- and there's a lot of opinions in Washington, D.C., in case you hadn't noticed," he said.
But, Bush made clear which voices he valued the most as he 'decided' to continue his occupation beyond the expressed will of a majority of Americans.
"The opinions that matter a lot to me are what our military folks think," Bush said. "After all, this is a military operation, and as the Commander-in-Chief, you must listen to your military and trust their judgment on military matters. And that's what I did."
Bush also listened to al-Qaeda, who he says convinced him that Iraq was the "center" of an "ideological war."
"It's important that we listen to the enemy," Bush declared yesterday in a speech at before the American Legion. He warned that the "al-Qaeda in Iraq" (which his occupation was given credit by his intelligence agencies for fueling and increasing), "wants to turn that country into a terrorist base from which to launch an ideological war in the Middle East and attacks on the United States of America."
If Bush and his generals were listening to the American people, they'd find them more concerned about the original terror suspects who've enjoyed five years of 'safe haven' from the U.S. pursuit in Afghanistan -- taunting the U.S. and encouraging others who would do our nation and our interests harm by the mere example of their freedom from prosecution since Bush turned his back on the "hunt" and diverted the bulk of our nation's defenses to Iraq -- than they are about splinter groups who Bush, himself yesterday, described as a "minorities" in Iraq.
If Bush and his generals were listening to the American people, instead of al-Qaeda, they wouldn't have been so quick to escalate the troops in Iraq ahead of the inevitable congressional action in opposition. They wouldn't be demanding another "blank-check" from Congress and rejecting all entreaties from legislators to pull back from their disastrous mission. If they were listening to the American people, the administration wouldn't be stealing from our defense resources allocated to address basic needs in support of the troops already in harm's way and those here at home in reserve positions, just to feed his unsupported fiasco.
General John Abizaid, the former leader of the US Central Command had reportedly resisted the introduction of new troops, but his exit made way for Gen. Petraeus' new command; on board with the growing consensus in the Bush regime to push forward to "win" the occupation. The list of generals willing to lead Bush's suicide mission in Iraq, however, is dwindling along with the evaporation of support from the majority everywhere else in America.
It was reported today that there doesn't seem to be any ready takers for a new White House position which would have them "overseeing" the U.S. occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq. The job was offered to at least three retired four-star generals. All of them turned it down.
It looks like there will soon be another measure of support for Bush's militarism falling away as his unilateral position on Iraq continues to disintegrate in the face of public opposition. Bush's generals may not be as sanguine in the face of the cannibalism of their military institutions to continue his Iraq folly, no matter how much he insists. Bush says he's "listening" to them. We can only hope that he's having more of a conversation with them than he's seemingly willing to tolerate from our nation's representatives, senators, and governors.
Bush is immured against the timbre of the slaughter he's helping orchestrate in Iraq by the toady prater of his handpicked cabal. He's enamored with his own voice; and that of al-Qaeda. He won't hear anything out of tune with his determination to push forward in Iraq behind the sacrifices of our military. He has drowned out the sound of our dissent by animating his war machinery. Bush is angling to become the sole tailor of the Iraq straitjacket he intends America to wear into eternity . . .
"Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!—pause—one word!—whither flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless toilings? Speak weaver!—stay thy hand!—but one single word with thee! Nay—the shuttle flies—the figures float forth from the loom; the freshet-rushing carpet forever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it." --Melvillehttp://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree
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