Guest Voice: Troop Surge Resolution
NOTE: The Moderate Voice from time to time runs Guest Voice columns from people who don’t have their own weblog or who want to discuss something here. Guest Voices do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Moderate Voice. This is by Nicholas Rivera who has the libertarian blog The Coming Realignment.
By Nicholas Rivera
The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday 246 to 182 to pass a non-binding resolution that opposes President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops troops to Iraq. Seventeen Republicans, headed by Congressman Chuck Jones of North Carolina joined the Democrats in supporting the resolution while two Democrats opposed the resolution.
The seventeen Republicans who supported the resolution:
Mike Castle – Delaware
Howard Coble – North Carolina
Tom Davis – Virginia
John Duncan – Tennessee
Phil English – Pennsylvania
Wayne Gilchrest – Maryland
Bob Inglis – South Carolina
Timothy Johnson – Illinois
Walter Jones – North Carolina
Ric Keller – Florida
Mark Kirk – Illinois
Steven LaTourette – Ohio
Ron Paul – Texas
Thomas Petri – Wisconsin
Jim Ramstad – Minnesota
Fred Upton – Michigan
James Walsh – New York
The two Democrats who opposed the resolution:
Jim Marshall – Georgia
Gene Taylor – Mississippi
While I’m glad that this resolution passed, I’m disappointed that the Democratic leadership seems to be investing all of its time and energy on a non-binding resolution instead of offering concrete steps to actually end this ill-conceived war. Already, Republicans have maneuvered Majority Leader Steny Hoyer into declaring that the Democrats would not cut off funding for the troops.
One has to wonder, if the Democrats aren’t willing to wield their Constitutionally-granted “power of the purse” to cut off funding for the war, just how do they propose that we end this four-year-long (and counting) misadventure in Iraq? A supplemental appropriations bill to fund the war through 2007 is coming down the pike in about a month. Can we count on the Democrats, who rode a wave of anti-war sentiment to take back the House for the first time in twelve years, to vote against this supplimental appropriations bill? Or are they simply going to let this war drag on for another year or two, gambling that the voters will again take their frustration out on the Republicans as they did during the 2006 midterm elections?
The continued funding of the war is an issue that Congressman Ron Paul (who was among the seventeen Republicans who voted in favor of the resolution) addressed in a speech that he delivered before the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday:
This resolution, unfortunately, does not address the disaster in Iraq. Instead, it seeks to appear opposed to the war while at the same time offering no change of the status quo in Iraq. As such, it is not actually a vote against a troop surge. A real vote against a troop surge is a vote against the coming supplemental appropriation that finances it. I hope all of my colleagues who vote against the surge today will vote against the budgetary surge when it really counts: when we vote on the supplemental.
He then went on to harshly criticized the war as well as the tactics being employed by his colleagues on both sides of the political aisle:
The biggest red herring in this debate is the constant innuendo that those who don’t support expanding the war are somehow opposing the troops. It’s nothing more than a canard to claim that those of us who struggled to prevent the bloodshed and now want it stopped are somehow less patriotic and less concerned about the welfare of our military personnel.Osama bin Laden has expressed sadistic pleasure with our invasion of Iraq and was surprised that we served his interests above and beyond his dreams on how we responded after the 9/11 attacks. His pleasure comes from our policy of folly getting ourselves bogged down in the middle of a religious civil war, 7,000 miles from home that is financially bleeding us to death. Total costs now are reasonably estimated to exceed $2 trillion. His recruitment of Islamic extremists has been greatly enhanced by our occupation of Iraq.
Unfortunately, we continue to concentrate on the obvious mismanagement of a war promoted by false information and ignore debating the real issue which is: Why are we determined to follow a foreign policy of empire building and pre-emption which is unbecoming of a constitutional republic?
Those on the right should recall that the traditional conservative position of non-intervention was their position for most of the 20th Century-and they benefited politically from the wars carelessly entered into by the political left. Seven years ago the Right benefited politically by condemning the illegal intervention in Kosovo and Somalia. At the time conservatives were outraged over the failed policy of nation building.
It’s important to recall that the left, in 2003, offered little opposition to the pre-emptive war in Iraq, and many are now not willing to stop it by de-funding it or work to prevent an attack on Iran.
The catch-all phrase, “War on Terrorism�, in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against criminal gangsterism. It’s deliberately vague and non definable to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere, and under any circumstances. Don’t forget: the Iraqis and Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with any terrorist attack against us including that on 9/11.
–Nicholas Rivera
ANOTHER VIEW comes from Captain Ed Morrissey who writes, in part:
This was an unprecedented move by Congress to interfere in the command of American troops during wartime. Congress has threatened to cut off funding before to end conflicts and deployments, but no one can find an example of Congress scolding the President over a specific strategy while the military implements it. It declares a military operation in its opening stages a defeat before it has a chance to succeed, a mind-boggling statement, and one entirely performed for partisan purposes.Seventeen Republicans voted for the resolution. A new joint project, the Victory Caucus, lists the GOP Representatives who voted to declare a defeat before the Army and Marine Corps have entered the field in full…….
Why are we listing these members? The Victory Caucus wants to ensure that we find suitable primary opponents for them in 2008. If you live in their districts, we need your help to find people who either support the mission or do something tangible to end it, and not to sit on the sidelines and try to run a war by complaints.
Read his entire post..
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11 Responses to “Guest Voice: Troop Surge Resolution”
“It declares a military operation in its opening stages a defeat before it has a chance to succeed”
No chance to succeed? The surge is already under way. And the first benchmarks of the timeline the Bush administrations provided have already been missed. Check the quotes Froomkin sampled. The house is totally right in showing the president that they won’t support any unlimited fumbling in Iraq any longer. If the new strategy won’t result in clear successes, the support for the surge really will be cut off. This isn’t hurting the soldiers, quite to the contrary. They will have to be redeployed to the US when the funding is cut off, and nobody can deny they will be much safer there.
This warning sign from the House shows that the time for congreesional oversight has arrived. It’s time for accountability, and for delivering on the promises. Sending more troops to death without any clear cut plan for victory won’t be tolerated any more. And if Bush doesn’t live up to his obligations, the House will make the necessary decisions for him.
This is one of those rare times when Congress has acted in exactly the way I find most reasonable. The war was started in a rush. It should not be ended in a rush, but with serious deliberation.
The first step is to say ‘no’ to an escalation, providing the important opportunity for debate along the way.
I’m not aware of any way that the surge can be defunded by itself, how each dollar in the war chest can be tracked so exactly.
Defunding is for when we really want to call it quits, totally.
This pressure on the President, if it works properly, should encourage him to start preparing for the next step. He should get serious about a regional strategy. Approval for the surge was obtained from Sunni governemnts only, appearting to be more of an anti Shiite move than a plan to end the strife. He can not ignore Iran forever, not if he is serious about improving the situation in Iraq.
“I’m not aware of any way that the surge can be defunded by itself, how each dollar in the war chest can be tracked so exactly.”
Well, domajot, simply cutting back the budget to its pre Iraq war level would do the trick, imho.
“Defunding is for when we really want to call it quits, totally.”
Indeed. Its the ultimate ‘stop loss ‘ measure. I think it can’t be finetuned to support troops in secluded bases, but not in the centers. It really is a Yes or No decision. But imho it isn’t off the table. Look at Hoyer’s statement, check the actual wording: “No one ought to come to this floor and say that this Congress, 435 of us, will not support whatever soldier or sailor or Marine is deployed to Iraq…Whether it’s today or tomorrow, they will have our support.”
He’s speaking about the troops, but not about the operation. Imho this doesn’t leave out the possibility to support the troops by redeploying them to their home bases. This is an important difference.
I think the Resolution is an appropriate first step that aims to establish a context for a negotiation while allowing the President to save face by starting to accommodate the concerns. To have started out by demanding specific changes in policy and execution would have unnecessarily closed down communication between the congress and president. I have been negotiating deals for 30 years in Real Estate, Business and with Vendors and this is how I would start: by letting my opposition know that there is an issue that is important to me. Often they would take the initiative to meet me in the middle.
Good point, Paul! Yup, apart from a certain P.R. effect, this is a warning sign intended to force Bush to engage Congress, and stop sidelining congressional oversight. However, judging from Bush’s lousy record as a “uniter”, I doubt this alone will be good enough to do the trick…
You have to learn to crawl before you can walk. This may be a baby step, but its an important baby step. For four years there was little discussion in Congress of the war’s poor planning and implementation, which has led us to this untenable point- where there’s no solution that does not have catastrophic consequences.
This vote allowed our representatives to go on record with their views, and the reasoning that supports those views. Did we even hear a discussion like that under one-party rule? Misplaced party loyalty shielded the administration from having to face legitimate criticism of policies that were disasterous for the US and our alliances.
It is shameful and immoral that the president and his party now need to use the morale of our troops and the prospect of an emboldened al queda to try to shut down the debate. Our troops are fighting for the very thing that finally occurred yesterday- dissent within a legislative body in a democracy.
If the Democrats were to defund the surge, they would be immediately blamed for the loss in Iraq, as they were blamed for the loss in Vietnam. I am not surprised that they want to take it slowly and try to build a bipartisan consensus. I am surprised that the GOP, under the guise of wanting to “finish the mission” can ignore the cost of the war, the woeful state of our military, our inability to respond effectively in other trouble spots due to our commitment in Iraq, and the facts on the ground, which seem to indicate that the surge is too little too late. If it had a good chance of working, I feel quite certain that luminaries such as Colin Powell, Gen Casey, Gen Abizaid and the JCS would have given it their full support as military men and patriotic Americans.
Clarification: The seventeen Republican Rebels were led by WALTER JONES not CHUCK JONES, as I mistakenly wrote in my post. I apologize to Chuck Jones fans everywhere for any consternation this mistake might have caused them.
Cap’n Ed said
Why are we listing these members? The Victory Caucus wants to ensure that we find suitable primary opponents for them in 2008. If you live in their districts, we need your help to find people who either support the mission or do something tangible to end it, and not to sit on the sidelines and try to run a war by complaints.
Isn’t it just possible that these representatives are trying to end it, and see this as just the first step? It would be rash and cause unwonted chaos to summarily defund the surge or the war, and it would lead to righteous claims that these politicians did not support the troops in wartime. Hopefully, we have learned from errors made in the ’70′s when abruptly cutting off monies for Vietnam led to massive genocide of our South Vietnamese allies, and to the “killing fields” in Cambodia. The situation over in Iraq is a moral minefield, why rush a radical solution?
Also, these Congressmen may be actually considering the wishes of their constituency, as 70%of Americans think the war is going badly. They may believe that this is the duty mandated to them by our Constitution, and not feel bound by the strictures of a party that demands adherence to a failed CIC, conducting a failed mission.
Morrissey isn’t kidding about Victory Caucus turning its sights on the seventeen Republicans who joined the Democrats in passing yesterday’s resolution. Victory Caucus’s response to the “Defeatist Resolution” can be found here.
Apparently, Morrissey is on Victory Caucus’s Board of Governors, as is Hugh Hewitt and Frank Gaffney–yes, the same Frank Gaffney who wrote a column for the Washington Times in which he used a fabricated quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln and argued that certain types of dissent during a time of war is treasonous (The Washington Times has since removed his column).
Frankly, I think Victory Caucus’s decision to campaign against these seventeen Republicans is one of the best things that could happen for the anti-war movement. Many supporters of the war–in congress, in the media, and throughout the blogosphere–have continously tried to make the war into a Democrat versus Republican, liberal versus conservative issue.
War supporters have been quick to criticize Democrats and liberals for opposing the war without acknowledging that some of the war’s leading critics are Republicans, Libertarians, and conservatives. But if the Victory Caucus is successful, anti-war Republicans such as Ron Paul and Walter Jones (who aren’t exactly household names) could soon be as famous in the minds of voters as Senator Chuck Hagel.
The American people have had enough of the rhetoric accusing war opponents of “not supporting our troops”, characterizing withdrawal as “cut and run” and arguing that criticism of the war “emboldens the enemy.” Given that 60% of Americans oppose this war, accusing the seventeen Republicans who voted against the troop surge as being part of the “Bipartisan Defeatist Committee” (as Victory Caucus has done) is likely to further alienate more moderate voters as well as anti-war conservatives.
Captain Ed and his Victory Causcus are offbase on this one, I wonder how may soldier’s funerals he has attended, like Chuck Jones
. The Loyalty Oath BS that is VC is a slap in the face to Teddy Roosevelt. I used to read CQ, but with CE being on the advisory board of VC, i’ll vaction at China Beach before I back to his site.
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