Ending A Failed Occupation

[babylonsister]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/05/29/ending_a_failed_occupation.php

Ending A Failed Occupation
Robert L. Borosage
May 29, 2007


snip//


The leadership decided they couldn’t take the risk or didn’t have the votes. They chose instead to pass a bill funding the war for another year, with only symbolic “benchmarks” requiring reporting on Iraqi government “progress.” The president will have his surge; the debate will be revisited in September.

Then, to add insult to this injury, the apparatchiki of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dispatched a fundraising email describing the war funding as an historic victory. Clearly the party operatives either have no clue about their core supporters, or utter disdain for them.

The lesson is plain. To bring this war to an end will require an independent and resolute movement willing and able to put pressure on politicians of both parties, and to hold them accountable for their actions – or inactions.

The catastrophe in Iraq will continue, with our troops caught in the middle of a civil war they cannot stop. The only question now is how long the folly will continue, how many more lives will be lost, how many more billions squandered, how much more harm to America’s security and standing in the world will be done.

The president isn’t about to change course. The Congress must bring the war to an end. Vulnerable Republicans must pay a price when they wring their hands, murmur words of opposition and vote to sustain the president’s course. Conservative Democrats, those who voted for it from the start and have been slow to understand the scope of the debacle, must be challenged, not sheltered.

The vote on the supplemental gives a good sense of where members stand—who is prepared to stand up and who is prepared to just go along. Over the summer, we should make certain that the latter understand that there is a price to pay to supporting the worst foreign policy debacle in American history.

[The Count]

1. Great title and perfectly good response. We need to be more individual in our

reaction. Rather than say "Democrats blew it" (like some candidates who sponsored IWR did) we need to say : GOPers and some democrats blew it - then work on them to get a different result. This thing cannot be abandoned now.

[Rydz777]

2. The fourth paragraph in the post - beginning "The catastrophe

in Iraq will continue..." is an excellent summary of the present reality. It is going to be no easier to get out in September 2007, or in September 2008, than it is now. So common sense says get OUT NOW. Just having observed Memorial Day, it is terribly painful to contemplate the additional lives that will be lost by continuing this folly.

[bemildred]

3. Yep, he nailed that one. nt

[pberq]

4. Exactly - the sooner the better