Sen. Levin's False History & Logic By Robert Parry

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Sen. Levin's False History & Logic By Robert Parry

http://consortiumnews.com/2007/062107.html

consortiumnews.com

Sen. Levin's False History & Logic

By Robert Parry
June 21, 2007

If you’re wondering why the Iraq War is likely to continue indefinitely despite mounting public outrage and a failed military strategy, part of the answer can be found in two words: Carl Levin.
Levin, a low-key Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, has wedded himself to a line of thinking that is both historically wrong and logically unsound. Yet, his faulty reasoning, if maintained, virtually guarantees that George W. Bush will keep winning every war-funding round with Congress through the end of his presidency.

On June 21, Levin spelled out his thinking in a Washington Post op-ed entitled “Lincoln’s Example for Iraq.” Levin asserted that he is modeling his Iraq War position on Abraham Lincoln’s stance on the Mexican War, launched by President James Polk in 1846 after a declaration of war by Congress.
“In his only term in Congress, Abraham Lincoln was an ardent opponent of the Mexican War,” including voting for an amendment that called the conflict “unnecessary and unconstitutionally begun by the President,” Levin wrote...Yet, Levin noted, “when the question of funding for the troops fighting that war came, Lincoln voted their supplies without hesitation.” Levin likens Lincoln’s anti-war position to his own, since the Michigan senator opposed President Bush’s war resolution in 2002 but has vowed to continue voting money for the troops as long as they remain in the field.

But what Levin doesn’t tell you is that the Lincoln example is by no means an historical parallel to Levin’s position on the Iraq War. For one, Lincoln wasn’t even in Congress when the war with Mexico was declared on May 13, 1846. Lincoln took his seat in the House of Representatives on Dec. 6, 1847. By then, the war with Mexico was already won. The decisive battle of Chapultepec was fought almost three months earlier, on Sept. 12, 1847, and American forces entered Mexico City on Sept. 14. Though there was a delay in negotiating a final peace treaty due to the political chaos in the Mexican leadership, the war was effectively over. So, Lincoln’s readiness to supply the troops was not a vote for continuing an indefinite war with Mexico; it was simply to send supplies while a final peace treaty was negotiated.

Clueless Senator

Besides Levin’s bogus history lesson, the five-term senator also seems to misunderstand how Congress works. Having ruled out a termination of war funding, Levin suggests that the only viable course for ending the Iraq War is to convince enough Republicans to join Democrats in setting a date for withdrawing and repositioning U.S. forces...But Levin’s logic is wrong again. While his proposal – to impose a troop withdrawal deadline – would require 60 votes to stop a Republican filibuster and then would need 67 votes to overcome Bush’s certain veto, the same is not true for a war-funding cut-off. To secure the money to continue fighting the war, Bush is the one who needs majorities in both the House and the Senate. Indeed, arguably, he would need 60 votes in the Senate to end a filibuster if anti-war senators mounted one. In other words, if the Democrats were to hold firm against giving Bush another blank check – as their leaders vowed to do in early 2007 – Bush would have to decide between accepting some strings, such as a withdrawal timetable, or getting no money at all, thus forcing an end to the war...Indeed, Levin appears to have unfurled what looks like a perpetual white flag of surrender. In his Post op-ed, he declared that the only option he sees is to wait until enough Republicans abandon Bush and join in overriding the President’s veto of another timetable bill.