AlterNet: Democratically Controlled Congress Stands on the Brink of Irrelevance on Iraq

[marmar]

Democratically Controlled Congress Stands on the Brink of Irrelevance on Iraq

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted September 6, 2007.


The majority party is preparing to roll over, again, on Iraq.



Next week, Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, and General David Petraeus, the army's counter-insurgency guru, will brief Congress on the Bush administration's claims of progress in Iraq. At stake is not only the upper hand in the political debate over the continuing occupation, but an enormous amount of money -- $147 billion -- that was supposedly conditioned on tangible measures of progress, specifically 18 "benchmarks" attached to the 2007 supplemental spending bill.

According to a report by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), only three of those benchmarks have been met, and those were among the minor ones (The White House has promised to "water down" the GAO's findings). In addition to rampant insecurity throughout much of the country, Iraq's political situation is, objectively, a disaster, and most Iraqis agree that U.S. troops cause more violence than they prevent.

But despite the reality on the ground, the administration last week threw a Hail-Mary pass, announcing that it would ask for another $50 billion for war-fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan through next Spring. That's in addition to $147 billion already requested for the two countries.

There's no reason to believe the administration won't get it -- consider how many times congressional Democrats have uttered some variant of "It's time we stopped giving Bush a blank check for Iraq" as they signed a series of blank checks for Iraq. Bush has proved that he can continue moving the goalposts again and again without being called on it by the media, and Congress has shown that it will let him, even eight months after the Democratic take-over of Capitol Hill.

It has become a game. The reality is that there is no $50 billion supplemental, and there won't be for several weeks (if at all this year). The stories about the new funding request are White House "plants," announced on the eve of the much-anticipated Iraq progress report in order to show confidence in the face of waning public support for the occupation and, more importantly, to divert the national conversation from the failure of the troop escalation -- a failure that should lead to a debate about how to exit Iraq with the minimum of damage -- to a new debate about whether higher troop levels should remain until next spring. You don't have to look too hard to see the goalposts moving. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/61506/

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. "On the brink"?

They jumped off that cliff some months ago.

[tom_paine]

2. Agreed. Our Imperial Congress, those German Social Democrats of 1930

(actually, even WORSE than that, as the German Social Democrats were the only ones to vote against the Bushies of Germany when they began to outlaw all the other parties - hey, do you think our Dems would oppose that if BUSHLER wanted to do that TODAY? - I wonder...)

is a useless appendage.

[OHdem10]

3. The Dems have become expert at snatching defeat

rom the jaws of victory. They know how and succeed
in keeping our party a loser.

Sometimes I wonder if they simply do not want the
responsibilty of governing????