Harry Reid: New Democratic Leader in Senate Unlikely to Oppose Bush

[ElsewheresDaughter]

Introducing a new commentary from FPIF's The Project Against the Present Danger

Reading Harry Reid: New Democratic Leader in Senate Unlikely to Oppose Bush
Administration's Foreign Policy Agenda
By Stephen Zunes

The overwhelming selection of Nevada Senator Harry Reid as minority leader of Congress' upper house shows that the Democrats are still willing to give their backing for the Bush administration's reckless militarism and contravention of international legal norms.

Despite evidence that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, WMD programs or offensive delivery systems, Reid voted in October 2002 to authorize a U.S. invasion of Iraq because of what he claimed was "the threat posed by Saddam Hussein." The Reid-backed resolution falsely accused Iraq of "continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability . . . actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, thereby continuing to threaten the national security interests of the United States."

When Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the
International Relations committee, tried to alter the wording of the
resolution so as not to give President Bush the blank check he was seeking and to put some limitations on his war-making authority, Reid as assistant minority leader of the Senate helped circumvent Biden's efforts by signing on to the White House's version. As the Democratic "whip," Reid then persuaded a majority of Democratic Senators to vote down a resolution offered by Democratic Senator Carl Levin that would authorize force only if the UN Security Council voted to give the U.S. that authority and to instead support the White House resolution giving Bush the right to invade even without such legal authorization. (By contrast, a sizable majority of
Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against the Republican resolution.)

Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He is Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project http://www.fpif.org and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003) available online at: http://www.irc-online.org/content/books/zunes.tinderbox.php

See new Present Danger commentary online at:
http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2004/0411reid.html


Bush Administration Disasters Depicted as Triumphs
By Stephen Zunes (October 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/papers/0410gopiraq.html

The U.S. Invasion of Iraq: The Military Side of Globalization?
By Stephen Zunes (October 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/papers/0410milglob.html

Presidential Election Offers Little Choice for Israeli-Arab Peace
By Stephen Zunes (October 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/papers/0410uselect.html

House Republicans and Democrats Unite in Linking Iraq with 9/11
By Stephen Zunes (October 11, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0410republicrats.html

The Influence of the Christian Right on U.S. Middle East Policy
By Stephen Zunes (June 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/papers/0406christian.html

[Eric J in MN]

1. Why not Barbara Boxer, for example?

Why did they choose a conservative to replace Tom Daschle?

Things just go from bad to worse.

[gulfcoastliberal]

2. This is fucking it. The straw the broke the camels back

I'm changing my voter registration ASAP. "I" sounds good for now.

FUCK YOU REID & FUCK ALL THE DINOS!!!!!!

This is fucking outrageous.

[DELUSIONAL]

5. That was my response also

If Harry fucking dino Reid is a democrat -- then the party has moved away from me and I am now an Independent. He is just another Zell Miller.

[gulfcoastliberal]

3. PS - Post this in GD:politics, please. Thanks. NT

[Cha]

4. Just what we need.. another tom

daschle. Not fair! WHY CAN'T WE GET A FIGHTER?!!

[shance]

6. Everything, EVERYTHING comes back to Electronic Voting

And scrapping those fucking voting machines.

The only way to get these assholes out of office is sue these companies that own our vote and put them out of business.

[gordianot]

7. Some how I am not suprised.

Not many suprises left.

[KG]

8. the dem party marches further down the path toward irrelevancy.

.

[Kat45]

9. Isn't Reid also antichoice?

WTF were the Democrats thinking? If there's ever a time the party needs a strong leader, it is now.

[GRLMGC]

10. Why? WHY?

Not being obstructionists still gets them called obstructionists. Goddamn it, they might as well REALLY be obstructionists!