House Afghanistan Debate: What Rep. Kucinich Accomplished

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from truthout: http://www.truthout.org/house-afghanistan-debate-what-kucinich-accomplished57588


Thursday 11 March 2010

by Robert Naiman

Yesterday, at long last, there was a vigorous debate about the war in Afghanistan on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. The legislative vehicle was a resolution introduced by Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich calling for US troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of the year. But House critics of the war have long been agitating for a real debate.

This is the debate that should have been held - at least - last fall when the administration was considering sending more US troops to Afghanistan, or - at least - when the administration announced its plans to send more troops. If the House had held this debate while the administration was mulling its decision, the Congressional airing of arguments against military escalation and in favor of political and diplomatic solutions would have attracted a lot more attention, and could have affected the decision. No doubt, the possibility that a Congressional debate then might have affected the policy was a key motivation for some in the House leadership not to allow this debate to occur then.

But it is much better for the House to debate now than not to debate at all, or to fail to debate the policy until the question of money is on the floor, a point emphasized by Rep. Howard Berman, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who vigorously opposed the resolution but vigorously supported the debate. Pro-war views are hardly lacking venues for making their case, meeting in church basements, passing out flyers on the sidewalk. Pro-war views dominate the mainstream media. It's dissent against the war that has to fight to be heard. Yesterday, dissent was heard.

Of course, the House debate on Afghanistan didn't get the media play yesterday that the Eric Massa soap opera did, as Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-Rhode Island) passionately noted (ironically, arguably garnering more press attention for the Afghanistan debate with his jeremiad than any other intervention on the House floor.)

But compare the press coverage of the Afghanistan debate to almost any other day of press coverage on Afghanistan, and the thing that stands out is that there was any coverage of dissent at all. Kennedy was absolutely right to call attention to the media's choices in the exercise of their agenda-setting power, but it's always important to keep in mind that the causality also always runs the other way: the media take cues about "what is an issue" from politicians, and the increase in the reporting yesterday of dissent on the war was a reflection of that. There was some press coverage of Congressional dissent, in part because there was a newsworthy Congressional dissent event to report on . . .

read more: http://www.truthout.org/house-afghanistan-debate-what-kucinich-accomplished57588

[NJmaverick]

1. Wasting the time of Congress is not an accomplishment

Then again considering who we are talking about it's the closest thing he will ever come to an accomplishment.

[bigtree]

2. petty insults aren't arguments

[Mari333]

4. I see you are talking to 'ignore'

I often hear from 'ignored', and there are so many of them I dont know which is which, but it sure helps my blood pressure.

[bigtree]

5. I had a boatload of ignores during the campaign

. . . but the folks posting right now seem civil compared to the snarkiness and assholery that infected so many responses at the time. In fact, most of the zeal these days is coming from energized and angry progressives, as well as from aggressive defenders of our Democratic presidency. I can't say that I'm as adverse to all of that agitation as some of these arguing posters like to believe.

[MuseRider]

6. :-)

I rarely use it but now I have so many that when I read a DK thread, or many others actually, Ignored has a large presence. I don't care if they disagree but mostly it is just insults and jabs and I don't have the time for it. I certainly makes my reading more enjoyable.

[frylock]

7. i'm done with that idiot..

at least others are somewhat entertaining. this dumbshit is a waste of space. *click*

[Mari333]

3. he exposed them for what they are

and now we know.

god bless Dennis for doing that.