Friday, March 23, 2007
Congress Take a First Step
So the House finally voted to set a deadline to end the occupation of Iraq by the summer of 2008.
Of course not everybody is happy about it and I don't blame them. It is very far from perfect. It continues to fund the occupation for the next two years which was enough for some anti-war Congressmen and most anti-war groups to oppose the bill all together.
Code Pink for example was upset that MoveOn.org lent its support to Pelosi's bill instead of backing an amendment by Reps. Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey, leaders of the Out of Iraq Caucus, that called for withdrawal of all troops by the end of 2007. In today's Salon a Code Pink leader is quoted as saying:
“They could have put out an alert to 3.2 million people across the country and said, ‘If you do anything tomorrow, get up and call your representatives and tell them to support the Lee Amendment,’” insists CodePink’s Gail Murphy. “They’ve got millions of dollars. If they put their money toward stopping this war, we’d have a lot more leadership in the Democratic Congress toward stopping this war.” But MoveOn didn’t stump for the Lee plan, and it died in committee."
Doubt it. MoveOn.org helped win over the hard-core anti-war Congressmen for Pelosi's plan. The problem was winning over the "Blue Dogs" for any kind of anti-war motion and they would probably be unimpressed by a MoveOn.org email alert.
I understand the frustration, but Pelosi barely got through today's bill. Anything coming from the Out of Iraq caucus would have shattered Democratic unity and died on the floor if not in Committee. Now with today's bill Bush will be forced to veto a deadline for withdrawal and force a public debate about bringing our military involvement in Iraq to an end sooner than latter, not to mention showing the Republicans that the Democrats can show the same kind of unity that made the Republicans so powerful when they were the majority. I'm not saying the anti-war movement should base its activity on Congressional maneuvering, but it should avoid reacting too harshly to Congressional Democrats who backed this bill. The movement is faced with the challenge of deciding between a resolution closer to our ideal which would certainly fail versus a compromised resolution that could win and puts Congress a little closer to ending the occupation. It's a step.
Of course not everybody is happy about it and I don't blame them. It is very far from perfect. It continues to fund the occupation for the next two years which was enough for some anti-war Congressmen and most anti-war groups to oppose the bill all together.
Code Pink for example was upset that MoveOn.org lent its support to Pelosi's bill instead of backing an amendment by Reps. Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey, leaders of the Out of Iraq Caucus, that called for withdrawal of all troops by the end of 2007. In today's Salon a Code Pink leader is quoted as saying:
“They could have put out an alert to 3.2 million people across the country and said, ‘If you do anything tomorrow, get up and call your representatives and tell them to support the Lee Amendment,’” insists CodePink’s Gail Murphy. “They’ve got millions of dollars. If they put their money toward stopping this war, we’d have a lot more leadership in the Democratic Congress toward stopping this war.” But MoveOn didn’t stump for the Lee plan, and it died in committee."
Doubt it. MoveOn.org helped win over the hard-core anti-war Congressmen for Pelosi's plan. The problem was winning over the "Blue Dogs" for any kind of anti-war motion and they would probably be unimpressed by a MoveOn.org email alert.
I understand the frustration, but Pelosi barely got through today's bill. Anything coming from the Out of Iraq caucus would have shattered Democratic unity and died on the floor if not in Committee. Now with today's bill Bush will be forced to veto a deadline for withdrawal and force a public debate about bringing our military involvement in Iraq to an end sooner than latter, not to mention showing the Republicans that the Democrats can show the same kind of unity that made the Republicans so powerful when they were the majority. I'm not saying the anti-war movement should base its activity on Congressional maneuvering, but it should avoid reacting too harshly to Congressional Democrats who backed this bill. The movement is faced with the challenge of deciding between a resolution closer to our ideal which would certainly fail versus a compromised resolution that could win and puts Congress a little closer to ending the occupation. It's a step.
Labels: anti-war movement
# posted by Gang of One @ 4:52 PM 
