The Command T.O.C.

The Democratic Party Should Be Ashamed

The Democratic Party has officially capitulated to the war mongering fascist right wing of this great Country. With the vote they funded the cruelest war in history and gave up on any timetable for Bush. They betrayed us and we will show them the door at the polls for someone, anyone, with a backbone to stand up to the Fuhrer George Bush.

As a result of this, people are just starting to walk away. As indicated this morning by Cindy Sheehan's writings, (see her DailyKOS Diary here) the symbol of the anti-war movement is "going home" feeling betrayed. I did not agree with a lot of her sensationalism but she was the symbol of a great nation who really did care about the death and despair this corporate war has wrought on the American culture. Now, she is gone. Abandoned by the party she helped sweep into office. This is also a symbol of America.

America allows this war to continue because, quite frankly, no one cares. It is good for business, it is good for the economy and it keeps us from having to do the hard work of diplomacy. As long as there is a sub culture of people who are willing to love to fight wars and volunteer to do it,then America will indulge them.

They will go off and fight in far away lands while the fat cat friends of Bush and Cheney get incredibly rich off of it.

And that is how it goes. Pelosi, you have a year to redeem yourself. Right now, I see NOTHING from you and your party that tells me you are doing anything for us. The symbolism of a minimum wage hike is a naked event; it does not matter to anyone. While you take off to talk global warming, the biggest event has already occurred. Your party and you capitulated. You gave up. You surrendered.

Cross Posted at my DailyKOS diary.

Congress Must Assert Itself: A Call for An End To Funding Iraq

A reposting of my current diary at the DailyKOS:

So, given that it appears President Bush will ignore the will of the people and conduct an ESCALATION of the war in Iraq, the question is posed: What do we do about it? But, before I answer this question, I must submit, for the record, my predispositions about this topic. They are:

1. The military solution is unattainable in Iraq. There is no vision of what "winning" means and in order to maintain a chance to stay engaged in the region in a meaningful way, the military hurts our effort, not helps. This is because we are now seen as occupiers and not liberators.

2. Our military is officially "broken" and it is broken on two fronts: First, it is broken because of a long protracted war with no reconstitution efforts. Therefore, in an equipment and manpower sense it is broke.

However, it is also broken in a leadership and strategy sense. They have shown (mostly the Army) that they are completely incapable and incompetent when it comes to fighting a deep rooted insurgency. This should be no surprise since it was exactly the same story in Vietnam.

3. The consensus of the people of the United States is: Get Out:

Given those 3 major view points, the only thing for us to do is to insist that Congress assert itself and begin managing the purse strings. Of course, this is a good thing anyway since it will start the process of crumbling the imperial Presidency which has developed over the last 8 years and will rightfully restore the balance of powers that the Founding Fathers envisioned.

Not to lose the irony of the situation of Gerald Ford dying, it was exactly during his tenure that this had to be done before. Nixon, at his height, was the poster child of an imperial presidency and it was Ford and the ensuing Congress that took it away. But, like muscles that atrophy, over time Congressional laziness kicked in and they gave the power back to the current mad man in the White House.

The way they assert themselves is by executing on the will of the people by using the purse strings. Only allocate money to Iraq for SPECIFIC PURPOSES and all of those must deal with redeployment. As much as this may hurt the military more in the short run, it is the right thing to do in the long run. Here are some examples where money should be EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN to be spent:

1. Construction of US bases. All money for construction, improvement, internet, cafe's, Popeye's etc. should be cut out. No more construction. Stop it now.

2. Deployments except for forces needed to support a retrograde operation to Kuwait and ultimately out of the region.

3. Major munitions. Bombs, Tomahawk cruise missles etc. Money can be spent to reconstitute but not to fire.

4. Increased deployed troop strength. Money can be spent on reconstituting the Army but not on increased troops. They will have money for sustaining 150,000 soldiers for 9 months and that is it. Put more in theater and the Army will have to pull money from someother place to feed them; Congress will not.

Finally, Congress must create a scale of funding that keeps everything except for the 4 items above fully funded for the next 9 months. Then, after that, the Pentagon loses 10% of its war funding per month for the next 10 months until it is gone.

Some may say this is abandoning the troops in the field and makes them a pawn in a political match. To those people I say that may be true. However, it is President Bush who made them a pawn to start with. He put them in a suicidal situation then used their presence there as his shield against any and all who believed that Bush's policy was wrong. That is unfortunate but true.

There are all sorts of political games the Republicans will play with this. They will spin that the Democrats "abandoned" the troops in the field etc. To all of this, I say to the Dems, reach down and grab a set! Stand up to them! Spin it back! DO THE RIGHT THING!