UPDATED! Giffords and Mitchell Vote to Continue Funding Iraq War Without Conditions, Again

Link: Final Vote Results for Roll Call 1186.

I can’t begin to express my disappointment with the comportment of these two Democrats. Their own political convenience continues to remain a higher priority than forcing Bush to bring our troops in Iraq home. I want to hold CD 5 and 8 as much as any other Democrat, but there is a price we shouldn’t be willing to pay — the life of even one solider lost needlessly in Iraq as Democrats dither and fail to maintain a unified caucus to confront the President on this issue.

With 141 Democrats voting against this amendment, and only 78 Democrats voting for it in concert with a nearly unanimous Republican caucus, this was objectively the Republicans’ amendment – and Gabby and Harry helped pass it. And the result is $70 billion more for the fiscal rat-hole we call Iraq with no strings and no conditions attached. This amendment would not have passed without the support of spineless centrists in the Democratic caucus who bucked their own party to protect their own electoral interests.

Heck of a job, Gabby and Harry.

UPDATE 12/21 @ 1900:

I received an email from Gabby’s office regarding her vote to squander another $70 billion with no progress toward an exit from Iraq. I imagine this is the letter that anyone who expresses consternation about her vote gets. I’ve added some bold and numbering to highlight the passages I would like to consider more closely.

"Dear
Mr. Bryan,

Thank
you for contacting me about the war in Iraq.

As
you know, Congress passed an omnibus appropriations bill on December 19th that provided more than $70
billion in additional funding for the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
I was deeply disappointed that the bill did not include the timetables for withdrawal of American forces
from Iraq
that I have supported throughout the year (1).

Since
the beginning of my term in Congress, I have consistently voted for measures that challenge the President’s
strategy or impose strict withdrawal timelines as a condition for providing war funding (2).  I believe that
this is the best way for Congress to make real progress in ending the war.  Unfortunately, both times
an appropriations bill that included mandates for redeploying our troops has passed the House, it has
failed to become law.  The first bill was vetoed by the President; the second was blocked by Republicans
in the Senate.

In
May, I joined over 220 of my colleagues in the House in voting to override President Bush’s veto.  Regrettably,
the House fell short by 68 votes.  Given the current membership of the House and Senate, it has been
difficult to muster the two-thirds majority necessary to achieve our goal: the responsible redeployment
of our remaining combat troops from Iraq.

Partisanship
and the President’s unreasonable intransigence frustrated Congress’ efforts to meet this goal shared
by the majority of Americans (3).  (I have attached a relevant article from the Los
Angeles Times for your review).  Faced with only one final option to support our troops, I did
just that by voting for the omnibus appropriations act (4).  I cast this vote in the firm belief that it
was the best decision for the welfare of our troops (5), but I remain committed to the goal of redeploying
U.S.
combat troops from Iraq.

Achieving
stability in Iraq
requires an aggressive political and diplomatic initiative-not a massive U.S.
military presence.  But failing to pass appropriations or prompting another veto would not have
changed President Bush’s strategy in Iraq (6).
It would only have prevented the military from replacing worn-out equipment (7).  Our troops are embroiled
in an untenable civil war between Iraqi factions, but they did not choose or design their mission (8).

I
will continue to vote in support of a responsible shift of troops from Iraq
to targeted regions around the world where there are serious threats to America.

Sincerely Yours,

Gabrielle Giffords
Member of Congress

(1) I don’t doubt that Gabby is deeply disappointed by the lack of any progress toward redeployment in this bill. She should express that disappointment the way that 141 of her Democratic colleagues did — by voting against this appropriation that does not advance the cause of ending the occupation of Iraq.

(2) It’s true Gabby has voted for package that include some measures designed to end the occupation — before she then went ahead and voted for packages that did not include any restrictions. In other words, she was for ending the occupation before she was for sustaining it.

(3) The President’s intransigence has certainly stymied progress toward ending the occupation of Iraq, but to blame partisanship is risible. If anything, it is the complacence of Democrats and one-sided attempts at bi-partisanship on Iraq that has driven this Congress’ approval rating into the dirt. The American people don’t see the Democratic Congress standing up firmly to the President’s agenda. Rather, they see its continual compliance with the GOP’s agenda, followed by limp excuses that a ‘bi-partisan coalition’ can’t be formed to end the occupation.

Instead of confronting Bush, and accepting the political risks that entails, to get a true compromise out of the White House, Democrats like Giffords and Mitchell are giving in before any real bargaining has even begun. Of course the President will never give an inch if he knows that Congressional Democrats don’t dare tie his hands in Iraq and risk taking on responsibility for the outcome. The last thing centrist Dems who control Congress want is any taint of the loss of Iraq clinging to them in the 2008 elections; someone will pay the price politically and they are desperately afraid that the GOP’s propagandists will hang that rotting corpse around the Democrats’ necks.

(4) "faced with only one final option…" Really? The option that Dems dare not speak of, because it entails significant electoral risk, is to confront the President with a budgetary stalemate and refuse to pass any funding until a satisfactory compromise on withdrawal is made. It’s the only chip that Congress has, and they are afraid to use it ever since Murtha got his fingers burned in 2006 trying to use the power of the purse to force the Administration’s hand on Iraq policy. That backfire has made centrist Dems gun-shy of actually using one of the two effective constitutional weapons they have — the power of the purse. The other effective weapon to force a change in Administration policy — impeachment — also remains firmly in Madame Speaker’s holster.

(5) And here we come to it. The troops. The last redoubt in American politics. "I did it for the troops." The ultimate political gobstopper. Who can question such a high and noble motive? Me.

The troops want to come home: my own conversations with people in the military and vets combined with James Zogby’s polling demonstrates that to my complete satisfaction. Sure, a lot of military folks admirably and determinedly are set on completing the mission – and God love ’em, that ‘can do’ attitude is what we expect of them and what such work requires. But we shouldn’t insist that the men and women of our military admit defeat before we let them come home.

Keeping our troops in Iraq, dying by inches every day, grinding our military preparedness into dust for no discernible strategic objective worth the blood our countrymen is not supporting our troops, it’s killing them needlessly… actually, no, their deaths do serve a purpose. They ensure that their blood doesn’t smear the skirts of centrist Democrats like Giffords. When they face the electorate they will hold up their clean hands and proclaim that they did all they could to ‘support the troops’ by funding the occupation that’s killing them. Horseshit.

(6) The biggest political lie in the 2008 Congressional election season is previewed right here. Not passing an Iraq appropriation wouldn’t change Bush’s behavior. Actually, little else will.

The one thing that Giffords and her 77 colleagues will never risk doing, won’t even admit could possibly work, is the only thing that really can. The Congresswoman isn’t naive or stupid – it’s not that she and the people who advise her can’t see the political calculus and determine that the only variable that will actually move Bush to act is to serious threaten the funding of his bloodbath – it’s that they are all afraid to change that part of the political equation.

They foresee going into the 2008 season with the charnel-house wind blowing off the million corpses we’ve piled up in Iraq at their backs. Why tack into it and allow the Republicans to possibly cheat our wind and cross the finish line ahead of us? It’s hard-bitten political calculation that keeps Giffords and Mitchell and their 76 buddies from doing what’s right. Whatever else it might be – savvy, cunning, the higher good – it’s also political cowardice.

I don’t argue that maybe such despicable calculation is necessary to keep and expand the Democratic majority. I don’t think it is – I have a little more faith in the good sense of the American people, despite good evidence to the contrary of late. But don’t dress it up in this patriotic bunting and say it’s for the common good. It’s not. It’s for the Democratic Party’s good, and I just don’t think that the price is worth the prize.

I also happen to strongly believe that we DO NOT have to pay such a price to collect the prize of victory in 2008. I think we can force the President to back down, save our troops from meaningless destruction, and actually win the respect and gratitude of the voters, no matter the propaganda the GOP will fling at us. If there is a chance that we can achieve the greater good of a Democratic government while not paying the price of additional dead American soldiers in Iraq, shouldn’t we take that risk? If our majority is somewhat smaller, if our President has a bit less of a mandate, aren’t those acceptable prices to pay? I pray that Democrats have not become so craven and desperate in the face of Republican aggression against our Constitutional order that blood for votes seems like a good bargain. Regardless of how easy a deal to strike that seems now, history won’t judge such a choice kindly.

(7) This is just one of those annoying dishonesties in political communication that continually gall me. She implies that the troops wouldn’t have gotten needed equipment without this funding. But the funds for acquisition of new equipment to that worn out by years of war are separate from Operations and Maintenance appropriations. In fact, the Acquisition funds only account for a little over $2.3 billion of this appropriation (man, politicians must hate the internet); almost all of the appropriation is to continue to pound Iraqi sand and kill its people, innocents and bad-guys alike. That needed equipment could be provided without funding the occupation. To imply otherwise is just another damned lie.

(8) Damned straight they didn’t. And they don’t get any say in how it’s fought, or when to stop it, with this Administration in power. We all know that the Bush Administration hides behind our Generals like they were sock-puppets that get disposed of the moment they start to seem politically unreliable or tainted by the Administration’s continual failures. The result is that we get a military leadership that is unable to provide objective and professional advice – Bush and his gaggle of neo-cons don’t want to hear it, and they never will. So, since the Administration is never going to adjust course to correct the massive damage they’ve done, there is only one power under our Constitution that can force such a change – Congress.

With Representatives like Giffords and Mitchell tucking their tails at the very thought of a genuine Constitutional show-down with this failed President, the troops are never going to get the true champion they deserve – a champion that can force this President to stop the madness and evil that Iraq has become, and extract them from the mindless meat-grinder that is the legacy of the Bush Presidency.