[NYTr] A Call to Action: March for Peace, Accountability
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The Nation -Jan 26, 2007 1:21 pm
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=160708
The Nation
A Call to Action: March for Peace, Accountability
by John Nichols
Hundreds of thousands of antiwar demonstrators will take to the streets
this weekend in a surge for peace that is long overdue.
The message of these demonstrations is not directed at the Bush
Administration.
The President has made it clear that he does not intend to listen to
anyone outside of his delusional inner circle when it comes to
resolving the mess he has created in Iraq. George Bush did not listen
in 2003 to the wise counsel of experts on Iraq and the Middle East who
warned about the dangers of invading and occupying that country. He has
not listened to the cries of anguish from Cindy Sheehan and other
Americans who have lost their loved ones in a war that should never
have been fought. He has not listened to the Iraqi people, who in poll
after poll have indicated their desire for the occupation to end. He
has not listened to world opinion, which has turned dramatically
against the United States because of his misguided and dangerous
military adventuring. And he is not listening to the will of the
American people, which was clearly expressed in the antiwar result of
the 2006 elections that shifted control of Congress to the Democrats.
It is the prospect that members of the new Congress might listen to the
people who elected them that makes this weekend's demonstrations
meaningful--not to mention necessary.
Many members of Congress--from veteran Democrats such as Massachusetts
Senator Ted Kennedy and California Senator Barbara Boxer to Republican
mavericks such as Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel and North Carolina
Congressman Walter Jones to newcomers such as Minnesota Congressman
Keith Ellison and Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen--recognize the need
to get this country's troops out of Iraq and to focus its energies on
diplomacy and realistic responses to terrorist threats. But the
majorities in both the House and Senate have yet to accept that they
have a responsibility to check and balance the President. They continue
to waste time and energy on essentially meaningless resolutions
expressing discomfort with the Administration's latest strategic
blunder.
Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a member of the Foreign Relations
Committee, cast his vote for the nonbinding resolution disapproving of
President Bush's plan to surge 21,500 more US troops into the Iraq
quagmire. But, he bluntly told the committee, the action represented an
insufficient Congressional response.
"My fear, Mr. Chairman, is this is slow walking," Feingold told the
committee, which approved the resolution 12-9. "This is not a time for
legislative nuancing. This is not a time for trying to forge a
compromise that everybody can be a part of. This is a time to stop the
needless deaths of American troops in Iraq. We have a moral
responsibility, as well as a responsibility to the lives of the
American people, to start doing it now."
Feingold says, "It's time for Congress to use the power of the purse to
end this devastating war and finally bring American troops out of Iraq."
He is right, and antiwar marchers should demand nothing less. It is sad
but true that only by telling the current King George that he will no
longer have an unlimited credit line to pursue his madness can the
occupation be ended.
"As the President made clear (in announcing a plan to 'surge' 21,500
more troops into the quagmire), he has no intention of redeploying our
troops from Iraq. Congress cannot continue to accept this. Congress
can, by restricting funding for this misguided war, do what the
President refuses to do--redeploy from Iraq to refocus on defeating
global terrorist networks."
Feingold is not naove. He understands the spin that will be employed to
argue against blocking funding for an endless US presence in Iraq.
"Some will claim that cutting off funding for the war would endanger
our brave troops on the ground. Not true. The safety of our service men
and women in Iraq is paramount, and we can and should end funding for
the war without putting our troops in further danger," the Senator
explains. "Congress will continue to give our troops the resources and
support they need, but by, for example, specifying a time after which
funding for the war would end, it can give the President the time
needed to redeploy troops safely from Iraq."
That is the essential message of the moment.
It is the message that this weekend's antiwar demonstrators can and
must deliver.
Nonbinding resolutions are a joke.
Congress needs to embrace its constitutional duty to check executive
excess and to balance against dangerous exercises of the presidential
prerogative.
The first step is to use the power of the purse to force a course
correction regarding Iraq.
The second step is to use the full authority afforded the House and
Senate by the Constitution to hold the President and the Vice President
to account for their deceptions and their abuses of power--so that
never again will the Republic be placed in so perilous a circumstance.
[John Nichols' new book, THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure
for Royalism has been hailed by authors and historians Gore Vidal,
Studs Terkel and Howard Zinn for its meticulous research into the
intentions of the founders and embraced by activists for its
groundbreaking arguments on behalf of presidential accountability.
"The Genius of Impeachment can be found at independent bookstores and
at http://www.amazon.com.]
*
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