POTUS Out the Cage

In one of the few signs that he’s actually read that mere piece of paper known as the U.S. Constitution, George W. Bush vetoed the second bill in his tenure of office today. For those of you who have been living in a cave, the newly elected Democratic House and Senate voted to begin pulling troops out of Iraq. The POTUS in his infinite arrogance has stated from Day Zero that he would veto the bill, considering the overwhelming will of the American electorate to be so much political football.

It seems pretty clear that POTUS has completely stepped on his dick on this one. Support for the war is nonexistent. Two thirds of Americans support the concept of time tables for getting boots off the ground. The few true believers in the administration are left chiming “surge… surge… surge…” ad infinitum while the war, much like the POTUS himself, is (in the words of Ronald Reagan’s biological son and namesake) “a national embarrassment.”

The question remains: by what means will the war be ended? If a sea changing, generation defining election (check the polls, not to mention the composition of the new Congress- the real conservatives have come home to the Democratic Party) isn’t enough to stop the sociopaths, sycophants and other monsters currently occupying the White House, then what the hell will be? More to the point, why exactly are the Democrats involved in a game of political touch football. Have they learned nothing from the last six years of American politics or even for that matter studied the fundamental rules of bargaining? Asking for what one wants as an introductory offer is foolish at best. Treating the people currently in the White House and the Republican side of the aisle as reasonable, thoughtful people flies in the face of empirical evidence to the contrary. The Democrats need to start treating Republicans like what they are- enemies.

Mike Gravel had the right idea at last week’s Democratic Party debate. Congress shouldn’t be passing resolutions about the war, they should be working on a law that makes it a felony to deploy more troops to the Middle East and they should do nothing but write, rewrite, pass and repass the bill until the Haliburpublican Party gets the idea. The American people are not a war-like people at heart, they are a people easily manipulated by their dual sense of justice and destiny. The Iraq War is the latest in a long history (beginning with the Spanish-American War) where a primarily isolationist people had their passions cynically engineered toward jingoism by the interests of capital and their running dogs in the corporate-controlled media.

Some in the liberal anti-war movement are squeamish about cutting off funding for troops in harms way. In the first place, it is worth noting that the Democratic congress is not holding up funding for the troops, POTUS is. However, there is only one clear and consistent position against imperialist war and that is the credo of Rosa Luxembourg- not a man, not a penny for the imperialist war machine. Figures like Barack Obama who claim to be against the war while appropriating funds for it are the worst kind of charlatans and political opportunists, talking out of both sides of their mouth. The troops of the American empire’s war machine cease to be “our boys” the second that they become boots on the ground. In that moment they are no longer your brother, your friend, your co-worker. They are hired killers and the only principled position is to call for their defeat.

~ by newsvirus on May 1, 2007.