It hasn’t been easy watching the House Republicans debate the non-binding anti-escalation bill over the last three days. I’ve watched quite a bit of it…several hours today alone. Part of my problem has been listening to the same old stale rhetoric about the United States being in a fight for survival. Let me be plain: the only fight for survival we are engaged in is in stopping the neo-conservatives from breaking our military, draining our treasury, and using nuclear weapons. And that’s the problem. I don’t consider Moqtada al-Sadr to be my enemy. I consider Dick Cheney to be my enemy. I think he is a traitor…he probably thinks I am a traitor.
But I still have a problem with the Murtha Plan. Murtha is going to attach ‘requirements that troops be given at least a year’s rest between combat deployments, special training in urban warfare and counterinsurgency, and safety equipment that the military has struggled to provide’ to the next military appropriations bill.
The idea is not really to make sure that all troops being deployed to Iraq are well-trained and equipped. The idea is to make it impossible for Bush to sustain troop levels because he will not be able to replace troops that are rotated out. It’s a backhanded way of ending the occupation of Iraq. And it’s not surprising that the Republicans are going nuts about it. It is a very controversial thing to do and it could set a troubling precedent.
Murtha’s plan represents an absolute vote of no confidence in the President as commander-in-chief. Of that, there can be no doubt. The Republicans are squealing that the Democrats are hypocrites to unanimously approve General Petraeus but then turn around and undermine his mission. They’re saying that, if we don’t think the mission will work, we should just defund it rather than try to micromanage the deployments or strangle off the supply of troops. These are valid criticisms.
The commander-in-chief has a job to do and he can’t do it with Congress interfering in his ability to deploy troops. But here is the problem for Republicans. They aren’t giving us any alternatives. They won’t vote to defund the war. They will filibuster any attempt to defund the war. So, defunding the war isn’t an option.
The people clearly want Congress to end the war. How can it be accomplished? Murtha’s plan has a lot of advantages. It creates votes that the Republicans will be loathe to oppose. Do they want to vote for sending troops into battle without proper training and equipment? Do they want to vote for longer deployments? So, the first point is that Murtha has crafted a strategy than can actually win votes. Even more clever, he is going to attach it to the military appropriation so the President cannot veto it without losing his funding for Iraq.
It all looks like it can be effective. And it is more important to be effective than it is to do things a better way and be ineffective. But this is a very ugly way of getting this done. There is going to be a lot of bad blood about this for a very long time to come. The Republicans will argue forever that the Democrats used a cheap stunt to undermine the war effort. Rather than leaving the responsibility for losing in Iraq at the administration’s doorstep, they’ll be placing it on Congress. To some extent, they would attempt to do this no matter what strategy the Democrats used to end the war. But this one will have especial resonance because it involves, not voting to end the war, but interfering in the President’s ability to wage the war.
I wish there were some other way. Here’s what I hope will happen. Rather than see our effort in Iraq end because of an inability to meet Murtha’s high deployment standards, I’d like to see the President see the writing on the wall. It’s over. Stop struggling. Your legacy is already fucked. If you want to salvage something, get together with Congress and work out a phased withdrawal. Bring in the Jordanians, the Turks, the Saudis, the Israelis, the Egyptians. Sit down and figure something out. Knock off all the crap about Iran. We have enough on our plate right now.
And if the President won’t do that, then Murtha should go ahead and carry out his plan. But if we go that route we should set John Conyers free to start impeachment hearings. If we get to that point, it would be better to just replace our commander-in-chief.
