Congresswoman Shea-Porter has to work as best she can to accomplish what she wants done within the institution of congress. It is really easy to throw stones from outside, but listen to what she is saying: this proposal has an exit date, and better an imperfect piece of legislation with an exit date than one without. Is it perfect? No, far from it, but better some progress than none at all. She has an excellent moral compass, and I trust her to do the right thing. It isn't easy to push a rock up a mountain.

Not that we would expect you to know who he is.

"Ironically, and shockingly, the same bill appropriates $124 billion in more funds to carry the war. It’s as if, before the Civil War, abolitionists agreed to postpone the emancipation of the slaves for a year, or two years, or five years, and coupled this with an appropriation of funds to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act."

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/24/65/

Your so-called agony about this is despicable. It is not even a legitimate agony. In Vietnam 28,000 troops died and were abandoned to political game-playing long after Congress and the President knew it was time to bring them home. Read your history! This was a tragedy that you must not allow to repeat. This bill is a corrupt and cynical calculation designed to placate the masses, nothing more. It is a naive fiction that Bush would be deterred by the exit date provision. It offers NOTHING that would bring the troops home. Most importantly, it will have the certain effect of KILLING every remaining possibility for meaningful future action from Congress.

Do not go along with this. Do not let Congress off the hook. Allow it to agonize. This is necessary pain.

This is how the dysfunctional congress works, how consensus is achieved for wretchedly bad policy. There can no doubt Shea-Porter will be bringing home some of this bacon. We will all know soon enough.

www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3223.html

Anti-War Dems Near Defeat on Spending Bill

The most outspoken critics of the $124 billion wartime spending bill in the House are facing withering support in their fight to defeat it.

California Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey said that many of their liberal colleagues were caving under pressure from Democratic leaders who, according to at least one congressman, have threatened to block requests for new funds for his district.

They also cited MoveOn.org's endorsement of the measure Monday as a blow to their efforts.

"This is the process: people who feel strongly about this issue hold out as long as they can," said Waters. "A lot of pressure comes to bear and they can't hold up under the pressure."

The $124 billion emergency spending bill, backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), includes not only more funds this year for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also new military readiness standards, benchmarks for the Iraqi government and an Aug. 31, 2008 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

A floor vote is planned for Thursday.

Democratic leaders have also added billions in funds not related to wartime spending in a bid for more support.

That additional money was attractive for at least one lawmaker, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), an Out of Iraq Caucus member. His spokeswoman, Danielle Langone, cited $400 million for a one-year reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act.

"That's pretty vital for our district, so we'll be voting for the bill," Langone said.

Waters said that she and other opponents of the spending measure had entered the weekend with 20 to 25 members on their side but that they had suffered "a lot of damage" as Democratic leaders aggressively urged members to support the bill.

Vowing to step up her efforts to hold the opposition, Waters said it was clear that Democratic leaders were mounting an all-out whip effort beyond the earlier informal surveying by Democratic Whip James Clyburn (S.C.).

"This is a vote of conscience," Waters said. "Jim Clyburn said he was doing an assessment, so that's what I was doing. Now that he's whipping, I'm going to start whipping."

Clyburn disputed her assertion. "That's not what she told me," he said. "I beg to differ that there's anybody whipping against this bill."

One congressman, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution from leaders, bristled at how aggressively he was being pressured to vote for the bill, singling out Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) as especially forceful.

"I really resent this," the lawmaker said. "Rahm Emanuel told us a vote against this bill is a vote to give the Republicans victory."

The congressman also noted that Democratic leaders had "made clear" to him that they might yank funding requests he had made for projects in his district if he did not support the measure.

Democratic whips, all deputies of Clyburn, approached members on the House floor Monday night.

A jovial Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger went up to fellow Maryland Rep. Albert Wynn as he sat off the floor with a reporter and told Wynn that a vote against the bill was a vote for Republican victory. He waved a copy of the MoveOn.org press release backing the measure.

"Have you seen this?" Ruppersberger asked.

"Yeah, who did that?" replied Wynn, a member of the Out of Iraq Caucus.

"Some people we asked to put out a press release to get you to vote for the bill," Ruppersberger joked. He razzed the noncommittal Wynn a few moments longer, pretending to twist his arm, then headed off to reprise the routine with another Out of Iraq Caucus member, Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings.

Other undecided Democrats were also feeling the heat. Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.) said she had been approached several times and was "still very undecided."

"This will establish to a large degree who I am. ... I'm really trying to make sure I have an understanding of the supplemental in practicality and balancing that with my own concerns about the war and my constituents who are very opposed to the war," Clarke said. "The sentiment I'm getting from my constituents is that I'm beyond benchmarks now. …The administration has proven to be untrustworthy."

Some anti-war activists assailed MoveOn.org's approach to the Iraq bill, alleging that the organization had used a skewed poll to conclude that 85 percent of its members backed the measure.

"MoveOn put out a dishonest poll that did not offer its members a real choice to end the war, and now the peace movement is lobbying activists to reform MoveOn or drop off its list," David Swanson, a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, said in an e-mail to The Politico. "I unsubscribed from MoveOn this morning."

In the poll, MoveOn.org gave its members a choice of supporting, opposing or being "not sure" of the plan proposed by the Democratic leadership, according to an e-mail sent to members Sunday by MoveOn.org official Eli Pariser.

It did not mention a more aggressive withdrawal proposal backed by Woolsey, Waters and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).

Pariser said MoveOn.org had held out as long as possible before backing the leadership proposal.

"We were basically declining to take a position as long as we could to strengthen the hand of the progressives. We did the poll at the last time we felt we could have an impact on the final vote."

He said he would support the progressive proposal if it came to a vote. "We'll encourage people to vote for that and for the supplemental," he said. "We are trying to end the war. That's the mandate."

Democratic leaders are pressing hard on the bill even though some members of their whip operation are themselves opposed. Waters, one of nine chief deputy whips, has said she will not whip for a bill she staunchly opposes.

But other members have been more willing to help. Rep. Diane E. Watson (D-Calif.), who remains "solidly" opposed to the bill, was still serving as a regional whip.

"I told Jim Clyburn I'm a team player. I'm a whip. I'll do the whipping," Watson said. But, she added, "My whipping is just a survey. … If I believed in what I was whipping on, I'd do more."

Representative Shea-Porter,

Your support of this measure to end the Iraq War by funding it is the clearest example of political cowardace I have ever seen. There is not even an internal logic to the bill. You place a great weight on the ‘exit date’ provision, yet an even cursory look at the bill should warn that Bush will have no trouble whatsoever in working around it. For instance, the bill requires withdrawal of "combat" troops from Iraq seventeen months from now, but leaves exceptions for troops needed to: 1) protect coalition forces 2) fight terrorism and 3) train Iraqi forces.

Are there any troops now in Iraq who couldn't be kept under one of those exceptions?

This is worse than no bill at all. I am utterly disappointed in you.

First, the exit date is conditioned on Iraqi government actions. Why we would promise NOT to pull troops out if they take responsibility for securing the areas around our permanent military bases is a puzzlement. If it's intended to support the notion that the U.S. occupation is a desideratum, that's a falsehood. At this point, the U.S. occupation isn't even a "lesser of two evils." It is an evil, except for the minority that has benefitted materially from the appearance of power and a considerable amount of graft.
Secondly, the whole funding discussion is centered on combat troops that are the least of the problem. The permanent bases that are occupying four or five parcels of land, each the size of the island of Manhattan, (plus the emerald embassy), are the real problem. Their persistence is being guaranteed under the rubric of "fighting terrorism"--a euphemism for any group that resists U.S. efforts to "stabilize the area (Indian Ocean/Persian Gulf region).
Americans may be deceived, but the countries in the neighborhood aren't. The expansion of American bases under the guise of "fighting terrorism" has not gone unnoticed by Russia and China and India (which has just started building its own navy).

I used to think that when people could plan whether or not to procreate, the children they chose to bring into this world would be better cared for. I was wrong. "Wanted" children are just as likely to be abused as the unwanted.
I used to think that watching war movies and playing violent video games would dampen the urge to engage in aggressive behavior in real life. I was wrong there too. Imaginary aggression seems to have made humans more blood-thirsty and prone to kill at a distance.
Which reminds me that there's been no discussion, that I'm aware of, of the number of sorties still being flown on a daily basis by bombers off the aircraft carriers and the number of missiles being dispatched to kill people on the ground. Nobody's providing an accounting of how many people are being killed by these unconventional weapons. Presumably, the replacement of bombs and missiles is a normal operating expense for which no supplement is needed. (Early on there was much negative coverage of wedding parties being bombed in the outback where few people were supposed to be living. So that kind of reporting has been shut down but it's still being recorded by the Arab press).

Though the permanent bases in the Middle East have been on the drawing boards for over twenty years and over one hundred thousand of the current troop contingent doesn't interact with the population, except to be shelled on a regular basis, this real reason for the invasion of Iraq is still being hidden in the classified budget. So, what we are talking about is not unlike the size of a bandaid required to cover a festering shrapnel wound.