As some of our own astute commenters and several bloggers have pointed out, while celebrations were going on yesterday over the forced postponement of the telecom amnesty bill (also known as the “Fuehrerprinzip Ueber Alles Act”), Senate Democrats again bowed to the Unitary Executive and gave him exactly what he asked for: $70 billion more in taxpayer money to continue the war crime in Iraq — and the surrender of a domestic spending package that Democrats had “insisted” must be passed.
To no one’s surprise, they simply rolled over yet again, all the while making feeble bleating noises about how they “were able to steer money to their priorities, win some spending against White House wishes” — as if Bush will not simply ignore any strictures on his imperial will via “signing statements,” executive orders, or plain old lawless neglect of legislative mandates. Why the hell shouldn’t he? He’s done it all along, without the slightest penalty.
So, $70 billion more for the Terror War, then. There were no filibusters, no “holds” on continuing this abomination, which in addition to slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians is also shredding America’s military — those soldiers whom the warmongers “support” so much — in a useless, degrading, criminal action.
As we noted yesterday, even the slightest bit of moxie can gum up the works for the war-loot-and-tyranny machine. But this week’s “hero,” Chris Dodd, was nowhere to be found when the new war money was on the line. He was back on the campaign trail, with his fellow presidential aspirants from the Senate: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe “Ethnic Cleansing? Hell, Yeah!” Biden. Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy made fine speeches, and Feingold did offer a troop-withdrawal amendment — but again, there was no filibuster, no sand thrown in the gears. The bill had been constructed — by the Democratic leadership, which is in charge of the Senate, after all — in a way to make it almost impossible for the politicians to derail it: it was tied to an omnibus spending bill whose defeat could have risked a Gingrichian shut-down of some government services. (“If you don’t vote for this war, poor children are going to go hungry and the national parks will close!”)
It didn’t have to be that way, but that’s the way it was — because that’s the way the Democratic leaders wanted it. They have absolutely no intention of stopping the war crime before the presidential election…and no intention to withdraw from Iraq after the election either. The Red Wheel of mass death will keep on rolling.
Chris Floyd is the Editor and co-founder of Atlantic Free Press. He is an American journalist now based in Great Britain and the UK correspondent for Truthout.org. For 10 years, he wrote the weekly Global Eye political column for The Moscow Times and St. Petersburg Times. His writings also appear in The Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, The Baltimore Chronicle, The Bergen Record and elsewhere around the world. His book, Empire Burlesque, is published by Expathos Books.
