Millions of people in the United States want the war in Iraq to end. Growing numbers of people from all walks of life—including veterans, active-duty soldiers and their families—are no longer willing to accept the Bush administration’s pleas for more lives and more sacrifice all the for the sake of a doomed imperial adventure.
This majority anti-war sentiment was largely responsible for the defeat of George Bush’s Republican Party in the
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This raises a crucial question for activists who are already spending countless hours trying to bring the war to and end: What attitude should anti-war leaders and organizers take toward the Democrat-led Congress?
The Democratic Party’s record
The Democratic Party’s leadership has been completely complicit in the launching of the war against Afghanistan in 2001 and against Iraq in 2003. It was a continuation of the Clinton administration’s presiding over the 12-year siege-like sanctions regime against Iraq that preceded the 2003 invasion by U.S. troops.
The record is well-known. Bush’s October 2002 “Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq Resolution” was authorized in the House by a vote of 296-133 and in the Senate by 77-23—both with overwhelming Democratic Party support. In the 2004 presidential elections, Democratic candidate John Kerry endorsed the occupation of Iraq while criticizing Bush’s handling of the details.
To this day, no major Democratic Party figure advocates an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq—much less the rest of the Middle East.
The Feb. 16 nonbinding resolution in the House of Representatives, which passed 246-182, only criticized the Bush planned “surge”—not the continued occupation of Iraq by some 150,000 U.S. troops.
Can Congress ‘do the right thing?’
Despite the Democratic Party’s rotten record as one of the twin war parties, some groups that oppose the war hold out hopes in the eyes of activists that the Congress might actually be the vehicle to end the war in Iraq. They point to Congress’s “power of the purse” to stop funding the war.
“It is time for Congress to use its Constitutional powers and to act on the mandate of the November elections,” declared the United for Peace and Justice’s report of the Jan. 27 demonstration in Washington, D.C. “It is time for Congress to stand up to Bush and end this war.”
U.S. Labor Against the War, a coalition of different anti-war union leaders closely affiliated to UFPJ, circulated a petition, “The people have spoken, now Congress must act.”
The New York-based Troops Out Now Coalition echoes the call in a more militant-sounding form: “It’s time to move from protest to resistance to force Congress to vote no to war funding.”
Some groups go so far as to encourage activists to lobby for particular bills. The Progressive Democrats of America, among others, tout the House bill HR 508, the “Bring the Troops Home and Iraq Sovereignty Restoration,” sponsored by the “U.S. Out of Iraq” caucus of the House.
HR508: The Dems’ best offer?
It is worth looking at the details of HR508, since it is the best that the Democrats had to offer after coming into power. As of mid-February, the bill had 46 co-sponsors. Few give it real hope of coming to the floor to be voted on, much less passed.
The bill’s stated goal is “to require United States military disengagement from Iraq, to provide United States assistance for reconstruction in Iraq, and other purposes.” In its most promising measure, the bill calls for the redeployment of all U.S. military forces and from the Middle East within six months. It also prohibits funds to be used to “deploy or continue to deploy” U.S. troops as part of “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” as the occupation was dubbed by the Bush administration.
But beneath this promise of a speedy withdrawal, even these liberal Democrats show their true colors.
Funds would still be allowed for “providing financial assistance and equipment to Iraqi security forces and international forces in Iraq.” Military bases and facilities would be transferred to “the government of Iraq.”
During the six months prior to withdrawal, U.S. troops would be used to “assist in the training of a permanent Iraqi police force and neighborhood, village, and tribal home guards comprised of Iraqi citizens.”
Most ominously, the U.S. President is authorized to “support the deployment of an international stabilization force to
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The translation of this most “radical” Democratic bill, embraced by some groups in the anti-war movement, is a rehash of the “old” Democratic “alternative” to the Bush administration policies: an “Iraqization” of the conflict under the titular leadership of the U.S.-backed puppet Iraqi regime and an “international” (United Nations? NATO?) fig leaf for continued U.S. occupation.
Despite the “Out of Iraq” rhetoric, HR 508 is hardly different from what candidate Kerry served up in the 2004 election campaign.
Dangerous illusions
The basic error made by those who urge activists to plead with Congress is that it poses a false split between the Democratic Party and the Bush administration. The Democratic Party shares with the Bush administration the overarching interests of U.S. imperialism—the domination of the Middle East’s oil riches. The bipartisan support for the Israeli garrison state is a reflection of that shared goal.
Some who promote the tactics of urging Congress to end the war do so with the sole goal of building support for Democrats in the 2008 presidential elections. They will try to do what the UFPJ did in 2004—urge the anti-war movement to fall in line with whatever candidate the Democratic Party bosses offer, no matter what their position is on Iraq or the Middle East.
Other would-be leaders take a more patronizing approach to the millions they hope will listen to them. “The masses have hopes in the Democrats right now,” the argument goes. “We need to be with them while they learn their lessons.”
Such thinking does not suit those seeking to provide political leadership to the masses of working-class and progressive people in the United States. Millions are looking for a way forward now. Those who do have hopes in the Democratic Party will see the imperialist party’s bankruptcy by the deeds of the politicians in support of the war.
Suggesting that Congress can be trusted to end the war is a dangerous illusion that can only drag out hopes that would otherwise be quickly dispelled. In fact, Congress is a talk shop and has no role in starting or ending modern-day imperialist war.
All power is concentrated in the executive branch of government and the military in the modern imperialist era. The preoccupation with the role of Congress, even by some leftists, is nothing more than a prejudice created by bourgeois parliamentarism and reinforced by the propaganda of “democracy” in the United States.
The lessons of the Vietnam War are clear. Congress did not end the war. Nixon and the Pentagon withdrew U.S. troops in 1973. Congress cut funding for military operations over a year later, after the U.S. military’s efforts had been defeated.
The war will end when the Pentagon recognizes that continued military operations will only bring greater defeat and when a mass movement begins to challenge the right of the ruling class and its Congress to rule. The first condition is quickly being met.
It is the responsibility of anti-war organizations and leaders—especially the revolutionaries and socialists—to bring about the second condition.
The March 17 March on the Pentagon—confronting the real enemy at its gate—is an important step in that direction.
MarchOnPentagon.org
