Dem Pols Just Can't Stop the War

Power to do good eludes Democratic Party members of Congress. Whether they are in the House of Representatives, or in the Senate, they just can't stop the War in Iraq. Some of them say they would like to stop the war. They would prefer peace. But they just don't have the power to stop it. If only there were not a Republican President. If only there were a few more Democrats in the Senate. If only the people of Iraq would stop fighting the U.S. soldiers and the U.S. installed puppet government. If only the Shiites and the Sunnis would stop their 1300 year-old feud.

Of course the Democratic Party members of Congress could stop the war. They aren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary. They are not willing to risk their careers. They are not willing to risk a backlash that might put a Republican in their own job, or a pro-war Democrat, or that might tip the 2008 Presidential election into the hands of pro-choice, pro-gay former New York Mayor Rudoph the-red-state-reindeer Giuliani.

Because what is it to Hillary, Obama, or Nancy Pelossi if a few more U.S. troops die, or a whole bunch of Iraqi rebel nationalists or even a few hundred thousand more innocent Iraqi civilian women and children? Nothing is more important than a career in politics. Nothing is more important than being able to reward your campaign contributors, and being in turn rewarded by them.

The real job of the Federal Government of the United States of America is economic allocation. The real job of the Democratic Party is to tax the middle class and give enough of the taxes to corporate America to keep the campaign contributions coming, and give enough of the money to poor Americans to keep them voting for Democratic Party politicians.

Iraq is a distraction for the Democratic Party politicians, but it has begun to really bother the activist base of the Democratic Party. That base might ask itself what it is doing registered in a Party that was founded on the principal of Slavery by Indian Killer hero Andrew Jackson; what are they doing promoting the Party of War Crimes like Hiroshima and the U.S. invasion of Vietnam; why do they think the party that gave birth to the political-military-industrial complex under Franklin Roosevelt is going to become a peace party?

Democratic Party peace activists believe the lies and are trying to hold the liars to their word. From what I gather there is a pretty sophisticated campaign for peace going on that is separate from the kinds of peace rally activity promoted by the Green Party and non-partisan activists. Lots of Democrats in Congress are feeling they have to find ways of voting for peace, without actually gaining the reality of troop withdrawal. That they are doing a good job of.

This week presidential candidates Hillary Clinton (the Senator from Wall Street) and Barack to-the-barricades Obama voted on a motion in a way that was considered anti-war. This will help them, particularly Hillary, with Democratic volunteers in this primary season. But of course it did not stop the war. [See Obama and Clinton Back Ending Iraq Combat by March 31, New York Times, March 16, 2007]

People who have not studied political science often don't know about the vote-visibility shuffle. This is an old, well-worked out technique. The parties allocate the votes that can be on the losing side to the politicians who need them the most to impress their constituencies. It is done all the time, in all fifty state legislatures and in Congress. The outcome is decided in advance; everyone gets re-elected, most of the time, under this system.

So there are two ways to stop the illegal and immoral U.S. War Against the People of Iraq. It could be stopped by the Democrats in Congress if they were willing to refuse to pass any appropriations of money. End of story: it won't happen. Too many Democratic voters and contributors depend on that money.

The war will end, more or less, after a new President is sworn in, which would be January 2009. Rudolph Giuliani is a pragmatic guy. No matter what he promisses to who in this campaign, as President he will say he doesn't care who wins the civil war in Iraq, so what is the point of keeping troops there? The oil sitting in the ground just gets more valuable as the years pass; the U.S. should not care who gets the royalties for allowing it to be pumped.

See also:
Brief History of the Democratic Party