The debate in the Senate over a new Iraq resolution will cement the republican party's reputation and status as the nation's 'War Party', or more appropriately for the time, the 'Iraq War Party'.
Relegated to the dustbin of history in the debate will be the Bush regime's strident claims of hidden weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; all the warnings about uranium tubes, bio-chem weapons labs, bio-chem weapon attacks discredited and no longer effective tools to cow a fearful public as they managed in the wake of the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.
Revived by the republican War Party, and ready for prime time will be the appeals to fear that worked so well in allowing them to mortgage ours, and our children's' future to the violent and costly aftereffects of their reckless militarism.
House Majority Leader John Boehner laid out the Iraq War Party's vision and agenda in a memo revealed to the country yesterday by
ThinkProgress.org. In it Boehner reveals a republican party so bereft of ideas, and so enamored of war, that it is compelled to re-exploit the tragedy of 9-11 in an attempt to frighten Americans into believing that withdrawing our troops from Iraq would make the U.S. less secure. The three main goals of the republican War Party are (as ThinkProgress
describes) to:
1. Exploit 9/11. The two page memo mentions 9/11 seven times. It describes debating Iraq in the context of 9/11 as “imperative.”
2. Attack opponents ad hominem. The memo describes those who opposes President Bush’s policies in Iraq as “sheepish,” “weak,” and “prone to waver endlessly.”
3. Create a false choice. The memo says the decision is between supporting President Bush’s policies and hoping terrorist threats will “fade away on their own.”
The republicans are finally coming to grips with their true selves. There will be no more pretending to care about the health care needs of the nation's citizens from the War Party; no more concern about exploding energy costs; no more wondering aloud from them about whether our children is learning.
The republican War Party is stepping out of their citizen's clothing and into their militarist garb; the war hawks, the war hounds, the warmongers, the tyrants.
More precisely, with $10b a month in tax dollars going to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, hijacked from our Treasury by republicans with 'emergency' spending bills, the republican War Party has decided that supporting their junta in Iraq is more important than supporting the needs and concerns of the American people.
"I've directed our Secretary of Treasury and the Treasury Department to send teams of experts to Iraq to help the government create a public finance system." Bush said yesterday. "These advisers will help Iraqis develop an economic framework that promotes growth and job creation and opportunity. I've directed the Secretaries of Commerce and Agriculture to travel to Iraq as soon as possible to meet with their counterparts."
"To revitalize the Iraqi economy, the Prime Minister is working to increase oil and electricity production." Bush
explained. "We spent a lot of time talking about energy in Iraq."
But, what about the needs and concerns of Americans? Where does Bush and the republican War Party get the money to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure as our own country's needs get short shrift from them at appropriations time.
" American people deserve to know how their tax dollars are spent," House Democratic leader Pelosi, "and if it's in furtherance of the goals as stated by the Bush Administration."
"This New Direction of fiscal soundness, pay-as-you-go, audit the books is the guiding principle." she continued. "Under that, we say that our troops must be provided a future worthy of their sacrifice. While they're fighting, what's happening here at home?"
"Health insurance costs have gone up 70 percent under the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress -- six million more Americans do not have coverage." Pelosi
said. "The cost of gasoline has nearly doubled in the five years of the Bush Administration -- up to $3 a gallon. Tuition for higher education has increased enormously, yet the Bush Administration has taken us in the wrong direction, cutting $12 billion in assistance for higher education. And the purchasing power of middle-income families' wages has been greatly reduced under the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress."
Senate Democratic Leader Reid
echoed the House Leader's concerns over the effect of the republican War Party's military priority and the effect on the nation's debt: "President Bush has presided over the largest explosion of debt in our nation’s history." he said. When President Bush took office, the total national debt was $5.6 trillion. The federal debt has increased 54 percent since President Bush took office, from approximately $5.6 trillion at the end of 2000 to an estimated $8.6 trillion at the end of 2006. By 2011, the President’s budget would increase the public debt to $11.8 trillion," Reid argued.
Democratic Party Chairman Dean
weighed in with his own admonition of the republican War Party: "Instead of engaging in a real debate about the war in Iraq," he says. "Republicans would prefer to engage in partisan attacks for political gain. The troops deserve more than a partisan political production"
Yet, this debate today is more than just a production for the republican War Party. The debate over a new Iraq resolution is the debut of their new persona. The Iraq War Party intends to redefine the Iraq war as the center of the battle of the Bush regime's 'war on terror'. Iraq was first conceived as their breeding ground for an escalation of violent opposition to America and our interests as Bush invited attacks on our soldiers with his battle cry of 'bring them on', and announced his intention to have our troops "fight them there . . .".
The new Iraq resolution refuses a date certain for the withdrawal of our troops and leaves our nation "committed to the completion of the mission" in Iraq. But the 'mission' in Iraq is going to be defined today by the republican War Party as a front in the broader 'war on terror.' "Are we going to confront the threat of terrorism and defeat it, or will we relent and retreat in the hopes that it just goes away?" Boehner said in a statement.
Yet, Bush yesterday rejected the notion that terrorism could be eliminated in Iraq. The best Bush said we could hope for was an 'environment' in which the new Iraqi government could function. That's what Bush and the republican War Party intend to produce for the mortgaging of ours, and our children's' future sacrifices. The defense of the new Iraqi government.
The fate of our nation's soldiers has been left to the whim of the Iraqis. As Bush stated in his press conference yesterday, the generals in Iraq will make the recommendations, in consultation with the Iraqi government. Today Iraq's minister of national security
said the issue of troop withdrawal will be up to the Iraqi parliament.
With no plan to withdraw from Iraq, and an intention to continue to further yoke the product of our nation's citizens work and sacrifice to their failed military adventure there, the republican Iraq War Party is establishing something quite extraordinary in the history of the two-party domination of our nation's political system. The Iraq War Party seeks to commit us to a perpetual defense of their coddled junta, firmly establishing America as a guarantor of the Maliki regime, effective with the perpetual authorization of our military occupation there.
That's what the new Iraq resolution is all about: License for perpetual war, and codifying of the New Imperialism that Bush has been allowed to further and deepen as a result of an ineffective opposition in Congress. The Democratic members of the House weren't allowed to offer any legislative alternative to the War Party's imprimatur of their open embrace of their warmonger persona. They don't need one.
In rejecting this sham document, and in continuing to press the republican majority to return to a focus on America and American needs and concerns, the Democratic Party will prevail as the only party remaining that intends to represent them. The republican Iraq War Party should not be allowed to pull the focus and resources away from our country for their war games. The War party should not be allowed to prevail.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ron_full_060615_the_republican_war_p.htm
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