In an across-the-board capitulation to the Bush White House, the House of Representatives voted at the end of this week to approve another $162 billion to fund the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while also passing legislation that legalizes the administration’s domestic spying program.
Bush credited “bipartisan cooperation” for a war-funding vote that would give “our troops the funds they need to prevail without tying the hands of our commanders in the field or imposing artificial timetables for withdrawal.” The surveillance law, he added, would “help our intelligence professionals learn our enemies’ plans for new attacks.”
The congressional Democrats have given the administration more funds than it requested for the two wars—paying in advance for most of fiscal 2009—in order to avoid another vote on war funding in October, on the eve of the national elections. Their aim is to get the issue “off the table” now so that they can better posture as opponents of the war and appeal to mass antiwar sentiments at the height of the election contest.
In a pathetic and hypocritical speech from the floor of Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared: “Let us hope that this is the last time there will ever be another dollar spent without restraints, without conditions, without direction. Why should we trust the same judgment that got us here in the first place in this war?”
The Democratic-led Congress has passed this legislation to pay for another year of war and to eviscerate constitutional rights less than five months before an election in which they intend to make two-faced appeals to the massive popular hostility towards the Bush administration.
What the actions this week on Capitol Hill make clear, however, is that the election of a Democratic administration headed by Barack Obama in the fall will by no means spell an end to the reactionary policies pursued by Washington over the previous eight years.
They are cowards! Not a person of principle left in politics! And they wonder why their popularity is at 23%. They have done little that they were sent to Washington to do–they give everything lip service, but none have the conviction to end the crap of the Bush years. And it does not look like the next 8 years or so will be any better. You have my sympathy!