Toothless in Babylon

The way things are headed, in two or three months we'll have 95 percent of the American people wanting a pullout from the war in Iraq and 95 percent of Congress obediently voting for funds to keep the troops there. At the start of October only 27 percent of Americans wanted Congress to greenlight the $190 billion Bush has requested to go on fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Washington Post summed up its poll, conducted with ABC News, thus: "Most Americans do not believe Congress has gone far enough in opposing the war."

Here we are in the gray dawn of the twenty-first century, but only a handful of senators and reps dare stand up to be counted on matters of war and peace. The Kyl-Lieberman amendment recommending that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps be placed on the US government's blacklist as a "terrorist organization" was clearly hatched as a way for Bush to attack Iran without seeking Congressional approval. It cantered through the Senate with only twenty-two opposing. The House approved a similar measure with only sixteen nays, just twelve of them Democrats.

The day before the Senate vote, in the Democratic debate at Dartmouth College, candidates Clinton, Obama and Edwards refused to commit to having all US troops out of Iraq by the end of a first White House term--January 2013. The shortest timeline for withdrawal is offered in Senator Russell Feingold's amendment, which requires troops to be out of Iraq by June 30, 2008. That amendment has only twelve Senate co-sponsors, Clinton and Obama conspicuous by their absence.

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