Carrying Water

As I wrote somewhere below the democrats will bring water to douse any republican cajones crackling in the fire. It begins with: Homeward Bound Act. Bipartisan supported of course, sponsored by the left of center Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and "Freedom Frier" Walter Jones (R-NC). Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Ron Paul (R-TX) along with cosponsors Martin Meehan (D-MA) and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)

The Act requires BushCo announce a withdrawal plan by the end of this year and begin withdrawal by October 2006. Not gonna happen. With those permanent US bases in Iraq the US will be there "training" squads of Iraqi to keep the peace (protect US interests) for many years and generations of insurgents.

This week we arrived at Nixon's "Silent Majority" speech, November 1969: a vague promise in "which we will withdraw all of our forces from Vietnam on a schedule in accordance with our program, as the South Vietnamese become strong enough to defend their own freedom." (Insert Iraq.)

Way back yonder in the 1960s Senator Fulbright (known as a moderate dove of the Foreign Relations Committee) and congress were unwilling to confront Johnson on a timetable for Vietnam withdrawal, citing the "responsibilities of the United States as a great power" and to stall pulling troops out of the jungle.

Fulbright, Arkansas democrat, issued statements such as "rather than provoke a constitutional confrontation on the war…the committee was trying to exercise its responsibility in our constitutional system in as restrained and responsible a way as possible." An intellectual way of screwing reality with just a hint that to do otherwise would, god forbid, create a confrontational crisis and really BuFu us little people (stay the course). The Fulbright Hearings began in 1971 to "hear" testimony and debate, by hawks and doves, on the war in Southeast Asia. It was another 4 years before the US was completely out of VN and successfully rubbing Nixon's face in the mud.

April 17, 1971 Nixon stated: "Our goal is a total American withdrawal from Vietnam." Same goal back then (withdrawal), same issue (how to accomplish the goal). In 1971 we had the My Lai massacre, the NYT publishing the Pentagon Papers, approximately 47,000 dead soldiers, and Nixon announcing we were taking a defensive role in Vietnam and leaving offensive attacks to the South Vietnamese. It sounds so familiar. Massacres, paper leaks, death tolls, just don't have the same effect these days.

The time is upon us for hearings, bipartisan congressional bills, homeboy Acts named to induce a warm fuzzy and insinuate the end is near. We're at the political stage of not questioning the justification for our engagement in the War or hold anyone accountable, but the years of debating military withdrawal strategy, aka carrying water for the warmongers.