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Sunday, May 27, 2007

Dems Mislead Public on De-funding of Iraq War

It was good to see Cindy Sheehan dumping the democrats. She is apparently attending a conference over July 4 to build an alternative to the two corporate parties. Below is a portion of an article by lawyer Glenn Greenwald laying out the reasons for the US public's persistent unwillingness to back de-funding of the war--basically Greenwald says the Dems have gone right along with Bush's argument about that issue. Neither Greenwald or Cindy explicitly say why the Dems have done this. When the debate reaches the point that corporate control of the government is acknowledged, we might have the basis on which to build that alternative. Linda

"Time and again, even those Democrats who supported a mandatory troop withdrawal would talk about de-funding like it was some sort of grotesque act of betrayal ("oh, absolutely not, we will not de-fund the war. We will support our troops"). Over and over, this is what Americans heard even from Democrats who oppose the war:

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have their own divisions. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has called for initiating a withdrawal but has rejected a cutoff in funding. "I think that sends the wrong message to our troops," he said a few days ago. "We're going to support our troops, and one way to support them is to find a way out of Iraq earlier, rather than later."
"Is it any wonder that Americans reached the completely irrational conclusion that to de-fund the war is to endanger the troops? Not only were Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman saying this, so, too, were most leading Democratic war opponents.

"Thus, it was perfectly natural for Americans to assume that if virtually everyone -- including war opponents -- agreed that de-funding was the one measure that should not be considered, then there must be something truly dangerous and radical about it. Since virtually everyone rejected it as an option, it became toxic, and even most Americans who want an end to the war no matter how it is achieved turned against defunding.

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