Prepare for a Filibuster-Proof Majority

If the Republicans want to keep talking like they want to end the war but block even the debate about stopping it, they're doomed to the minority for a long, long time. People like John Warner and Chuck Hagel, who filibustered THEIR OWN resolution, are simply terrified of offending their Dear Leader of a President. Think Progress has the list of names of those who talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk.

– Sen. John Warner (R-VA): “Sen. John Warner (R-VA) will introduce a resolution today ‘making clear that he does not support the President on increasing the troop levels in Iraq’ and calling escalation ‘a mistake,’.”

– Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE): “It’s Alice in Wonderland. … I’m absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR): “This is the president’s Hail Mary pass. … We are extending an ineffective tactic to further the status quo.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. John Sununu (R-NH): “Sen. John Sununu told CNN Tuesday he will not support President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,000 U.S. troops to Iraq, although he hasn’t yet decided whether to back a Democratic resolution opposing the move.”

– Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME): “We should not place more American servicemen and women in harm’s way to instill a peace that the Iraqis are not willing to seek for themselves.” (Cosponsored Warner resolution.)

– Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS): “I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer. … Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution.”

– Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA): “We’re all looking for a plan that will work. … The current plan is not working, and 21,500 additional troops — it’s a snowball in July. It’s not going to work.“

There's going to be a debate on Iraq, no question about it. These hypocrites are only delaying the inevitable. But in the process, they've told the whole country that they support the President's plan for Iraq. They can SAY whatever they want, but ultimately that's what this comes down to. They are in favor of this President having a completely free hand in determining military matters, without even so much as questioning from the legislative branch.

This is the exact opposite of what the American people want. They want the Congress to stop this quagmire. Not only that, the troops themselves have no belief in this escalation and think it will fail.

"To be honest, it's going to be like this for a long time to come, no matter what we do," said Hardy, 25, of Atlanta. "I think some people in America don't want to know about all this violence, about all the killings. The people back home are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated."

While senior military officials and the Bush administration say the president's decision to send more American troops to pacify Baghdad will succeed, many of the soldiers who're already there say it's a lost cause.

"What is victory supposed to look like? Every time we turn around and go in a new area there's somebody new waiting to kill us," said Sgt. 1st Class Herbert Gill, 29, of Pulaski, Tenn., as his Humvee rumbled down a dark Baghdad highway one evening last week. "Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for thousands of years, and we're not going to change that overnight."

"Once more raids start happening, they'll (insurgents) melt away," said Gill, who serves with the 1st Infantry Division in east Baghdad. "And then two or three months later, when we leave and say it was a success, they'll come back."

We're running a counterinsurgency strategy against a civil war, meaning we have to take up sides in the conflict and consider the other side the insurgents. This is exactly why the Mahdi army is sitting it out and waiting for the US troops to do their dirty work for them.

The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq's security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.

U.S. Army commanders and enlisted men who are patrolling east Baghdad, which is home to more than half the city's population and the front line of al-Sadr's campaign to drive rival Sunni Muslims from their homes and neighborhoods, said al-Sadr's militias had heavily infiltrated the Iraqi police and army units that they've trained and armed.

"Half of them are JAM. They'll wave at us during the day and shoot at us during the night," said 1st Lt. Dan Quinn, a platoon leader in the Army's 1st Infantry Division, using the initials of the militia's Arabic name, Jaish al Mahdi. "People (in America) think it's bad, but that we control the city. That's not the way it is. They control it, and they let us drive around. It's hostile territory."

(by the way, both of those stories are from the great Tom Lasseter, one of the best journalists working in Iraq today)

But of course, there's no reasoning with Senators who know these arguments, who EMPLOY these arguments, and who then vote in the exact opposite fashion. There's only one thing to do, and that's to make sure that everyone knows about the dishonesty of these men and women, every day until they're up for re-election. They will not survive being yoked to Mr. 32%, and they will certainly not survive while giving up their Constitutional responsibility to act as a co-equal branch of government. Their actions yesterday tell the country that they are not necessary. The voters will tell them the same son enough.