In honor of these fine soldiers, and their brothers and sisters in arms of whom I am honored to serve with daily, I present the following – to you and to our “leaders.” The latter has forgotten the sacrifice and courage their position and title demands. God let them learn from these brave heroes and finally do their duty.
HOW A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS CAN END THE IRAQ WAR
Dear Democratic Senators and Representatives:
American voter energy, turnout, and choice in 2006 placed you in a position to preside over a rare moment at which you have both the great privilege to make history and the unfathomable responsibility to choose a better path for our endangered future. The greatest factor leading to your party’s congressional leadership takeover was the public’s overwhelming discontent over the Iraq War; that discontent has grown, but to no end. The defensive position of the President and his congressional supporters in continuing this war is well-established and unmoving; the recent “change in strategy” little more than a street hustler’s shell game. While your efforts to end the war have the backing of the overwhelming majority of Americans, an inflexible and unified congressional minority combined with the President’s veto has prevented your caucus’s efforts to end the war. Since January, your tepid attempts have all been successfully blocked to the dismay and disapproval of your political base, while your opponents have paid little, if any, meaningful political price. As the critical defense appropriations bill enters final debate, these circumstances beg two fundamental questions, “Can Congress end this war? And is such an effort worth pursuing?”
The unequivocal answers to both of these questions respectively are yes you can, and you must. A politically tenable means to that end follows, but first you must first realize that what is at stake is nothing less than the US Constitution itself; the laws which form this nation and place its government at the behest of its great citizens. It would be unabashed negligence for Congressional leaders to withhold bold action and meekly allow this President and a minority group in Congress to defy the undeniable will of the people. Neither voters nor history will judge well those who talked tough, but threw up their hands in submission after floating half-measures or engaging in meaningless panderings. Follow not the temptation to sink to the level of Karl Rove either, putting your partisan future ahead of our nation’s needs; to do so means unconscionably prioritizing your party and personal political fortunes ahead of this country’s national security and the thousands more young soldiers and Marines you’ll leave to be maimed or killed in Iraq over the next 12 months. To win this contest of political wills now and live up to the grand ideal of our nation’s founders, you must willfully assume significant political risk. But even the worst-case realization of that risk pales in comparison to the damage this war continually does to our nation or to the sacrifices deployed military members and their families have endured and continue to relentlessly confront.
In developing the means to win this contest, you must first, ala Sun Tzu, study your opponent carefully. Outnumbered and low on resources, they are on the defensive. Given their minority position in Congress and sparse public support, they have no choice left. Their fundamental disadvantage in a defense is that they have ceded the initiative to you, entrenchment and reaction their only options; you control the agenda. Their defense remains deep and formidable; together they can filibuster, veto, and maintain a veto. Unity then is their strategic center of gravity. Also important is their operational center of gravity: their individual and party self-preserving motives. The President persists in Iraq, against all hope for “victory,” to preserve a dignified place in history. With no more elections in his future, he has no reason to follow voters’ wishes and works now only to hand the inevitable chaos of the Iraq withdrawal to his successor. As such, he is largely invulnerable and immoveable. Your congressional opponents are, however, concerned with their own reelections, especially given the losses suffered in 2006. Their vulnerability is limited, however, since most of the Republicans still voting with the President come from solidly “red” states or securely conservative districts. As a Republican caucus, they are also very concerned about preserving a meaningful minority in Congress, which limits the seat losses they will endure in order to maintain unity with the President on Iraq. This makes the tactical center of gravity all the more important: your opponents’ congressional constituency. Understanding and targeting this constituency, which includes your opponents’ power base is the key to achieving victory. These constituents directly affect their congressman’s self-preserving motives, which in turn, can affect your opponents’ willingness to maintain unity with the President.
In planning a successful attack, you must carefully consider these constituents’ political motives. Putting some overgeneralization aside, you’ll find their constituency includes five key groups. The first is made up of “fat cats,” the independently very rich and wealthy businessmen who are solidly within your opponents’ base. Their most important motive so far as Iraq or anything else is concerned is simple: first and always preserve wealth. For most among this group the Iraq war has been transparent, with no sacrifice being asked of them; they’re happy their representatives have managed to preserve the huge Bush tax cuts of 2001 whilst waging a very costly war. For others in this group the war has been a boon, particularly for defense contractors and those in the energy business; these in particular write large pro-war election campaign checks. A second similar group also shoring up your opponents’ base is made up of “Goldwater Republicans,” mostly retirees with many veterans from WWII through the Cold War. While they are also interested in preserving their wealth in retirement, they firmly believe in a strong defense and are fervently patriotic, ready to nuke anyone who threatens the homeland. The third group supporting the base consists of “blue-collar Republicans” from the rural South, Midwest and Western Mountain states. These conservatives are religious, pro-gun, non-union and moderately to lowly-educated farmers, ranchers, craftsmen, small businessmen, and other semi-skilled laborers. Their political leanings are not typically developed through self-discovery, but rather from how they were “brought up” (many raised by Goldwater Republicans). A disproportionate number of the men and women enlisting in the military originate from these families and their communities. Even in the face of mounting war casualties within their small towns, these constituents provide unquestioning support for the Iraq war out of a myopic sense of duty, accepting fully that the Iraq war is “the central front in the war on terror” as knavishly purported by their representatives and locally-popular conservative media.
Outside their base of support are two key groups that are within your opponent’s constituency but now oppose continuing the Iraq War and are ready to vote and even resource opposition campaigns against their sitting congressmen. The first of these groups include well-educated, professional, upper middleclass and semi-independent conservatives. These “moderate independents” voted in large part for both Bush Presidents, helped reelect President Bill Clinton, and were a decisive ballot-casting factor in your 2006 victories. While they voted to end the war in 2006, they have otherwise been content as politically inactive bystanders, disgusted by the inept failure and waste of the Iraq war but personally unaffected and unmoved by it. This group also includes a large number of mature families with children ranging in age from middle school through college; security and opportunity for these kids forms their primary political motives. The final group comprises disenfranchised constituents, educated middle class and anti-war Democrats trapped in “red” Republican states and gerrymandered districts. These “angry orphans” run the gamut from “Generation Y” students to “Generation X” professionals with young children to liberal baby-boomers and Truman seniors. Though vehemently anti-war, their discontented voices are mostly restrained when amongst their pro-war neighbors and coworkers. However, the release of their pent-up frustration provided the critical grass-roots energy in 2006 that changed some long-standing “red” congressional seats to “blue.”
With a general understanding of these key constituent groups, you can now identify some key actions that exploit their vulnerabilities. For the “fat cats” to be turned against the war, all you need do is make them help directly pay for it. A five percent increase in the capital gains and corporate tax rates specifically designated to pay for the war will do exactly that. Given the 500 plus billion dollar war costs thus far borrowed from China and others to be paid back with interest by our children, a special tax is certainly justified and long overdue. Such a tax has solid historical precedence as well; with the Iraq war the only large long-term US conflict in the last 150 years not to be supported with some tax increase.
To filibuster or veto such a measure would not sit well with the “Goldwater Republicans” who are already feeling ill about the exorbitant costs and spendthrift financing of this war. This patriotic group also rightly fears that the war is breaking the US Army and Marines. This group would be truly aghast if you can show them the truly sad state of these services, the clear and present vulnerabilities our national interests face in light of their worst-in-modern-times readiness, the unsustainable number of experienced but burned-out non-commissioned and company grade officers that are leaving the ranks, the all-time-ebb to which recruiting standards have dropped, and the total costs associated with $20,000-$100,000 bonuses being doled out to meet recruiting and retention goals. For this group’s support, you need only expose this horror story and then take action that assures them that continuing the Iraq war will no longer come at the expense of our national defense. A conditional draft will meet this need with clarity. The conditions are these: if total US forces deployed in Iraq are not reduced to 70,000 or less by 30 Apr 2008, a military draft begins 1 June 2008 with 50,000 additional men to be enlisted for not less than 3 years into the Army and Marines by 1 June 2009, the draft continued thereafter as needed to maintain congressionally-mandated end-strengths. This action too has great precedence and no Army or Marine General Officer worth their stars will tell you that this would not be both a great relief and a critical readiness safety net for this country. Once better, the political onus for bringing back the draft will sit with the President; it’s the commander-in-chief alone who chooses to stay in Iraq, not Congress who’s action here only responsibly fulfills its duty in raising and maintaining the Army (and Marines) to meet the nation’s defense. The President may obstinately continue the war, but Congress won’t allow him to irresponsibly break the force in doing so.
With the sacrifices their peer and family member servicemen are making, and given both Bush and Cheney’s well-documented efforts to personally avoid the last draft, the patriotic “blue-collar Republicans” would feel ashamed and be furious should their President or congressman block or refuse such measures under grounds of fairness or lack of necessity. Similar to many lower and middle-class Americans now living paycheck to paycheck, these rural Republicans will also have little tolerance for their congressmen’s echoing of “fat cats” or their lobbyists whining over sacrificing a small tax increase to pay for the war, particularly given recent record corporate profits and record wealth growth for the very rich. This frustration will be enhanced when you enact an addition 5 cent per gallon federal fuel tax. As with the capital gains and corporate tax, this funding will be set aside only to fund the Iraq War and last only until the war ends. Further, such a tax eliminates the perception that Democrats are out only to get the rich. The President fully justified this tax himself recently when he identified protecting Mideast oil supplies as a key rationale for staying in Iraq. Most of this heartland group will accept the additional sacrifice for the war, but won’t be happy about it. Outside of some in Texas and Alaska, members of this group are already angry with the massive rise in fuel prices and openly blame the greed of big US oil companies and OPEC countries; this tax too will be blamed on them. That both Bush and Cheney practically bleed oil will not be lost on anyone either as they are forced to pay more at the pump to protect “big oil.”
Collectively these actions will anger the “moderate independents” but the anger will not be directed at you, it will be aimed at President Bush and his congressional lackeys. Both the capital gains and gas tax will likely hit their pocketbook but will be fully understood and respected; especially given that the sum of all these new taxes will only raise revenues to cover half of the annual Iraq war cost. But more importantly, anger over the possibility of a hypocritical draft-dodging administration drafting their son, grandson, or nephew will overcome their passivity. They will take action to end the war they already disagree with. They will be vocal locally, and will provide the human and monetary resources needed to either unseat their pro-war congressmen or forcefully change his/her mind.
By contrast, the “angry orphans” will not initially understand or agree with the need for a draft; even if conditional, this action will be seen by this group and many other anti-war groups as very controversial. Though intended as an asymmetrical and temporary approach to end the war, some will see the draft issue as counter-productive, a non-starter, and a pure escalation. As such, it will face some opposition in “Blue” states. However, the “orphans” will be heartened by the tax increases and will be quick to put out the welcome mat for the “moderate independents” visibly joining their ranks. Finally, when the dilemma these actions place on their local Congressmen becomes evident and breaks the unity that keeps the war going, support will be wholesale. You will be cheered and revered by them.
Taken together, these actions form an offensive maneuver to defeat your opponents’ defenses and end the war. They are a synchronized whole and will not work individually. To defeat your opponents, you must divide and undermine their base of support, placing each war-defending congressman in a “Catch-22.” Okaying the corporate tax angers their “fat cats,” opposition angers “Goldwater’s” but less so the “blue-collars” unless there’s also a gas tax. Fight the draft and again anger the “Goldwater’s;” okay it and mobilize anti-war “independents.” Collectively these actions are also irrefutably prudent and responsible, with sound basis and precedent; together these actions paint your opponents’ into a corner. Alone they are but obstacles to be outmaneuvered and dismissed as partisan play.
You must leave them no more room to maneuver. Thus far, the President has had both his foolish war and the irresponsibly acquired means to fight it. You, the Democratic Congress must be the responsible adults acting fully within your constitutional roles to hold this spoiled President accountable for his reckless intractability. You must force an all or nothing choice for your opponents. They can have their tantrum and keep their war but they must at least be forced to pay the political price of putting their constituents’ money and lives where their loose, hawkish, and fear-mongering mouths are. If this is not suitable, then they can approve an immediate redeployment from Iraq, two brigades per month until completely out. These must be the only choices you offer them; not a single dollar for the Pentagon until and unless your opponents’ agree to one or the other. It is unthinkable that they could endure the ensuing political pressure through April and keep troops in Iraq such that the conditional draft would commence. If they do manage such folly, at least the war would finally be responsibly funded and not fought at the expense of our greater national defense. Regardless, you will have won an historic victory for the American people in defense of and within the vision set forth for you in our beloved Constitution; now there’s a battle you mustn’t “cut and run” from.
Posted by: Dan, Yongsan Garrison, Korea | September 29, 2007 09:31 AM
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