The Democratic Strategy Revealed: “Slowly Bleed” Our Way To Defeat
Oh, what a horrible choice of words, but how apt. This article is absolutely essential for understanding the Democrats’ anti-war strategy, and unlike the broad-brush ‘speculations’ being peddled for truth throughout much of the left, it’s based on rock-solid reporting.
The strategy, as revealed by Josh Bresnahan:
Top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups, have decided against using congressional power to force a quick end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, and instead will pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration’s options.
Led by Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., and supported by several well-funded anti-war groups, the coalition’s goal is to limit or sharply reduce the number of U.S. troops available for the Iraq conflict, rather than to openly cut off funding for the war itself.
The legislative strategy will be supplemented by a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign designed to pressure vulnerable GOP incumbents into breaking with President Bush and forcing the administration to admit that the war is politically unsustainable.
As described by participants, the goal is crafted to circumvent the biggest political vulnerability of the anti-war movement — the accusation that it is willing to abandon troops in the field. That fear is why many Democrats have remained timid in challenging Bush, even as public support for the president and his Iraq policies have plunged.
…Murtha, the powerful chairman of the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, will seek to attach a provision to an upcoming $93 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. It would restrict the deployment of troops to Iraq unless they meet certain levels adequate manpower, equipment and training to succeed in combat. That’s a standard Murtha believes few of the units Bush intends to use for the surge would be able to meet.
In addition, Murtha, acting with the backing of the House Democratic leadership, will seek to limit the time and number of deployments by soldiers, Marines and National Guard units to Iraq, making it tougher for Pentagon officials to find the troops to replace units that are scheduled to rotate out of the country. Additional funding restrictions are also being considered by Murtha, such as prohibiting the creation of U.S. military bases inside Iraq, dismantling the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and closing the American detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
…Pelosi and other top Democrats are not yet prepared for an open battle with the White House over ending funding for the war, and they are wary of Republican claims that Democratic leaders would endanger the welfare of U.S. troops. The new approach of first reducing the number of troops available for the conflict, while maintaining funding levels for units already in the field, gives political cover to conservative House Democrats who are nervous about appearing “anti-military” while also mollifying the anti-war left, which has long been agitating for Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to be more aggressive.
“What we have staked out is a campaign to stop the war without cutting off funding” for the troops, said Tom Mazzie of Americans Against Escalation of the War in Iraq. “We call it the ‘readiness strategy.’”
Murtha’s proposal, which has been kept under tight wraps, is likely to pass the House next month or in early April as part of the supplemental spending bill, Democratic insiders said, if the language remains tightly focused and does not threaten funding levels for combat forces already in the field. The battle will then shift to the Senate. Anti-war groups like Mazzie’s are prepared to spend at least $6.5 million on a TV ad campaign and at least $2 million more on a grass-roots lobbying effort. Vulnerable GOP incumbents like Sens. Norm Coleman of Minnestoa, Susan Collins of Maine, Gordon Smith of Oregon and John Sununu of New Hampshire will be targeted by the anti-war organizations, according to Mazzie and former Rep. Tom Andrews, D-Maine, head of the Win Without War Coalition.
Mazzie also said anti-war groups would field primary and general election challengers to Democratic lawmakers who do not support proposals to end the war, a direct challenge to conservative incumbents who are attempting to straddle the political line between their pro- and anti-war constituents.
If the Senate does not approve these new funding restrictions, or if Senate Republicans filibuster the supplemental bill, Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership would then be able to ratchet up the political pressure on the White House to accede to their demands by “slow-walking” the supplemental bill. Additionally, House Democrats could try to insert the Murtha provisions into the fiscal 2008 defense authorization and spending bills, which are scheduled to come to the floor later in the year.
“We will set benchmarks for readiness,” said a top Democratic leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. If enacted, these provisions would have the effect of limiting the number of troops available for the Bush surge plan, while blunting the GOP charge that Democrats are cutting funding for the troops. “We are not cutting funding for any [unit] in Iraq,” said the aide, who admitted the Democratic maneuver would not prevent the president from sending some additional forces to Baghdad. “We want to limit the number who can go … We’re trying to build a case that the president needs to change course.”
There will be some very tough questions the Democrats will have to answer on their march to defeat. One will be:
If the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces, in consultation with the generals on the ground, determines that more troops are needed to shore up our efforts and ensure the success of our mission and the safety of our troops, and you decide to deny those troops and supplies, under what possible definition can you be said to ‘support the troops’ while dooming their efforts to failure?
If the Democrats are expecting that Bush’s low approval ratings will make this a cakewalk, they are sadly mistaken. The war at home is just beginning…
Ah yes, it’s the Democrats who will be responsible for defeat. Bush has f**ked things up royally for almost 4 years–to the point where there is no realistic chance of anything good happening there–but it will be the Democrats who “march to defeat.” Of course.
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Oh, I’m sorry, Anonymous – the Democrats are marching to victory, am I right?…please, don’t even try to pretend the Democrats are trying to win anymore. They certainly don’t pretend to! It’s all about cutting off funding, ‘slow bleeding’, getting out…only the hated Joe Lieberman still cares enough to try for victory…
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.
— President Abraham Lincoln
Surely if President Lincoln said this there is a way President Bush can make it happen today. I’ll help build the gallows and trip the trap door.
Democrats are taking the cowardly road that they believe will protect them politically. If they truly want to end the war in Iraq – and some here have said they are obligated to given the will of the people as expressed in November’s election – then, dammit, follow Ted Kennedy’s lead and do it. I don’t agree but would respect them for asserting their power to advance their principles.
Instead it is half-measures and obfuscation to enable political cover. Pussies.
Lincoln never said the quote attributed to him in post 5. It is a fabricated quote which first appeared in a right wing publication and has been used by right wingers ever since to justify the completely un-American concept that to debate the war is somehow treasonous.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/02/14/neoconservatism/
This tactic (of taking fabricated information printed in right wing publications and repeating them as gospel truth) is by no means limited to the blogosphere.
One of the things which came out in the Libby trial is the sequence of events when the administration leaked a phony story to the Weekly Standard of purported ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda. This was then cited by Cheney as the “best available evidence” and used to justify the invasion of Iraq. So it is a circular process where false information is planted in a right wing publication and then used as evidence to justify the invasion.
For those who think that the administration did not lie in getting us to war: what would you call this?
Peter’s right about the Lincoln quote…it has been shown to be a fabrication, in the last couple of days, in fact, I think…
Peter, you’re wrong about this being a ‘right-wing’ problem, though – for years, my progressive friends have been annoying me with some purported quote from Thomas Jefferson about dissent being the highest form of patriotism…only Jefferson never said it…
The FactCheck article disproving the quote appeared in August, 2006.
Ah, okay…thanks for the info…
In fact, Peter, I think I recall you using the phony Jefferson quote! I’m sure you didn’t know it was phony, though, but it is…
I hate to go there, but the Jefferson quote seems to fall into the “fake but accurate” category. Here’s an actual Jefferson quote:
“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.”
Not exact, but along the same lines. As for the Lincoln quote, the factcheck article does a good job of not just proving that the quote was false, but that Lincoln more than likely would never have endorsed any of the sentiment behind it in the first place.
http://www.factcheck.org/article415.html
Waller’s article, which asserted Lincoln’s position, was riddled with errors in the first place:
Fargus, it’s a long way from saying dissent can sometimes be valuable to saying it’s the highest form of patriotism…
Never used (or heard of) the faux Jefferson quote — sounds like something Thoreau might have said which was misattributed to Jefferson –
My mistake…
Never said it was the same thing. In fact, if you look back, I made a point afterwards of saying it’s NOT the same thing. But it’s at least a plausible notion, whereas FactCheck’s article makes it pretty solidly clear that Lincoln would never have expressed a sentiment anything like the one expressed in Waller’s “quote.”
[...] “a slow-bleed to defeat, [...]
I’m at the point where I cant believe anything I read or hear from either party about the other or from any media source. Everything seems to resonate bias. I cant believe that says that any american could really be willing to put the troops in harms way for any agenda no matter how passionate the accusation. Does anyone else feel that both parties are picking each others words apart to make the other look unpatriotic?