Ostatni Senator!!!

[Gość: Nihil]

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/justincol.html

November 5, 2003

THE LAST SENATOR
One man had the moral courage to stand up to the War Party in the well of
the U.S. Senate
by Justin Raimondo

Those cowards in the U.S. Senate wouldn't be put on the record as having
voted in favor of the $87 billion appropriation for waging war on Iraq –
they preferred a voice vote. When it came time to speak out, very few were
actually in the Senate chambers, and the muttered assent of these few
stragglers was put to shame by the stentorian "Nay!" of Senator Robert Byrd
(D-West Virginia) – the last man with any balls in the U.S. Senate. The New
York Times reported Byrd's lonely defiance:

"The voice vote took place late this afternoon, with only a few senators in
the chamber. Although the voice vote allowed for passage without any
negative votes being officially recorded, the approval took place over the
conspicuously shouted 'no' of Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, one
of the few lawmakers in the chamber."

In his magnificent speech excoriating what he called "a monument to
failure," Senator Byrd took on the "support the troops" contingent with
typical acerbity, pointing out that "endorsing and funding a policy that
does nothing to relieve American troops in Iraq is not a 'support the
troops' measure."

To vote no was to support the troops against the suicidal policies of their
civilian overseers, which, at nearly that very moment, were unfolding in
Iraq: the U.S. Headquarters itself, in the supposedly sacrosanct "Green
Zone," came under attack from Iraqi insurgents. Byrd pledged to "fight for a
coherent policy that brings real help – not just longer deployments and
empty sloganeering – to American forces in Iraq."

That dig about the longer deployments hits the War Party where it really
hurts, for nothing unnerves them more than dissent in the ranks – and it is
rife. I am very pleased to note that the recent antiwar demonstrations in
Washington had military personnel and their families in the very front ranks
of the march. Our top generals and other military experts were early and
very vocal opponents of this war, correctly warning that the real battle
wouldn't begin until after Saddam had been defeated. Now a new enemy arises
from the desert sands of Iraq, a nationalist insurgency that grows more
violent and more widespread with each passing day.

On the eve of the war's deadliest day so far, Congress voted to fund a
policy that was falling apart even before the final vote was taken. That
should tell us everything we need to know about our elected representatives.
If Byrd is the last sane man in the Senate, it isn't much better in the
House, where the supposedly anti-war Democrats were split roughly down the
middle, with 82 yeas and 115 nays. Of all the Democratic presidential swarm,
only Dennis Kucinich came out in opposition to the War Party's boondoggle.

More interestingly, 5 heroic Republicans went on the record as opposing
their leaders' folly. Those sneering Europeans who think Texas is synonymous
with Bushian warmongering should know that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), one of
the Fearless Five, is the single most consistent antiwar voice in the House.

If Paul represents the Old Republican Right of Robert A. Taft, then Bryd, on
the other hand, represents the populist pre-Rooseveltian spirit of the
Democratic party, as embodied in, say, the staunchly anti-imperialist
William Jennings Bryan. Together, these two currents – a majority in the
general population – represented no more than 25 percent of the final House
vote. This is what is means to be a "democracy," the joys of which we're
exporting to Iraq.

This war has reached a turning point politically as well as militarily. In a
poll taken before the disastrous downing of a Chinook helicopter, in which
16 American soldiers were killed, for the first time a majority of Americans
opposed U.S. policy in Iraq. The antiwar movement needs to mobilize that
sentiment behind a clear and concrete proposal to get us out.

Congress, which is supposed to be the "voice of the people," is, instead,
the instrument of war profiteers, special interest groups, and an
administration that has been hijacked by a piratical band of war-maddened
ideologues. Democracy, which the neocons want to impose at gunpoint
throughout the Middle East, is failing. The U.S. Congress just isn't cutting
it, as this shameful capitulation to the imperial Presidency demonstrates
beyond doubt..

Are we powerless, then, to stop America's headlong rush off a precipice? It
may be that our fate is to end up in the abyss of Empire, but we still have
a very long way to fall. The American political elites are corrupt, and
power-mad, but hubris is not yet imbued in the popular psyche – the fatal
flaw in Roman, British, and Euro-continental political culture. The most
powerful weapon in the antiwar arsenal is the anti-imperialist legacy of the
Founders of this country: their spirit lives on in the American heartland.

So, yes, there is hope, but the hour grows late. The neoconservative cabal
that has seized the White House, occupied the commanding heights of the
Department of Defense and the intelligence community, and pulled off a
virtual coup d'etat, isn't going to give up power without a fight. Their
newest line – or, rather, their latest reiteration of an old mantra – is
that we have to "fight them in the streets of Baghdad so we don't have to
fight them in the streets of New York," as New York Governor George Pataki
put it on MSNBC's "Buchanan & Press" the other day.

But we are fighting them in the streets of New York, and every other
American city – at least, one hopes so – and that's where the real war has
to be waged. A whopping 70 percent of Americans opposed spending $87 billion
on fixing Iraq's schools and jump-starting their state-owned oil companies.
One wonders if they would oppose this same sum spent on securing our borders
and improving safety procedures.

The "good news," this administration's amen corner insists, is that the
schools of Iraq are open. But what about the very bad news that a young
prankster can smuggle box-cutters aboard a jetliner – are we supposed to
pretend that it's not happening? Instead of arresting that kid, they ought
to give him a medal – along with that wacky guy who got himself shipped in a
box from New York to Dallas. If a person hiding in a box could make it
through "security" undetected, then why couldn't a "dirty nuke" get through?

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

ANDREW SULLIVAN, DRAMA QUEEN – In my last "Notes in the Margin" (scroll
down), I noted the publication of a comprehensive piece in Scotland's Sunday
Herald, in which the story of Israel's close surveillance of the 9/11
hijackers is detailed. Andrew Sullivan, writing in his blog, also took note.
With his usual disregard for facts and objective analysis, Sullivan
extracted what he called "the money quote" preceded by a typically
ridiculous subhead: "The Left and Anti-Semitism." The "money quote" consists
of a reiteration of the known facts: that 5 Israelis were arrested on 9/11
after witnesses saw them dancing with joy at the sight of the burning World
Trade Center. As Herald writer Neil Mackay put it:

"Their discovery and arrest that morning is a matter of indisputable fact.
To those who have investigated just what the Israelis were up to that day,
the case raises one dreadful possibility: that Israeli intelligence had been
shadowing the al-Qaeda hijackers as they moved from the Middle East through
Europe and into America where they trained as pilots and prepared to suicide-
bomb the symbolic heart of the United States."

Sullivan doesn't dispu