by Tom Gallagher, published 2/6 on CommonDreams.org
Following the
protest at her January “town hall meeting,” San Francisco Congresswoman
Nancy Pelosi reportedly remarked that the event might give some of her
Washington colleagues a better understanding of the pressures she faces
in her district. In the nation’s capital ( and among the press corps (
she is seen as a leading critic of the war in Iraq, but at home she
faced loud and visible protest against her ongoing support for funding
that same war.
Pelosi actually demonstrated the accuracy of both perceptions at the
event, calling the Iraq war “a grotesque mistake … a tragedy,” while
defending her December 19 vote to continue it by providing an
additional $50 billion in war funding. “The money is for the troops,”
she said ( a point tough to argue( and “I’m not prepared to go against
the troops’ having the equipment they need.”
So
far as her critics in the audience were concerned, though, the only
equipment the troops need is planes to get them out of Iraq. And that
is precisely the equipment they would get under the legislation the war
opponents were pressing Pelosi to support ( the “End the War in Iraq
Act,” introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), would quite simply
prohibit the use of funds to deploy United States Armed Forces to Iraq.
While allowing expenditures for reconstruction or negotiation, the only
American military spending the bill would permit in Iraq would be for
“providing for the safe and orderly withdrawal of the Armed Forces.”
That San Francisco supports immediate withdrawal is not in dispute. 63
percent backed a ballot measure calling upon the federal government to
“bring the troops safely home now” in November, 2004 (the margin was
greater in Pelosi’s district), and all polls show support for the war
shrinking markedly since that time. Pelosi was actually in tune with
her district before the war started ( as Minority Leader, she figured
prominently in the October, 2002 vote when House Democrats opposed the
authorization of force by a 126-81 margin. (Her lower-profile San
Francisco House colleague Tom Lantos has consistently voted for the
war.)
Since then, however, she has staked out a profile disturbingly similar
to the one John Kerry’s presidential campaign rode to defeat in 2004,
attempting to befriend both the war’s opponents and the Pentagon’s
budget-makers. UC Berkeley political scientist Bruce Cain probably
summed up Pelosi’s perception of her situation pretty accurately: “A
lot of the pressures of her constituency point to her taking a very
aggressive position on withdrawing from Iraq. But her role as minority
leader demands that she pick a position that does not damage the
chances of Democrats in races around the country.”
An
earlier local effort urged Pelosi (and Lantos) to co-sponsor a
resolution introduced by fellow California Democrat Lynn Woolsey
declaring “the sense of Congress that the President should develop and
implement a plan to begin the immediate withdrawal of United States
Armed Forces from Iraq.” Despite the urging of 2,000 signatures,
several Democratic Clubs, and the city’s Labor Council, Board of
Supervisors, and Democratic Central Committee, Pelosi (and Lantos)
refused to do so, going so far as to vote against a simplified version
of Woolsey’s resolution offered as a budget amendment, even while a
122-79 majority of the party she leads voted in favor.
But
then came John Murtha’s (D-PA) dramatic call for withdrawal from Iraq (
which Pelosi embraced. So why, then, were Pelosi’s antiwar constituents
still on her case? As a 37-year military man, Murtha makes an unlikely
antiwar leader. Hence his resolution produced far greater media
attention than did the McGovern bill or the Woolsey resolution,
attention which has not extended to the legislation’s details. Not only
does his resolution not specify immediate withdrawal of American
forces, calling for them “to be redeployed” only “at the earliest
practicable date,” but it also states that “a quick-reaction U.S. force
and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in
the region,” seemingly guaranteeing a permanent American military
presence in the area. So, once again, Pelosi has not endorsed actual
withdrawal of troops now, which she presumably fears would fuel
Republican charges of undermining the war effort, but withdrawal
sometime in the future ( which everyone claims to believe in.
The
message of the Pelosi leadership appears to be that Republicans started
the war and it’s up to them to end it so that Democrats can get back to
work on domestic issues. It could well be that this strategy of
criticizing the Administration’s conduct of the war while offering no
clear alternative will actually succeed in this year’s congressional
elections and she will become Speaker of the House. But the approach
does carry great risks of its own, not least of which is ignoring the
basic truism that you can’t beat something with nothing.
While
there are individual Congressional Democrats currently making the good
fight against the war, the Kerry/Pelosi strategy does little to
challenge the presumption that the Republicans remain the party to turn
to when there really are legitimate national security concerns. Should
the voters desert them in November, it will presumably be because they
have realized that this war has had nothing to do with our national
security, except in undermining it by presenting the U.S. as a country
opportunistically using the September 11 attacks to realize long-held
militarily designs.
And
there is a more serious consideration arguing against the passive
approach of hoping the Republicans beat themselves. The basic urgency
of ending this occupation before one more American or Iraqi life is
lost calls out for a party that says just that.
But
speculation on national political strategy aside, one thing is certain
( the people who actually send Nancy Pelosi and Tom Lantos to
Washington, DC are entitled to have their views on war and peace
represented there.
San
Franciscans who would like a copy of a petition calling upon their
congressional representatives to sponsor the “End the War in Iraq Act”
can get one by e-mailing TGTGTGTGTG@aol.com
Tom Gallagher is president of a San Francisco Democratic club.