Why Do We Need the Democrats?

On Saturday, just four days after Vice President Dick Cheney shuffled out from under his rock to declare on CNN that he thought that proposals to close Guantánamo were a bad idea and that operational plans for Iraq were not the business of Congress, Democrats failed to fulfil a promise, made during the previous week, to “send members home for the August recess with fresh votes on legislation that would repudiate President Bush’s execution of the ‘global war on terror,’” remaining silent on Guantánamo and Iraq, and approving instead the President’s plans to expand his program of warrantless eavesdropping on foreign “suspects.” As part of measures to shave just $3.5 billion off the President’s insane request for $459.6 billion for Defense appropriations (that’s less than 1 percent of a figure so colossal that it matches the cumulative defense spending of the UK, France, Germany, Japan, China, Russia, Italy, Saudi Arabia, India, South Korea, Australia, Canada and Spain), Representative John Murtha (D-Pa.) had indicated that he would put forward an amendment that would “require that US forces be fully trained and equipped before deploying to Iraq” (which rather begs the question of how shambolic the current process is), and another that “would close the Guantánamo prison in six months,” but in the end, faced with the prospect of losing votes and inflaming partisan tensions, he withdrew his amendments, and the bill passed by 395 votes to 13. Counterpunch