CPTnet
24 April 2007
IRAQ REFLECTION: A vote won't end war

by Peggy Gish

  The majority of Americans say they want to end the war in Iraq and bring
U.S. military forces home. A recent Pew Research Poll reports that 59%
support withdrawal of troops by August 2008. Polls also show that the
majority of Iraqis also want the U.S. military to leave.

  The U.S has just come through a vigorous debate over the House and
Senate bills that would appropriate money to continue paying for the
war, but also ask for a timeline for withdrawal. Many Americans opposed
to the war support these bills. I cannot.

  In these bills, provisions for troop withdrawal are very weak and still
support George Bush's overall war plan. The House bill set September 1,
2008 as the date by which the military could use war funding for Iraq
only for troop withdrawal. It merely requires the President to seek
Congressional approval before spending new funds to extend the
occupation. Nancy Pelosi's plan has U.S. soldiers redeploying from Iraq
to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda there. The Senate voted to start
withdrawal in March 2009, but this schedule is not binding on the
President and in the end might mean nothing.

  Both bills continue to provide massive expenditures to keep the war going.

  This legislative wrangling appears as a serious move to end the war,
while actually perpetuating it. The debate has absorbed a lot of the
energy of well-meaning citizens who thought they were making a
difference by their work to support the bills.

  Each day that the war goes on is another day of suffering for the Iraqi
people and more time for groups using terror to become more firmly
established. An Iraqi friend from Baghdad told us this winter, "We are
tired of all our suffering." Another said, "Sending more troops into
Baghdad only increases our hell." Iraqis are afraid of more violence if
and when the U.S. leaves, but also see that it is happening even with
the U.S. staying on.

   Many Iraqis we talk to see the violent and controlling presence of
foreign military as the main precipitating factor in the escalating
violence, division and struggle for power among the different ethnic
and religious groups. They believe that U.S .military presence
actually stymies reconciliation and power sharing.

President Bush's unrealistic promises and justifications as well as empty
legislative efforts mask what is really going on in Iraq. We must cut off
any additional funding for this war and end it. We must stop blaming the
Iraqis for our mistakes and must insist that the U.S. make real financial
reparations to the Iraqis. We must continue to call our leaders to
accountability for the misspent billions of dollars and huge cost in human
lives their policies have wrought.

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