Verbosities

Hullabaloo - Politics Under Water

You see, the Pentagon is so strapped for cash --- every single year --- that they have to come begging for more money just to put shoes on the troops' feet. They do this on purpose so they don't have to cut any of that juicy delicious Military Industrial Complex pork. We know this. It's on the record, easily found in 30 seconds worth of Googling. But because of this absurdly cryptic, symbolic way we have of communicating in this country now, not to mention the ownership of our politics by big money interests, we aren't even allowed to bring it up. The yearly "supplemental" battle is really just the latest administration blackmail demand for more taxpayer money for their contributors, with Bush holding a gun to the troops' heads and saying "don't make me do it." We are arguing about a solution for a problem that wouldn't exist if the president didn't create it each and every year.



But that is such an obscure point that it isn't even relevant. Instead of questioning why we are funding anything in this clearly opaque and illegal way, we are stuck in this confusing feed-back loop of PR, marketing and spin, struggling forward to 2008 trying to see through the dirty political water to what is actually going on. It's difficult.

There really are only a few reasons why I've chosen to spend a great deal of energy thinking and writing about politics of late, and one of those reasons is the corruption of logic, reason and discourse in our system, illustrated just above.



Our military is at war, and our military has a budget which gets ratified by the legislature every year. However, for a variety of reasons the Pentagon isn't submitting the costs of this war in their budget, but are using supplementals that exist outside of that process to pay for the war (among other things).



Why?



Simply put, it's an ongoing rhetorical game that allows the administration to inextricably connect their warmongering* with the safety of the troops**. The idea that our soldiers might be stuck digging into an empty ammo bag in the middle of a gunfight with al Qaeda because Nancy Pelosi didn't pass a "clean" supplemental is powerful imagery, but patently false. If, hypothetically, Congress made the administration swallow (er, had the ability to make the administration swallow) a supplemental that mandated a withdrawal - that is, to let the administration know their next supplemental request would not be considered - it stretches credulous belief to think that this (or any) administration would keep our soldiers out there knowing the money wasn't going to be there past some certain date.



In other words, the connection between "support the troops and give them what they need" and "pass a 'clean' bill without restrictions" is a well-spun lie. The only way it's not a lie is if you believe George Bush would leave troops in harm's way without the equipment to do their jobs. It wouldn't be Congress' fault, as they would be using their Constitutionally available best action to pressure the President into ending our involvement in this conflict.



*By "warmongering," I mean both the actual continuation of a wildly unpopular war, as well as the continued spending that supports the military-industrial complex - that is, putting the big ticket items like the Future Combat System in the yearly budget, but selling America later on an "urgent need" on something like body armor for deployed troops, something they most certainly knew they needed prior to finalizing their budgets for the year. By the way, this actually happened in 2004.



**The other rhetorical games around the perpetuation of the war include "winning/losing" and "they'll follow us home," both of which are as much a rhetorical game as anything due to their manipulation of some combination of fact and biased projection into an easy-to-swallow bumper sticker policy. It is, however, inarguable that the discussions around the supplemental also include and rely heavily upon the "support the troops" mantra.



It's really quite ingenious, but only because Democratic politicians keep accepting the framework and playing within its confines, which ends up leading to this (emphasis his):



Glenn Greenwald - The Complete Myth Driving Our Iraq Debate

Polls consistently demonstrate that Americans overwhelmingly favor compelled withdrawal of the troops from Iraq. Other than defunding, they overwhelmingly favor every legislative mechanism for achieving that goal -- from a straightforward bill setting a mandatory time deadline to a rescission of the resolution authorizing military force to compulsory benchmarks. Yet polls are equally uniform in showing that a solid majority of Americans oppose de-funding.

The only answer as to why this sort of irrational gap in understanding exists is in understanding the rhetoric surrounding the discussion. For years now the right-wing has been way ahead of the left in building a message around their issues and selling these messages effectively to the public (while some might argue that the idea has to be a good one to begin with, I give you The Clean Skies Act). Anyway, the point is that the Republican party has been extremely effective for the last few decades at framing their issues around moral values ("moral" does not mean Christian, except when it does) or emotional principles instead of relying on the marketplace to sort out the value of the policy on its merits. The left, on the other hand, hasn't been good at constructing messages and finding ways of making things like pollution regulations important to the average American.



The trouble with appealing to the average American is that for as opinionated as we want to be, we as a people have neither the attention span nor ability to comprehend difficult issues, so we tend to accept the arguments presented to us in ways that are easy to accept. That's why we have the "win/lose" paradigm, despite no conceivable scenario in this world right now where we are either currently "winning" (or on track to do so), nor will we "lose" this war to a victorious opposing force***. That's why we have politicians telling us "they'll follow us home," because it frames the necessity of the war as an "either/or" proposition, where it's either our brave military pushing these guys back across the 38th parallel (cough), or coming to your mall on Labor Day to blow themselves up in the middle of Abercrombie and Fitch****.



And that's why we're constantly reminded to support the troops. You cannot possibly be against our volunteer forces, so instead of focusing the budgetary discussions on perpetrating the war, talk about how refusing to pass a supplemental means our boys will be sitting ducks for the opposition forces.



***This administration conceded up front that this war on terror will likely go on for years, and won't have a surrender ceremony on a battleship. Further, the hawkish pundits on the right have as much as said that this war is likely going to be perpetual, not just long. Whether or not we secure Baghdad and help them "stand up so we can stand down" in Iraq has no ultimate bearing on the existence of terrorism as a tactic of Islamic extremists. There may be goals that remain unachieved in Iraq which relate to the so-called GWOT, but it's asinine to say that a withdrawal from Iraq is a loss in the so-called GWOT, as there is no victor to lose to.



****Also asinine: arguing this point when you also wish to remind us that the Fort Dix Six are terrorists. Shouldn't they be fighting us over there then, instead of over here? Remember kids, causation does not necessarily imply correlation, and our law enforcement efforts to root out terror cells in this country don't have anything to do with toppling Saddam Hussein.



It's also putting war opponents (i.e., Democrats) in an ugly position. On one hand, they were elected to end the war. On the other, a vote for a bill with timelines is equated to defunding the troops instead of dictating their withdrawal. If they pass a bill with timelines, they face questions about hating the troops (or losing or homeland security or not being "serious" about terrorism, et al). If they pass a "clean" bill (good lord, how I hate that talking point) they're tagged as voting for a war that remains tremendously unpopular, and will be forced to account for their role in its perpetration come next election, probably without irony by the same party that forces them into the vote in the first place.



And it's all due to rhetorical games and the refusal of Democratic legislators to attempt to take back the message.



Would the supplemental with the timelines from March have funded the troops? Yes.



Would the supplemental with the timelines have put the troops in unnecessary danger of running out of bullets or body armor or food? No.



Would the supplemental with the timelines have forced the administration to begin to plan a reasonable withdrawal using intelligent logistics (i.e., not a ramshackle overnight pullout on Tuesday because funds ran out unexpectedly on a Monday)? Yes.



Are these all things that are polling with strong numbers among Americans? Yes.



Are our lawmakers intelligent enough people to realize all of the above? I'd hope so. So why are we stuck with weak-willed Democrats in Congress who say things like this, courtesy of Carl Levin?



I think (cutting off funding) sends the wrong message to our troops. We're going to support our troops, and one way to support them is to find a way out of Iraq earlier, rather than later."



He's the chair of the GDMF Armed Services Committee for chrissakes, so you know he's only saying this stuff out loud so it doesn't wash back in his face next election.



It's a surreal political environment out there, often predicated on this sort of rhetorical gamesmanship, and it's frustrating that Americans don't see this wordplay for what it is. Unfortunately, so long as we have politicians on the left who won't give their constituencies enough credit to get the difference between defunding and the safety of the troops, we're stuck watching this absurdist theatre play out every time a supplemental "needs" to get through Congress. Since the Democrats have, for some reason, conceded the idea of discussing the war in terms of morals and emotions, the right gets their money, gets their perpetual war, and gets to tar and feather their opponents next election, no matter what decision they make.



Ingenious. Depressing, but ingenious.

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