After weeks of work at the grassroots level collecting letters from US tax payers written to their representatives in DC and lobbying on the Hill, the House of Representatives has finally passed a measure prohibiting the Pentagon from using funds towards building any permanent military base in Iraq, or even have agreements with the Iraqi government to .
Some weeks after, several thousands of letters and phone calls were generated to DC, and a similar amendment was passed by the Senate in which no future funds could be used to “establish permanent United States military bases in Iraq, or to exercise United States control over the oil infrastructure or oil resources of Iraq”.
Sadly, some Congressional Republicans had something else to say after the two measures passed. Senate aides stated that Republican staffers removed the provisions from the bills just before House and Senate negotiators convened two weeks ago in a late-night work session to write a compromise spending bill.
I wonder how a small group of anonymous “staffers” could manage to stand against the will of the US people, the peace and justice movement, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. I am now haunted by a number of old apathetic questions and suggestions concerning democracy in the US, and I really don’t know how to respond to anyone who will ask, “What is the point of wasting paper and time if a few Republican staffers can just wipe out the will of the people with a stroke of a pen?”
There is an alarming percentage of US tax-payers who have already lost their faith in changing the Bush administration’s plans in Iraq through contacting their representatives in DC. This mistrust in the Bush Administration is also true in the case of Iraq. Eighty percent of Iraqis, according to a poll conducted five months ago, believe that the US government is planning to leave permanent bases in Iraq. I am sure the number will dramatically increase now.
The perception that the U.S. intends to occupy Iraq indefinitely is one of the major reasons behind the escalating violence there. Passing those two measures in the Senate and the House was a step in the right direction both for stopping the ongoing cycle of violence in Iraq and for dealing with the growing sense of apathy and disbelief in the US democratic system internationally and domestically.
This incident is not a first. Democracy in the US is facing a much bigger problem than a handful of congressional staffers. The current US President has been abusing power for the last six years by using a number of illegitimate tricks, as in the case of his use of “Presidential signing statements”. These statements give the President the right to ignore laws because they conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution. According to Christopher Kelley, a political science professor at Miami University of Ohio, all of the previous presidents combined had challenged fewer than 600 laws, compared to the more than 750 Bush has challenged in just six years. In fact Bush has appended a Signed Statement to more than 10% of the bills he has signed. Bush is also the first president since the 1800s to never veto a bill, which gives Congress no chance to override his judgment.
Losing trust in democracy is very dangerous. Many violent groups emerged around the world after people lost hope in achieving change through democratic and diplomatic resistance. John F. Kennedy once said: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”. The Bush administration is making peaceful revolutions impossible, not just in the US, but even around the world.
During the last three years, the U.S. has consistently given Iraqis wrong messages. The U.S. administration refused to give Iraqis the right for electing their government after the 2003 invasion, and Paul Bremer decided to select a number of Iraqi employees and form his Iraqi Governing Council. The GC collapsed after Iraqi demonstrations and requests for having an elected Iraqi government. The First elected Iraqi government failed in ruling the country because of the US attack against Fallujah. That attack, accompanied with other US led interventions, was the main reason for excluding the Sunni Arab Iraqis from the political process.
Iraqis have succeeded, despite all the interfering from the U.S., in forming their current national unity government. But unfortunately, the U.S. military and political intervention is still the major obstacle in the way of stopping the ongoing cycle of violence in Iraq. A major turning point in post-war Iraqi politics happened in November of 2005 in Cairo when the first Iraqi Reconciliation Conference took place. Iraqis from different political and religious groups took a part in the conference and came up with a long list of recommendations that guaranteed that the current Iraqi government would be inclusive, and asked for the withdrawal of the occupation troops from Iraq.
The Cairo Reconciliation Conference was completely ignored in the U.S., the same way other non-violent anti-occupation initiatives were ignored. The U.S. Foreign Policy and Mainstream Media seem to be deaf when it comes to non-violent resistance. When As-Sadr movement worked for many months last year to collect one million Iraqi signatures asking the U.S.-led coalition to leave Iraq nobody showed any enthusiasm in the U.S. But the same media and politicians rush to cover stories about any explosions or beheadings. This policy is one of the factors behind the escalating violence in Iraq and the Middle East.
The situation in Iraq is so dark and depressing, but there is still some hope in a miracle. Despite the fact the Iraqis realize there is always a possibility their life can be worse, even when everyone else in the world think it is already the worst, Iraqis seem to see light at the end of the tunnel under the current national unity government. The latest polls from Iraq show strong support for the current government’s initiatives and plans for reconciliation and reconstruction.
Mr. Al-Maliki’s latest proposal for a full reconciliation plan was received very well by a majority of Iraqis. The 28 point proposal included major steps towards a general Amnesty, dialogue with armed groups, compensation for the war and occupation victims, and most importantly asking the U.S.-led coalition to set a timetable for withdrawal.
Sadly, again, the U.S. intervention turned the strong 28 point plan into a weak 24 plan that does not include any requests for a withdrawal timetable. In addition, the very solid amnesty proposal turned into a vague and useless one after an extreme amount of U.S. intervention. This latest wave of US interference included a number of Congressional bills informing the Iraqi government that granting amnesty to Iraqis who have killed Americans is not acceptable. This comes as a part of the current “patriotism contest” between the Democrats and Republicans, a contest that is designed for local U.S. consumption and is not concerned to what it happening in Iraq.
Consistent U.S. interference in Iraq, and the misuse of the Iraq war for gaining advantages in the U.S. domestic sphere, eliminates any hope for Iraqis to get their country back through diplomacy and democracy, and it is pushing more Iraqis to adopt violence as a means in building a better future for Iraq’s next generations.
