Three Who See the War Clearly Reps. McKinney, Serrano and Wexler

By BC Co-Publishers Glen Ford and Peter Gamble

Only three Democrats voted on the issue of the Iraq
war, last Friday. The rest followed Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi’s directives, a continuation of her
"strategy" of insulating the pro-war wing of the party,
centered in the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC),
from the wrath of the party’s base, which is now
overwhelmingly anti-war. For the DLC’s sake, Pelosi
smothers the party’s progressive wing - of which she
was once a proud member. Thus, the San Francisco
congresswoman maintains the fiction of a united House
Democratic front, to disguise the flaccid reality: the
pro-war faction has veto power over Democratic Iraq
policy - a veto exercised by Pelosi, herself.

Of the 42 Black Caucus members in the House, only one
dared buck Pelosi’s discipline: Cynthia McKinney (GA),
joined by New York’s Jose Serrano and Florida’s Robert
Wexler.

The three faced the choice of defying Pelosi (and, in
McKinney’s case, the CBC leadership’s similar attempts
to put forward a face of unity without purpose) or to
take advantage of the only chance available since
October, 2002 to express an unqualified NO to the Iraq
war.

After the 403 to three vote, in a statement submitted
for the record, McKinney said:

"I will not vote to give one more soldier to the
George W. Bush/Dick Cheney war machine. I will not
give one more dollar for a war riddled with
conspicuous profiteering.

"Tonight I speak as one who has at times been the
only Member of this Body at antiwar demonstrations
calling for withdrawal. And I won’t stop calling
for withdrawal.

"I was opposed to this war before there was a war;
I was opposed to the war during the war; and I am
opposed to this war now - even though it’s supposed
to be over.

"A vote on war is the single most important vote we
can make in this House. I understand the feelings
of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who
might be severely conflicted by the decision we
have to make here tonight. But the facts of US
occupation of Iraq are also very clear. The
occupation is headed down a dead end because so
long as US combat forces patrol Iraq, there will be
an Iraqi insurgency against it.

"I urge that we pursue an orderly withdrawal from
Iraq and pursue, along with our allies, a
diplomatic solution to the situation in Iraq,
supporting the aspirations of the Iraqi people
through support for democratic processes."

(The full text of Rep. McKinney’s statement appears at
the bottom of this page.)

McKinney and her two lonely colleagues - along with
every true progressive in the CBC and the Democratic
Caucus as a whole - were caught in a bizarre tango
between Republican and Democratic leadership. The GOP,
reeling from disintegrating public support for the Iraq
war and occupation, and from the media frenzy over
hawkish Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha’s call for
redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq, submitted
their own bogus resolution for troop withdrawal. The
utterly cynical Republican shorthand language read:

"It is the sense of the House of Representatives
that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq
be terminated immediately."

Murtha’s own blockbuster resolution, a much more
detailed and nuanced proposal that will never see the
light of day on the House floor if Pelosi can help it,
resolved that:

"The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by
direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the
forces involved are to be redeployed at the
earliest practicable date. A quick-reaction U.S.
force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S.
Marines shall be deployed in the region. The United
States of America shall pursue security and
stability in Iraq through diplomacy."

The Republicans were baiting the Democrats, knowing
full well that the last thing Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry,
Hillary Clinton - and yes, Democratic National
Committee chairman Howard Dean - want to allow the
public to observe is the extent to which Democrats in
congress support a continuation of the war. The GOP,
through unscrupulous disregard for the rules and spirit
of the House, were determined to flush out the
Democratic double-talkers. Pelosi was just as keen to
protect them - resulting in last Friday night’s
spectacle, in which Democrats showered praise on Murtha
and outrage at GOP shenanigans, but pointedly failed to
voice support for Murtha’s redeployment out of Iraq.
Republicans came off like the ruthless, lying villains
they are, while Democrats railed over ethics and
procedure, rather than substance.

There was no room for peace in this strange
arrangement, with Republicans daring the anti-war
forces to declare themselves, while Pelosi ordered that
they stay hidden, so as not to reveal the shape-
shifters in Democratic ranks. Cynthia McKinney refused
to be put in a vise. She voted "yes":

"A vote for this Resolution will obscure the
fact that there is strong support for withdrawal of
US forces from Iraq. I am voting ’yes’ on this
Resolution for an orderly withdrawal of US forces
from Iraq despite the convoluted motives behind the
Republican Resolution. I am voting to support our
troops by bringing them home now in an orderly
withdrawal."

If Nancy Pelosi has her way, there will be no vote on a
Democratic measure for quick Iraq withdrawal until
after the November congressional elections. Believing
that she is playing rope-a-dope with a weakening GOP,
Pelosi has so far guaranteed that anti-war
congresspersons get hammered, silenced or isolated in
every round.

But she will never willingly go for a knockout - a
pull-out from Iraq. "According to one Democratic
source," the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday, "
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi "has dropped plans to seek
a vote in early December on adopting a Democratic
Conference position in support of Murtha’s plan."

CBC: The Conscience of the Congress?

Murtha’s languishing resolution has 13 cosponsors,
three of them Black: Barbara Lee (CA), Charles Rangel
(NY) and Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX). By BC’s reckoning, a
Murtha-like resolution would garner at least 30 CBC
votes, probably substantially more - if unconstrained
by House leadership. But that number should by rights
hover around 40, given the near-universal African
American opposition to the war. According to the latest
USA Today poll, 95 percent of African Americans call
the war "a mistake," compared to 85 percent of
Democrats and about half of whites. If CBC members
acted on the will of their constituents, all but
possibly one Black congressperson would vote for speedy
withdrawal. (Only west-central Georgia’s Rep. Sanford
Bishop could be considered vulnerable to a rural white
backlash.)

However, even if Minority Leader Pelosi got out of the
way, it is doubtful that the CBC as a body would
endorse a Murtha-like position in the absence of
virtual unanimity, and there can be no unanimity so
long as a DLC-centered clique of Black congresspersons
is allowed to wield a veto within the Caucus. As a
consequence of its vain striving for unanimity, the
Congressional Black Caucus cannot even express the
conscience of its own constituents, much less the
congress as a whole.

CBC chairman Mel Watt (NC) tried mightily on Friday to
put a unified face on the CBC. In tones far more
strident than usual, he attempted to "make clear" the
Caucus’ position "so that our votes tonight will not be
misinterpreted or mischaracterized." He then proceeded
to paper over the fact that the CBC as a body has not
taken an effective anti-war position.

Watt said "members of the Congressional Black Caucus
reaffirmed our statement of principles as to the war
against Iraq" and he sought to give the impression that
the CBC had found unity in October of 2002, when the
House and Senate gave George Bush the powers he used to
invade Iraq, five months later. In reality, four CBC
members voted for war: Harold Ford, Jr. (TN), William
Jefferson (LA), Albert Wynn (MD) and Sanford Bishop
(GA). At the time, BC called them "the Four Eunuchs of
War" because they "are like the Sultan’s eunuchs, for
whom submission is a trait of character; the mere
presence of Power dominates them, completely."

The "principles as to the war against Iraq" presumably
refers to the CBC Special Order of September, 2003,
restated by then chairman Elijah Cummings (MD) in
August, 2004:

"the Congressional Black Caucus has steadfastly
opposed a unilateral first strike action by the
United States without a clearly demonstrated and
imminent threat of attack on the United States.

"It has always been the position of the
Congressional Black Caucus that a unilateral first
strike would undermine the moral authority of the
United States, result in substantial loss of life,
destabilize the Mideast region and undermine our
nation’s ability to address unmet domestic
priorities. Sadly, this tragic prediction has come
true."

That’s a position much of the corporate DLC feel free
to spout, without ever calling for a definitive
withdrawal. However, it’s all the DLC-centered clique
in the Caucus will sign off on, and they have an
effective veto. Unanimity, when unattainable based on
progressive principles, becomes a weapon in the hands
of a small, corrupted minority.

Individual Black lawmakers in forefront

There is a parallel between Nancy Pelosi’s protection
of Democratic war-continuers and a CBC that is stifled
by the perceived need for unanimity. However, this
commentary is meant to point out a practical weakness
in CBC institutional behavior, not to besmirch the
large majority of Black lawmakers, many of whom are
also frustrated that the Caucus is no longer able to
consistently act as a true "conscience of the congress"
– and a voice that reflects the actual state of Black
political opinion. As individuals, Black
congresspersons are in the forefront of whatever
progressive activity occurs in the U.S. House,
including efforts to end the Iraq war and occupation.

In May, 2005, Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s (D-CA) amendment
called on the president to "develop a plan as soon as
practicable after the date of the enactment of this Act
to provide for the withdrawal of United States Armed
Forces from Iraq; and transmit to the congressional
defense committees a report that contains the plan."
Somehow - and to Nancy Pelosi’s apparent surprise - the
rather tame amendment to a defense bill escaped from
committee for a surprise vote on the floor of the
House. Despite Pelosi’s last ditch opposition, five
Republicans and a majority of Democrats (122) voted
with Woolsey - 31 of those votes came from the CBC.

The six Black Democrats that voted against Woolsey’s
"Withdrawal of U.S. Armed Forces from Iraq" bill were:
Sanford Bishop (GA), Corrine Brown (FL), G.K.
Butterfield (NC), Artur Davis (AL), Harold Ford (TN),
David Scott (GA).

Reps. Harold Ford (TN) and Sanford Bishop (GA) were
among the original "Four Eunuchs of War."

The two other War Powers Act supporters of 2002,
William Jefferson (LA) and Albert Wynn (MD), voted for
Woolsey’s "withdrawal" amendment in 2005.

Of the 65 congresspersons that formed the Out of Iraq
Caucus in July of this year, 25 were Black, including
five of the eight founders: Maxine Waters (CA), John
Conyers (MI), Charlie Rangel (NY), Barbara Lee (CA),
John Lewis (GA), and Corrine Brown (FL). Rep. Brown had
months before voted against the Woolsey amendment.

Original 2002 "eunuch" Albert Wynn, a DLC activist who
two and a half years later supported Woolsey, also
joined the Out of Iraq Caucus. However, War Powers
"eunuch" William Jefferson stayed away.

Here is the irreducible core of pro-war CBC members,
all of them either DLC or Blue Dog Democrats:

Sanford Bishop (GA)

Artur Davis (AL)

Harold Ford (TN)

David Scott (GA)

These men are the worst malefactors in the CBC on
issues of war and peace, as well as social and economic
justice. They and a second tier of four to six other
corrupted Black lawmakers combine to prevent the Black
Caucus from carrying out its historic mission. Harold
Ford’s Memphis district is no more pro-war than any
other Black urban center - but Ford refuses to
represent his constituents. Artur Davis hails from the
Black Belt of Alabama, the ground on which Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. built an edifice of struggle for
justice and peace - yet Davis sides with corporate
warmongers. David Scott’s suburban Atlanta district is
demographically little different than Rep. Cynthia
McKinney’s neighboring district - but his vision bears
no relationship to the historical Black Political
Consensus.

If the CBC’s hands are tied by an implicit veto from
these men, who are surrogates for forces antithetical
to the interests and opinions of African Americans,
then the Caucus will fail itself, and all of us. Rep.
Mel Watt and the chairpersons that succeed him will
repeatedly find themselves hamstrung by the worst
elements that corporate money can buy.

Let the Black Caucus be Black!

It’s bad enough that Black folks’ political fates are
currently tied to a Democratic leadership that cares
more about preserving a false and do-nothing party
"unity" than ending a war. But it is unthinkable that
we will continue to allow the Black polity to be
paralyzed and polluted by a bought-and-paid-for
element. At the very least, African Americans must
protect their own institutions. Do the opinions of 95
percent of Black America have no standing, even in the
Congressional Black Caucus? Can a gaggle of hustlers be
allowed to veto the deepest aspirations of 40 million
people?

Clearly, the handful (plus a few fingers) of
"derelicts" in the CBC must be voted out by the
citizens of their districts. The infestation requires
great agitation, organization, fund raising, and the
application of lots of political Raid to get them
scurrying in the open. The CBC Monitor’s September
Report Card - which will be updated in late January -
draws "bright lines" that point to who should be
acknowledged and rewarded, and who should be targeted
for electoral extinction. BC is told that a Black
Progressive PAC will soon emerge to help make examples
of the worst offenders. And there is no worse offense
than prolonging an illegal war, a crime against peace.

It does not help that Nancy Pelosi, a former leader of
the Congressional Progressive Caucus, now spends much
of her time sabotaging congressional peace initiatives
– especially when these initiatives are
disproportionately Black. But the Congressional Black
Caucus is hampered by its own attempts at discipline,
hitched to an ideal of unanimity that became
counterproductive as soon as the corporate money
started to roll into selected members’ coffers.

A "sense of the House" resolution does not require a
unanimous vote. Neither should an in-caucus "sense of
the CBC" resolution. Speak Truth to Power - the truth
that 95 percent of Black folks know. Out of Iraq Now!

Let Iraq be Iraq! And Let the Black Caucus be Black!

– 0-

Text of Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s statement to the U.S.
House

November 18, 2005

Mr. Speaker:

The Republicans in this House have done a heinous
thing: they have insulted one of the deans of this
House in an unthinkable and unconscionable way.

They took his words and contorted them; they took his
heartfelt sentiments and spun them. They took his
resolution and deformed it: in a cheap effort to
silence dissent in the House of Representatives.

The Republicans should be roundly criticized for this
reprehensible act. They have perpetrated a fraud on
the House of Representatives just as they have
defrauded the American people.

By twisting the issue around, the Republicans are
trying to set a trap for the Democrats. A "no" vote
for this Resolution will obscure the fact that there is
strong support for withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.
I am voting "yes" on this Resolution for an orderly
withdrawal of US forces from Iraq despite the
convoluted motives behind the Republican Resolution. I
am voting to support our troops by bringing them home
now in an orderly withdrawal.

Sadly, if we call for an end to the occupation, some
say that we have no love for the Iraqi people, that we
would abandon them to tyrants and thugs.

Let us consider some history. The Republicans make
great hay about Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical
weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds. But when
that attack was made in 1988, it was Democrats who
moved a resolution to condemn those attacks, and the
Reagan White House quashed the bill in the Senate,
because at that time the Republicans considered Saddam
one of our own.

So in 1988, who abandoned the Iraqi people to tyrants
and thugs?

In voting for this bill, let me be perfectly clear that
I am not saying the United States should exit Iraq
without a plan. I agree with Mr. Murtha that security
and stability in Iraq should be pursued through
diplomacy. I simply want to vote yes to an orderly
withdrawal from Iraq. And let me explain why.

Prior to its invasion, Iraq had not one (not one!)
instance of suicide attacks in its history. Research
shows a 100% correlation between suicide attacks and
the presence of foreign combat troops in a host
country. And experience also shows that suicide attacks
abate when foreign occupation troops are withdrawn. The
US invasion and occupation has destabilized Iraq and
Iraq will only return to stability once this occupation
ends.

We must be willing to face the fact that the presence
of US combat troops is itself a major inspiration to
the forces attacking our troops. Moreover, we must be
willing to acknowledge that the forces attacking our
troops are able to recruit suicide attackers because
suicide attacks are largely motivated by revenge for
the loss of loved ones. And Iraqis have lost so many
loved ones as a result of America’s two wars against
Iraq.

In 1996, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said on
CBS that the lives of 500,000 children dead from
sanctions were "worth the price" of containing Saddam
Hussein. When pressed to defend this reprehensible
position she went on to explain that she did not want
US Troops to have to fight the Gulf War again. Nor did
I. But what happened? We fought a second gulf war.
And now over 2,000 American soldiers lie dead. And I
expect the voices of concern for Iraqi civilian
casualties, whose deaths the Pentagon likes to brush
aside as "collateral damage" are too few, indeed. A
report from Johns Hopkins suggests that over 100,000
civilians have died in Iraq since the March 2003
invasion, most of them violent deaths and most as
"collateral damage" from US forces. The accuracy of
the 100,000 can and should be debated. Yet our media,
while quick to cover attacks on civilians by insurgent
forces in Iraq, have given us a blackout on Iraqi
civilian deaths at the hands of US combat forces.

Yet let us remember that the United States and its
allies imposed a severe policy of sanctions on the
people of Iraq from 1990 to 2003. UNICEF and World
Health Organization studies based on infant mortality
studies showed a 500,000 increase in mortality of Iraqi
children under 5 over trends that existed before
sanctions. From this, it was widely assumed that over
1 million Iraqi deaths for all age groups could be
attributed to sanctions between 1990 and 1998. And not
only were there 5 more years of sanctions before the
invasion, but the war since the invasion caused most
aid groups to leave Iraq. So for areas not touched by
reconstruction efforts, the humanitarian situation has
deteriorated further. How many more Iraqi lives have
been lost through hunger and deprivation since the
occupation?

And what kind of an occupier have we been? We have all
seen the photos of victims of US torture in Abu Ghraib
prison. That’s where Saddam used to send his political
enemies to be tortured, and now many Iraqis quietly,
cautiously ask: "So what has changed?"

A recent video documentary confirms that US forces used
white phosphorous against civilian neighborhoods in the
US attack on Fallujah. Civilians and insurgents were
burned alive by these weapons. We also now know that
US forces have used MK77, a napalm-like incendiary
weapon, even though napalm has been outlawed by the
United Nations.

With the images of tortured detainees, and the images
of Iraqi civilians burned alive by US incendiary
weapons now circulating the globe, our reputation on
the world stage has been severely damaged.

If America wants to win the hearts and minds of the
Iraqi people, we as a people must be willing to face
the pain and death and suffering we have brought to the
Iraqi people with bombs, sanctions and occupation, even
if we believe our actions were driven by the most
altruistic of reasons. We must acknowledge our role in
enforcing the policy of sanctions for 12 years after
the extensive 1991 bombing in which we bombed
infrastructure targets in direct violation of the
Geneva Conventions.

We must also be ready to face the fact that the United
States once provided support for the tyrant we deposed
in the name of liberating the Iraqi people. These are
events that our soldiers are too young to remember. I
believe our young men and women in uniform are very
sincere in their belief that their sacrifice is made in
the name of helping the Iraqi people. But it is not
they who set the policy. They take orders from the
Commander-in-Chief and the Congress. It is we who bear
the responsibility of weighing our decisions in a
historical context, and it is we who must consider the
gravest decision of whether or not to go to war based
upon the history, the facts, and the truth.

Sadly, however, our country is at war in Iraq based on
a lie told to the American people. The entire war was
based premised on a sales pitch-that Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction menacing the United States-that
turned out to be a lie.

I have too many dead soldiers in my district; too many
from my home state. Too many homeless veterans on our
streets and in our neighborhoods.

America has sacrificed too many young soldiers’ lives,
too many young soldiers’ mangled bodies, to the Bush
war machine.

I will not vote to give one more soldier to the George
W. Bush/Dick Cheney war machine. I will not give one
more dollar for a war riddled with conspicuous
profiteering.

Tonight I speak as one who has at times been the only
Member of this Body at antiwar demonstrations calling
for withdrawal. And I won’t stop calling for
withdrawal.

I was opposed to this war before there was a war; I was
opposed to the war during the war; and I am opposed to
this war now - even though it’s supposed to be over.

A vote on war is the single most important vote we can
make in this House. I understand the feelings of my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle who might be
severely conflicted by the decision we have to make
here tonight. But the facts of US occupation of Iraq
are also very clear. The occupation is headed down a
dead end because so long as US combat forces patrol
Iraq, there will be an Iraqi insurgency against it

I urge that we pursue an orderly withdrawal from Iraq
and pursue, along with our allies, a diplomatic
solution to the situation in Iraq, supporting the
aspirations of the Iraqi people through support for
democratic processes.

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