Originally published at Truthout.org

A treasure trove of classified documents released Sunday by Wikileaks, which sheds new light on the catastrophic failure of the nine-year war in Afghanistan, did not derail congressional efforts Tuesday to pass a $33 billion emergency supplemental bill to continue funding the occupation.

The House passed the spending package by a vote of 308-114. The bill will now be sent to President Obama for his signature. The money will be used to fund the troop surge in Afghanistan, which is part of the revised war strategy Obama announced in a speech at West Point last December.

The combined cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has surpassed $1 trillion and have claimed the lives of 5,620 US soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilans.

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According to a New York Times Special Edition almost two full f'ing years ago, and while you weren't looking because you were distracted by the dazzling light of the 2008 Presidential election campaign, both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had been finally brought to an end shortly after the November 2008 Presidential Election and before Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, and all US troops in both countries returned home immediately.

Across the country and around the world thousands took to the streets to celebrate the culmination of years of progressive pressuring of the Bush administration and Congress, but the rest of the media and most blogs never reported this because they were too busy shining you.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has publicly apologized to the country and the world on behalf of the Bush administration and admitted that the administration simply lied through it's teeth to justify the initial invasion, that she and Mr. Bush had known well before the invasion that Saddam Hussein lacked weapons of mass destruction, and that the hundreds of thousands of US Troops in the country in fact never did face instant obliteration.

"It was all complete and utter bullsh*t" Rice said tearfully, as she begged a weary nation for forgiveness, while she was led away in handcuffs by four burly officers.

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The peace movement has made significant progress in the United States since its low point of late 2008, and just about everything anyone in it has done has been a contribution. If everyone keeps doing what they're doing, and more of it, we might just end some wars, eventually. But I think some techniques are working better than others, and that pursuing the most strategic approaches would make victory likelier sooner and longer-lasting when it comes.

I think the peace movement bottomed out in late 2008 for two reasons above all others. One was the election of a Democratic president. I wasn't around for Wilson, FDR, or LBJ, but my impression is that electing Democratic presidents is often bad news for both peace and, paradoxically, for the peace movement. But both can eventually recover. The other reason was the unconstitutional and uncertain treaty that Bush and Maliki created, requiring the complete end of the Iraq occupation following three more years of it. The agreement actually made this delay a year and a half, rather than three years, by making the treaty breakable through a vote of the Iraqi people (the outcome of which could not be doubted). However, that was denied to them. While the US peace movement had always demanded an IMMEDIATE end to the war in Iraq, and might have been expected to go on doing so, the combination of a written deadline and the ascension of a Democrat to the throne proved deadly, even as the occupation of Iraq continued and that in Afghanistan escalated.

We now have a larger and more costly military, and larger and more costly wars -- costly in financial terms -- than when Bush was president. We have more troops in the field, more mercenaries in the field, bases in more nations, a heightened use of drone strikes into additional countries, new secret military forces in still other nations, and greater war powers assumed by the president, including the power to assassinate Americans, the more firmly established powers to imprison without charge, rendition, and torture, and heightened powers of secrecy.

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Tonight the House of Representatives will try to vote over $30 Billion to escalate the war in Afganistan.  Here's how it's expected to go down (thanks to Peace Action for some of this):

First they'll vote on unemployment insurance as a stand-alone bill.

Then, following some unrelated votes, they'll debate and vote on the Rule for the Supplemental.  Rules are procedural votes that caucuses of congress members serious about blocking something can vote against.  Progressives don't tend to be serious, but there's a first time for everything, and we should ask them to vote No on the Rule.  A small group of Blue Dogs and Progressives is urging this.

Then they'll debate and vote on amendments to the supplemental.  These are expected to include two good amendments to the war spending, which risk however providing members who vote Yes on the money the excuse that they also voted Yes on good amendments. 

Presumably the amendments will also include an amendment for spending on useful things like disaster relief and schools.  Perhaps the war escalation spending will also be voted on as an amendment -- it's not clear.

Then the "last votes" will come in the evening. Presumably these will include a vote on the complete package of the Supplemental.

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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer spoke Tuesday morning in a large private room (the Columbus Room) at Union Station in Washington, D.C. and took questions. He had no answers for the questions I put to him.

Hoyer's topic was fiscal responsibility, and he said that his proposals -- which were all pure vagueness -- would be appropriate to enact "as soon as the economy is fully recovered." Don't hold your breath.

Hoyer, as is the custom, bragged about cutting and trying to cut particular weapons systems. So I asked him how he could have neglected to mention two closely related points (as is the custom):

1-He's been increasing the overall military budget.
2-He's been funding the escalation of war completely off the books.

He replied that all such issues should be "on the table." But he did not explain his failure to put them there or suggest how he would act on them.

None of the assembled Washington Press Corpse followed up.

But two people did ask good questions about why in the world he would want to go after Social Security or Medicare. One guy asked why we couldn't go after Wall Street instead. Hoyer mumbled about passing regulatory reform, and blamed Bush.

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By David Swanson

Anna Janek is a Republican candidate for Congress from West Bloomfield, Mich. She says: "Socialism, Communism, Welfare-ism, Globalism, Fascism, Obama-ism…it's all the same: State control of the Human Spirit under the guise of benevolence."

Marcy Winograd is a Democratic candidate for Congress from Los Angeles, Calif. She promises to "establish a new federal agency to employ millions of Americans building rapid transit and repairing bridges, ports, water treatment plants and other infrastructure."

What could Janek and Winograd possibly agree on?

Winograd on healthcare, says: "We need Medicare for All – or a single-payer system that pays doctors, nurses, and other health care providers from a single fund."

Nick Coons, a Libertarian candidate for Congress from Tempe, Ariz., disagrees: "Wherever government is most involved, we see skyrocketing prices and decreased quality. Years ago, our free-market health care system was the envy of the world . . . government involvement was nowhere to be found."

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Forty-six congressional candidates and 17 activist organizations released a statement on Monday opposing any more funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and inviting more candidates, incumbents, and organizations to sign on. The 46 candidates include 16 Libertarians, 15 Democrats, 14 Greens, 1 Independent, and thus far 0 Republicans (and more may be added to the website by the time you read this). Forty-two are candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, and four for the Senate. They do not all agree with each other on many topics, including their reasons for opposing war spending. But they all back this short statement:

"The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost Americans over $1 trillion in direct costs, and over $3 trillion altogether. At a time when our national debt exceeds $13 trillion, we can no longer afford these wars. It's time for Congress to reject any funding except to bring all our troops safely home."

The Coalition Against War Spending ( http://warisacrime.org/caws ) has posted online a variety of divergent statements -- in text and video -- from signers elaborating on their reasons for opposing war spending. A wide ideological spectrum finds consensus around opposing more spending to continue or escalate the current wars. The coalition is inviting any congressional candidate, incumbent or challenger, and any national organization to join.

This announcement comes just as Congress is set to vote on whether to spend another $33.5 billion in an off-the-books "emergency" supplemental spending bill to escalate a war in Afghanistan that polls show a majority of Americans opposes.

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By David Swanson

So, we elected a president who promised a withdrawal from Iraq that he, or the generals who tell him what to do, is now further delaying. And, of course, the timetable he's now delaying was already a far cry from what he had promised as a candidate.

What are we to think? That may be sad news, but what could we have done differently? Surely it would have been worse to elect a president who did not promise to withdraw, right?

But there's a broader framework for this withdrawal or lack thereof, namely the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement), the unconstitutional treaty that Bush and Maliki drew up without consulting the U.S. Senate. I was reminded of this on Tuesday when Obama and Karzai talked about a forthcoming document from the two of them and repeatedly expressed their eternal devotion to a long occupation.

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Afghan Escalation Funding
More War, Fewer Jobs, Poor Excuses
By David Swanson, TomDispatch.com

Isn’t it time to call what Congress will soon vote on by its right name: war escalation funding?

Early in 2009, President Barack Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan with 21,000 "combat" troops, 13,000 "support" troops, and at least 5,000 mercenaries, without any serious debate in Congress or the corporate media.  The President sent the first 17,000 troops prior to developing any plan for Afghanistan, leaving the impression that escalation was, somehow, an end in itself.  Certainly it didn't accomplish anything else, a conclusion evident in downbeat reports on the Afghan war situation issued this month by both the Government Accountability Office and the Pentagon.

So it seemed like progress for our representative government when, last fall, the media began to engage in a debate over whether further escalation in Afghanistan made sense.  Granted, this was largely a public debate between the commander-in-chief and his generals (who should probably have been punished with removal from office for insubordinate behavior), but members of Congress at least popped up in cameo roles.

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Congressman David Obey
2314 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-4907
(202) 225-3365

Dear Congressman Obey,

In recent years you've expressed your opposition to war spending. I'd like to encourage you to cap off your congressional career by actually refusing to provide the funding for the current escalation in Afghanistan, and by simultaneously introducing a bill to spend $33 billion on green energy jobs, including for former soldiers.

You know better than I do that the power to begin, end, oversee, and control the escalation of wars lies in Congress. That the president has gone ahead with the escalation unfunded cannot legitimate it, and those troops can certainly be turned around and be brought immediately home.

Seven months ago you said of Afghanistan: "we need to more narrowly focus our efforts and have a much more achievable and targeted policy in that region, or we run the risk of repeating the mistakes we made in Vietnam and the Russians made in Afghanistan. There are some fundamental questions that I would ask of those who are suggesting that we follow a long term counterinsurgency strategy."

Needless to say, your questions have not been adequately answered.

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