Iraq: The bipartisan betrayal of trust.

For a while, Americans opposed to the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US under the Bush administration, looked up to the Democrats in Congress to force an end to the occupation. The elections last fall seemingly provided not only the mandate but the impetus the Democrats needed to bring this about. Hopes were high and expectations lofty, as anti-war organizations rallied around the Democrats to make the push for the redeployment of our troops out of Iraq. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that the Dems are woefully incapable of capitalizing on this groundswell of support to bring this unpopular occupation to an end. Indeed, there is an increasing realization by many in the anti-war faction, that the determination to continue the occupation is not only the work of the Bush/Cheney administration but a bipartisan effort with help from Democratic lawmakers that now amounts to a bipartisan betrayal of trust.
Lending credence to this belief by the anti-war movement is the reluctance by the Democrats to vote for not funding the war, as has been proposed by Dennis Kucinich, one of the few Democratic lawmakers to have steadfastly oppose this war. Early signs of the impotence of the Democratic majority came when the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, declared shortly after assuming her post that impeachment of the President and the Vice President was off the table. Since then, the Democrats have found every excuse for not heeding the popular wish of Americans to bring the war to an end and stop the endless carnage that is claiming not only the lives of innocent Iraqis but our own brave soldiers.
The parallels of this Iraq misadventure to the Vietnam war is all too apparent except to our myopic President, aided by those who are profiting financially from the continuation of this futile war. They include the contractors like Halliburton, Blackwater and all the other shadowy cronies of the President and Dick Cheney. Those who continue to support this illegal occupation of Iraq in the name of support for our troops need to be mindful of this fact: that their support is fertile ground for the obscene war profiteering by these contractors and their primary enablers, the Administration. Our Democratic lawmakers also need to know that the only way to not be complicit in this obscene act of war profiteering is to dissociate themselves from any moves to prolong this war.

Okuche