Maine Owl

Off-budget Iraq/Afghan occupation funding sweetened with vet benefits

Little-noticed provision supplies billions for military bases worldwide

This all just has me screaming inside. After that bizarre rejection last week by the U.S. House of Representatives of occupation funding with Republicans staging a childish yet effective protest, the U.S. Senate has replied by passing a Christmas tree absolutely loaded with lavish financing of imperial operations, said to be good for six months into the next administration.

The sad thing is that it's actually slightly difficult even to find the news. Stories on this senate passage do not come up on the front page of Google news. The San Francisco Chronicle story I linked above ran on page A6. Coverage in the Bangor Daily News also ran on page A6, topped by a head shot of General Petraeus and a lead AP story about his suggestions in Congressional testimony that it "may" be "likely" he could recommend "further troop reductions in Iraq," but he "won't promise more details until fall." At least that article correctly suggests this timing is aimed at the "heart of this year's presidential elections," as Bush hollered "victory" in a speech in North Carolina at the same time.

Below that in the BDN is another AP story about the war funding with this curious headline: "Senate deals Bush a defeat on Iraq war spending." Defeat? Well, that's because the Senate added GI Bill and Democratic domestic spending priorities to the bill that Bush didn't want. A bunch of Republicans peeled off from Bush, making the vote "stunning" and a demonstration of Bush's "diminished standing." Democrats for their part seem to think they are too clever: pass through the massive war budget without restrictions that few of them really oppose anyway (34 Democratic & Republican senators, including Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins half-heartedly voted yea on a failed amendment requiring a "timetable", though both from Maine switched on final passage) and include benefits for vets in order to show how much they care about the human costs of the war, while also getting hundreds of millions of dollars for roads, food safety, police, and the space shuttle. Certainly any defeat of Bush here had nothing to do with genuine anti-war sentiment.

Even over in liberal/progressive blog circles, there was great cheering over this supposed Bush rebuke. For example, a fill-in writer over at Eschaton called "Bush dealt defeat on Iraq bill" a "gratifying headline." Fine, nobody likes Bush, but I think he's willing to take the daggers as long as they come with all the war dollars he could ever desire for his last eight months.

Meanwhile in Iraq, the third and most gut-wrenchingly remarkable story on BDN page A6 today is this:

US strike on al-Qaida kills children
By KIM GAMEL - Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - A U.S. helicopter strike north of Baghdad killed eight people in a vehicle, including at least two children, Iraqi officials said Thursday, insisting all the dead were civilians. The U.S. military said six were al-Qaida militants but acknowledged children were killed.

Adding to the confusion, Associated Press Television News footage showed the bodies of three children in blood-drenched clothes - the eldest appearing to be in his early teens - along with the bodies of five men, at the hospital in Beiji, where the dead were taken after Wednesday evening's strike.

Iraqi and U.S. officials each put the number of slain children at two. The reason for the discrepancies between the two accounts and the TV footage was not known.

It was the latest incident threatening to alienate Sunni Arabs, who have played a key role in the steep decline in violence over the past year by joining forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq. Beiji, an oil hub 155 miles north of Baghdad, lies in a largely Sunni Arab area.

The strike came as the U.S. was trying to ease Iraqi anger over the shooting of a copy of the Quran by an American sniper, who used Islam's holy book for target practice.

The war is going swimmingly. Just lovely. Especially lovely since an Iraqi police colonel says the strike was on a fleeing vehicle, shot in the back. I guess I give the BDN credit for running this at all because the Google search suggested not that many papers actually picked it up.

All this American disinterest in the devastating price the Iraqis are paying for U.S. imperial occupation will come to haunt us. The rest of the world detects our dismissal of self-determination along with our distinct taste for blood. There will be a point where wrapping all the consequences into a mythic pursuit of "al-Qaida" no longer works. We'll have a lot more enemies than just al-Qaida.

Let's take a look at what is actually in this bill. This brief summary, with my comments added on a few of the items, comes from yesterday's AP release, Highlights of Senate Iraq war funding bill (by Andrew Taylor). Key provisions would:

• Provide $165 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this year and several months into 2009, when there is a new president.
  
  This is the largest war supplemental yet approved, exceeding last year's by $20 billion. This is supplemental funding, which means it's off budget and they will have to hang paper to finance 100% of it.


• Extend unemployment benefits for workers whose benefits have run out. The extension would cover up to 13 weeks nationwide and an additional 13 weeks in states with unemployment rates of 6 percent or greater, including Michigan, Alaska and California. The cost is estimated at $11.1 billion over 10 years.
• Expand education for active-duty members of the armed forces since Sept. 11, 2001. Under a formula related to years of service, the measure aims to provide the equivalent of a four-year education at a state university. The cost is estimated at $51.6 billion over the next decade.
• Block new Bush administration regulations that would cut federal spending on Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled by $13 billion over the next five years.
• Provide $8.7 billion in foreign aid and international food assistance over 2008-2009, including $350 million for Mexico to combat drug trafficking, $214 million below the administration's request.
• Provide $5.8 billion to strengthen New Orleans levees, as requested by the administration, plus $3.1 billion to help Louisiana "match" federal contributions, and $1 billion for Mississippi coastal protection.
• Provide $3.1 billion for military base construction and base closure accounts.
  
  How does Congress pay for the massive worldwide imperial U.S. base structure? This is one way, through supplemental funding. It's a bit of a hot potato, because President Bush would prefer this $3.1 billion chunk to come from budget "offsets," meaning cuts in social programs. Democrats in Congress see it differently. They figure to just hang more paper. While poking around researching this (Congressional Record, May 22, 2008, S4506), I found that Congress continues to want to pretend to insist that bases in Iraq not be "permanent." Here is the sample language.
  
  CHAPTER 3 - MILITARY CONSTRUCTION - Military Construction, Army

  For an additional amount for ``Military Construction, Army'', $1,170,200,000: Provided, That such funds may be obligated and expended to carry out planning and design and military construction projects not otherwise authorized by law: Provided further, That of the funds made available under this heading, $1,033,000,000 shall remain available until September 30, 2009, and $137,200,000 shall remain available until September 30, 2012: Provided further, That funds made available under this heading for military construction projects in Iraq shall not be obligated or expended until the Secretary of Defense certifies to the Committees on Appropriations of both Houses of Congress that none of the funds are to be used for the purpose of providing facilities for the permanent basing of U.S. military personnel in Iraq.

  Some restriction! All Congress figures is needed to scrub the appearance of imperialism is the Secretary of Defense to "certify" that it isn't. (For a real picture of the U.S. bases in Iraq check HERE and HERE. Those links contain information that is a little outdated, but I think the overall picture of an extremely aggressive, very-long-term occupation holds. )


• Provide $1.2 billion for science and health programs, including $200 million for NASA, $200 million for the National Science Foundation to bolster U.S. competitiveness, and $400 million for the National Institutes of Health.
• Provide $400 million for rural schools.
• Provide $451 million to rebuild roads and bridges damaged by natural disasters.
• Provide $490 million in anti-crime grants to states and local governments.
• Provide $437 million for trauma centers for veterans to help their recovery from war-related injuries, especially traumatic brain injury.

For what's next and more information, see these links that the Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine has been sending around today:

We can't give up the fight just yet. The Senate bill will go back to the House of Representatives for a vote in the beginning of June. Before they vote though, members of Congress will be coming home for their week-long Memorial Day recess. That means they will be at parades, picnics, campaign events and in their offices. They must hear from you -- loud or silent, rude or polite, funny or solemn, in print, on the phone or in person. There are many ways to convey one message: Stop funding the war, bring all our troops home now! Use as many of them as you can!

Please check the UFPJ calendar to see if there are any Memorial Day Peace events near you (and make sure your event is listed if you are organizing one).

Click here to find out who your representative is and the locations and phone numbers of their local offices.

Let us know how you contacted your representative -- phone, email, fax, in-person, etc. -- who you reached, what you said, and what the response was.

Additional Resources from UFPJ and UFPJ member groups:

• CodePink Memorial Day Action Guide
• "Why We're Against the War," from Iraq Veterans Against the War
• Legislative information from UFPJ
• Local cost of war info from the National Priorities Project
• Talking points for grassroots lobbyists from Peace Action
• Open letter to Congress from Military Families Speak Out
• "Healing the Wounds of War" from AFSC

Background Details
The Senate voted [May 22], on three separate amendments: The first vote produced a surprise outcome. It was an amendment approving billions in funding for a broad array of domestic programs, including increases in GI education funding, extension of unemployment benefits, levee construction in New Orleans, and a plethora of other good works. The amendment passed by a vote of 75-22.

The second vote was on Iraq war policies, including a withdrawal timeline, troop readiness requirements, no permanent bases and no toture. This amendment failed on a vote of 34-63.

The final vote was on $165.4 billion to fund the wars/occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan through next summer. This amendment passed on a vote of 70-26.

The Senate version of the bill (including the war funding and the domestic funding) will go back to the House for a vote after the Memorial Day recess. Last week, the House voted on three amendments similar to the amendments in the Senate. It defeated the war funding amendment and passed only the war policies and domestic programs.

The Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine
170 Park Street
Bangor ME 04401
(207) 942-9343
fax 992-2288
www.peacectr.org

Update: I had initially misstated that all 34 senators voting yea on S.Amdt. 4817 to H.R. 2642 that failed 34-63 were all Democrats. I put that down without even looking at the roll. I correct that here (with appropriate revision above) by stating that in fact five Republicans voted yea, including Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. By the time final passage came, however, all of these Republicans, except Gordon Smith, flipped over to majority Republican position. The amendment contained the following provision:

TRANSITION OF THE MISSION OF UNITED STATES FORCES IN IRAQ; Sec. 12005. It is the sense of Congress that the missions of the United States Armed Forces in Iraq should be transitioned to counterterrorism operations; training, equipping and supporting Iraqi forces; and force protection, with the goal of completing that transition by June 2009.

In other words, the vaguest hint of a timetable, on winding down something anyway. Still, it's interesting that Collins went along. However, I stick to my analysis that her vote on this provision was half-hearted.