The "Anti-War" Vote

There has been quite a bit of talk in the weeks since the November 7 mid-term elections about how voters have sent a “clear message” to government—that message being, one supposes, that we want to get out of the war on Iraq. But was it a clear message? Many Democrats interpret the election “message” as a call to raise the minimum wage. I’m sure many voters felt that way. Some may interpret the message to mean that the voters are sick of corruption in Washington—and the Republicans have been particularly corrupt these last few years. In fact, there are any number of “messages” one could pull out of the election results, and the only really clear, justifiable one, is that voters are tired of Republican leadership in Washington, and wanted another option—the only other option being the Democrats.

Notice how quickly Republicans have shifted their rhetoric from (before the election) how necessary the war is and how we must stay the course, to (now, after the election) how difficult it will be to extricate ourselves from this prickly situation over there, which could crumble at any moment, especially if we leave. Make no mistake: they want us to stay in there. The reasons they give us may change, depending on elections or polls or media coverage or meta-media coverage (programs like “The Daily Show” & “The Colbert Report” are what I’m referring to by meta-media), but the fact that they want to be in there doesn’t seem to change. Despite having been beaten in recent elections, in what the media again and again refers to as a “resounding anti-war vote,” Republicans have been able to equivocate about whether we plan to leave Iraq.

Why have they been able to do so? For the simple reason that there has not actually been any vote against the war. There has been a vote for candidates claiming to oppose the war, or claiming to oppose the conduct of the war (but not necessarily the war itself), but no actual vote against the war. Now the ball is in the Republicans’ court—and they are doing an aggressive job of trying to persuade the newly-elected party of the necessity of continuing the war. They know it is that new congress who will vote—which is to say, they know that the real vote (and votes) haven’t been taken yet, and that therefore, they still have a chance of influencing the outcome. Because there has been no vote yet on the question “Stay in” vs. “Get out,” even if Republicans are willing to admit that the voters had something to say about the war, they can still claim that the voters opposed the conduct of the war, rather than the war itself.

Let me ask you this: how much faith do you have in the Democratic party actually ending the war in Iraq in the next two years? Do they not share some of the same lobbyists as the Republicans? Aren’t their campaigns paid for by some of the same corporations that have a vested interest in the continuation of this war? How many people, do you think, among your fellow citizens who want the war to end, have faith that the Democratic party can do it? Aren’t the Republicans counting on the moral weakness, the lack of spine in the Democratic party—to roll over on their backs when pushed—helping them to keep their pet project in Iraq? Some of the newly-elected Democrats certainly want us to end the war. But did anybody hear the Democratic party put out a decisive statement such as: “If we are elected to a majority of both houses, we will vote for a withdrawal from Iraq”?

A piece of history we’ve been reminded of lately: in 1968 the Republicans defeated the Democrats, and Nixon was elected president, on a platform of ending the Vietnam war. Did the Vietnam war end in 1969? In 1970? In 1971? In 1972, when Nixon sought re-election? No.

So, looking soberly at the situation, after a few weeks of hopeful excitement, we can say confidently: There has been NO anti-war vote. But there certainly needs to be one! We as a nation need to figure out clearly and finally, whether we want to be in there or not—and then act accordingly. If we decide we want to leave, then we should start cooking up the quickest and least expensive exit strategy. If we decide to stay, we should figure out how to convince a war-weary nation that re-instating the draft, in order to force other young men and women to die miserably in the desert, is a good idea. But dilly-dallying around, hemming and hawing, costs billions of dollars a day over there. Isn’t it expensive enough to run America, where the average citizen isn’t planting an IED on every other street in the National Capital—let alone Iraq on top of that, where they are? 

This decision should not be weighted by political capital from any other issues. (In fact, no issue should be decided by the political capital of another—but that’s a subject I’ll develop more carefully in another essay). What do I mean by this? The decision to end the war should not be discounted just because some of those who oppose the war also support gay marriage. Which is to say, perhaps many of the people in this country who oppose gay marriage also oppose the war in Iraq. Perhaps many people who support tax cuts for the wealthy also oppose the war in Iraq. But the electoral system does not allow us to make any of those decisions separately—we have to make all of those decisions lumped together, by accepting, as our only two choices, the rather vague platforms of the two parties.

Isn’t it cumbersome to try to change policy by having a vote for candidates (who may or may not vote for the changes they promised) every two years? Doesn’t it seem a little indirect? Wouldn’t it be better to have a clear picture of what the public actually wants? A referendum? Not having a referendum allows politicians to evade the issue, to make excuses and explanations. If there were a clear message, “Get Out of Iraq,” our politicians would be forced to find the quickest exit strategy. If we had a national referendum, voters who would rather outlaw abortion (and who prefer the clean-cut, moral-looking white male Republican candidate over the obviously-gay Black Female Muslim probably-burns-flags-in-her-spare-time Democratic candidate) can still vote against the war, if they want to.

Many states are able to have referenda on issues—just this last election, there were referenda banning gay marriage (some of which passed), referenda about raising the minimum wage (all of which passed), and referenda about voter “preferences” about leaving Iraq. But we had no national referendum on that issue—or any other. I suspect that if there had been, the margin against the war would have been much greater than the margin of victory was for the Democrats (for the reasons spelled out in the previous paragraph). Why don’t we have a national referendum? Why, in general, don’t we have national referenda on a wide range of issues? 

The historical reason, of course, is that the founding fathers didn’t actually trust the people to make important decisions like that. Their philosophy of government was Republican, rather than Democratic—and we had better not confuse that distinction with the one between our current similarly-named political parties!—both of which function in our Republican form of government. But I, for one, think the founding fathers were wrong on this point—although, to their credit, they were taking a big step from previous forms of government. The prevailing assumption among ruling elites was that the public needs to be guided, to be led. For our founding fathers to make the shift into some kind of middle ground was an important step. But the conduct of our government over the last six years indicates, I think, that we need to take another, further step. The people need tp be able to guide the government. The easiest way to do this, to start this (without all-out revolution) is to have national referenda on important issues—at the very least, every two years. Preferably every year. Even more preferably, 3 or 4 times a year, but of course we badly need to fix our voting and election system before we can handle that.

A referendum sends a clear message. And our government would have to be bound by that referendum. That would be a real anti-war vote, allowing for no equivocation—just the setting of a timetable, and the beginning of a withdrawal.

But we didn’t have that, and we are left only with a Democratic Party election victory. The decision is in their hands, it has not been made yet. Democrats need to be sent a clear message: that we want out, and we think they had better vote on it. That vote, which we thought and hoped we were taking, needs to be taken. Those who won electoral victories need to be reminded of their responsibility to represent the will of the people. Democrats need to be firm in pushing for what the nation really wants, despite the real difficulties of executing it (political, military, and financial). The first vote of the Democratic congress in January should be: “Do we go or do we stay?”—specifically, a resolution calling for an immediately-beginning withdrawal and the establishment of a committee to devise an exit strategy, which committee would be required to give recommendations within one month. This would be a fair vote, and it would clarify matters. Once the president understood the will of the people, as incompletely translated by an imperfect congress, he would have more firm guidelines for what to do.

We need to find a clear way to express whether or not we want to leave Iraq.  So write to your congresspeople to get them to propose a bill, vote, or resolution on getting out of Iraq, if you’re that kind of citizen. Or just rant and rave about it, like I do. 

But either way, don’t kid yourself that we’ll be getting out of Iraq without that vote.

Comments

[floyd]

I think when this war began they thought they had a clear plan, in other words let's get rid of Saddam and everything will fall into place. However it has not worked out that way and frankly they don't know how to leave, they have no exit strategy or how to win the peace in Iraq.

The vote could not be based on stay or go in Iraq, however, if we look at the candidates that ran in this race, we will find that they had an anti-war stance. For instance until the guy who was seeking Bill Frist's old seat came out talking against the war he was getting no where, and after all is said and done he barely pulled off the win.(Bob Corker).

I really don't think America is trusting the Bush administration, in really getting a viable plan going in Iraq. At least, that is the way I am seeing it.

Nice blog, found you on blog-advance.

[David Thum]

The libs did not run on anti-war and have no mandate. They voted for the war and were using the same intelligence when Clinton was in office so they have no legitimate (or believable for those who think) leg to stand on with the war issue.

For better or worse we are where we are and will be for a long time - remember we're still in Germany and Japan. Were errors made? Yes. Were we right to go in? Yes. Would we be right to pull out? No.