The Senate’s Forgotten Iraq Choice

[SHRED]

===

Anyone remember the Levin Amendment?


Didn't think so.

Yes they should be held accountable...Clinton, Biden,...you know...the usual suspects.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00235


===

The Senate’s Forgotten Iraq Choice
By LINCOLN D. CHAFEE

Providence, R.I.

AS the presidential primary campaigns begin in earnest, the Iraq war is overshadowing all other issues, as it did during the midterm elections. Presidential candidates who were in the Senate in October 2002 are particularly under the microscope, as they are being called upon to justify their votes for going to war.

As someone who was in the Senate at the time, I have been struck by the contours of the debate. The situation facing the candidates who cast war votes has, to my surprise, often been presented as a binary one — they could either vote for the war, or not. There was no middle ground.

On the contrary. There was indeed a third way, which Senator James Jeffords, independent of Vermont, hailed at the time as “one of the most important votes we will cast in this process.” And it was opposed by every single senator at the time who now seeks higher office.

A mere 10 hours before the roll was called on the administration-backed Iraq war resolution, the Senate had an opportunity to prevent the current catastrophe in Iraq and to salvage the United States’ international standing. Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, offered a substitute to the war resolution, the Multilateral Use of Force Authorization Act of 2002.

MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/opinion/01chafee.html?ei=5088&en=df93344977234907&ex=1330405200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print


===

[leftchick]

1. yes indeed, those senators wanted WAR...

no ifs ands or buts about it.....

<snip>

We also urged our colleagues to take seriously the admonitions of our allies in the region — Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. As King Abdullah of Jordan warned, “A miscalculation in Iraq would throw the whole area into turmoil.”

Unfortunately, these arguments fell on deaf ears in that emotionally charged, hawkish, post-9/11 moment, less than four weeks before a midterm election. The Levin amendment was defeated by a 75 to 24 vote. Later that night, the Iraq War Resolution was approved, 77 to 23. It was clear that most senators were immune to persuasion because the two votes were almost mirror images of each other — no to the Levin amendment, aye to war. Their minds were made up.

It was incomprehensible to me at the time that the Levin amendment received only 24 votes. However, there were some heroes, like Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, who even in the midst of a very difficult re-election campaign voted to slow the march to war. And then there was the moving statement by Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, in support of the Levin amendment and against the administration-backed resolution: “This is an unprecedented and unfounded interpretation of the president’s authority under the Constitution of the United States — not to mention the fact that it stands the charter of the United Nations on its head.”

[itsmesgd]

2. Lest we not forget the choice that they still have- if they had nerve

Stop funding the war. Take a stand, fear not what the repukes will say of you, and stand up. We overwhelmingly voted for you. We like you, but caution these happy shiny feelings are waning. If you continue to bend over and smile each time Bushco and the repukes ask for it, we'll think that you actually like being their little bitches. Stop being such cowards. Stand up and stop funding the war. Take the profit for these thugs out of the equation. Do any of you dems in congress ever remember looking out of the window and seeing thousands of marchers carrying signs? We the people are against the war. Stand up, speak out, or get out.