Posted on 01/15/2007 6:49:46 AM PST by Fedora
In Fonda’s Footsteps: Murtha, Kucinich, and the Antiwar Movement’s Economic War
By Fedora
There is only one way to end this war. Cut off the funds.
--Dennis Kucinich, November 15, 2006
When John Murtha recently announced legislative plans to cut off funding for US troop deployment in Iraq, he was following the same game plan Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden had used three decades earlier in Vietnam. The descent of this antiwar strategy can be traced from Fonda and Hayden to Murtha through an antiwar lobby that dates from the Vietnam War and has been spearheaded through the current war by Dennis Kucinich.
In 1976, former US Ambassador to South Vietnam Graham Martin testified to the Senate that two prongs of the antiwar movement had played what he considered the pivotal role in Congress’ decision to reject President Ford’s request for emergency financial aid to prevent the fall of Saigon. One prong was the lobbying and public relations campaign directed by Don Luce, whose Indochina Mobile Education Project toured the country spreading allegations about purported US atrocities in Vietnam. The other prong was a complementary campaign directed by the Indochina Resource Center (IRC), a group which pressured Congress to support various goals of the antiwar movement, such as severing US aid to South Vietnam and anti-Communist forces in Cambodia, negotiating the release of South Vietnam's political prisoners, and securing amnesty for American war resisters.
The IRC worked closely with Hayden and Fonda’s Indochina Peace Campaign (IPC), a publicity campaign launched concurrently with an episode of The Phil Donahue Show where Fonda reported on her July 1972 visit to Hanoi and claimed she had witnessed American POWs being treated well. Other IPC members included Donald Sutherland and Holly Near from Fonda’s FTA troupe, Scott Camil of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (whose legal defense in the Gainesville Eight trial was being funded by Fonda), former POW George E. Smith, and former Ramparts editor Mike Ansara.
In its efforts to persuade Congress to cut off US aid to Vietnam, the IRC and IPC worked in coordination with the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice (PCPJ), a Communist Party front group which regularly sent delegations abroad to Communist-bloc countries and to conferences of Soviet front groups. The IPC also collected aid for Communist groups in Southeast Asia through Medical Aid for Indochina (MAI), a fundraising group founded by future MoveOn.org consultant Bill Zimmerman. MAI raised donations to “buy medical equipment” for the Vietcong and North Vietnam, as well as Communists in Laos and Cambodia. MAI’s fundraisers included Cuban agent Rene Mederos. The funds were sent via trips to Hanoi coordinated with antiwar groups and the Communist Party travel agency AT.
Supporting the IRC/IPC campaign in Congress was an antiwar caucus called Members of Congress for Peace Through Law (MCPL). MCPL had emerged in the late 1960s from a series of seminars sponsored by the Institute for Policy Studies, described in FBI files as “a Washington-based ‘Think Factory’, which helped train extremists who incite violence in the United States and whose educational research serves as a cover for intrigue and political agitation”. MCPL members George McGovern and Mark Hatfield led legislative efforts to defund the US war effort. Meanwhile McGovern and Hatfield lent antiwar groups both political and financial support. During the April 1971 Dewey Canyon III rally organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), McGovern and Hatfield personally transmitted the VVAW $50,000 that former Robert Kennedy speechwriter Adam Walinsky had raised on behalf of John Kerry. The rally was timed to coordinate with Kerry’s testimony to a Senate committee.
Testifying to the effectiveness of this antiwar lobbying apparatus, Ambassador Martin told the Senate:
The main organization I think is the Indochina Resources Center, and I really think that another principal element would be the multi-faceted activities of Mr. Don Luce. . .When [IRC founder] Mr. [Fred] Branfman came out for a visit to Hanoi. . .in the fall of 1974, and told some of our friends in both Vientiene and Bangkok that he now had a person in each of the 500 congressional offices. . .he was bragging a little bit.
But I think he probably was correct in that they had worked very hard among the newer congressional staffs to get at least one person in each office on the Hill who was favorable to them, who would receive their material, who would try to see that it got to the member, et cetera. . .
Mr. Branfman, I understand, is now sort of on a leave of absence assisting Mr. Thomas Hayden. . .
. . .I seriously recommend that it become a matter of investigation because I do not think policy can safely be made this way in the future.
Unfortunately, all indications are that policy continues to be made this way today. Hayden’s lobbying apparatus supported his 1976 Senate campaign and survived into the post-Vietnam era as the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy (CNFMP, intertwined with similar groups called the Campaign for a Democratic Foreign Policy and the Campaign for Economic Democracy). CNFMP spawned spinoffs which remain active today, such as the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), a coalition of over 65 groups that recently played a role in organizing opposition to John Bolton.
Meanwhile, key Congressional leadership positions have been assumed by MCPL veterans, who include Senators Joseph Biden, Christopher Dodd, Tom Harkin, and Edward Kennedy and Representatives John Conyers, Jr., George Miller, and Charles Rangel. Conyers, Miller, and Rangel are also members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), a socialist lobby descended from the influence of MCPL member Michael Harrington.
The CPC overlaps with the Iraq antiwar lobby organized in September 2002 by CPC Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Kucinich announced the formation of a Congressional antiwar coalition immediately following the return of a delegation to Baghdad co-led by former MCPL Senator James Abourezk. Kucinich’s coalition initially consisted of 19 Democrats, notably CPC members Barbara Lee, who had cast the lone vote against military action in Afghanistan after 9/11, and Jim McDermott, who had also criticized military action against Afghanistan. McDermott would soon follow up Abourezk’s delegation with another trip to Baghdad. Accompanying McDermott’s delegation was Iraqi agent Shakir Al-Khafaji, who later paid McDermott a check. Al-Khafaji had also been using Oil-for-Food vouchers to finance a film by antiwar spokesman Scott Ritter, who met Abourezk’s delegation in Baghdad.
Since 2002, Kucinich’s coalition has spearheaded the movement to defund the war effort. On June 16, 2005, Kucinich’s coalition held a Capitol Hill news conference to announce the introduction of a resolution calling for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq on or before October 1, 2006. The October 2006 deadline came and went, but immediately after the Democrats’ victory in the November 2006 elections, Kucinich began calling on the new Congress to cut off funding for the war. On November 15, 2006, Kucinich said in a floor speech:
One week ago the American people sent a message to this Congress. That message had to do with Iraq. Were the American people asking us to send more troops? No. They want the troops to come home. Were they looking for to expand the war? No. They want us to end the war.There is only one way to end this war. Cut off the funds.
Kucinich echoed these sentiments throughout November and December. Then on January 10, 2007, the day after Murtha unveiled a new antiwar plan, Kucinich introduced a resolution against proposed troop escalation and laid out what he called the Kucinich Plan, which repeated his earlier proposal to cut off war funding:
That’s what the Kucinich Plan, which I [am] presenting to Congress today is all about. Congress is a co-equal branch of government. We have an urgent responsibility here. Congress under Article I, Section 8, has the war-making power. Congress appropriates funds for the war.Congress does not dispense with its obligation to the American people simply by opposing a troop surge in Iraq. It is simply not credible to maintain that one opposes the war, yet continues to fund it. If you oppose the war, then don’t vote to fund it.
In introducing legislation to defund the war, then, Murtha is following the Kucinich Plan. And Kucinich is following in the footsteps of Fonda.
Select Bibliography
”Bipartisan Coalition Of Members of Congress Announce Legislation Setting Date To Begin The Withdrawal Of US Armed Forces From Iraq: Reps. Jones (R-NC), Paul (R-TX), Abercrombie (D-HI), Kucinich (D-OH) Announce Legislation This Morning At Capitol Hill Press Conference”. Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich. June 16, 2005. http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=29423
Chumley, Cheryl K. “The Congressional Progressive Caucus: Fringe-Left Democrats Wield New Influence”. Capital Research Center. January 2007. http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/FW0107.pdf
Congressional Progressive Caucus. http://cpc.lee.house.gov/
Fedora. “Goodfellow’s Bedfellows: Who’s in Bed with the Washington Post”. FreeRepublic.com. July 4, 2006. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1660323/posts
Fedora. “Wilsongate: Motive, Means, and Opportunity”. FreeRepublic.com. November 21, 2005. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1526309/posts
”House Coalition Announces Opposition To War: 19 Members Of Congress Representing A Growing Coalition in the House Announce Opposition to War in Iraq”. Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich. September 19, 2002. http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=26537
“Independent American Delegation to Baghdad”. IPA: Institute for Public Accuracy. September 10, 2002. http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=614
”Kucinich: American Voters Want Congress To End War In Iraq”. Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich. November 15, 2006. http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=53845
”Kucinich: Congress Must Cut Off Funds For Iraq War; More Troops Will Only Increase The Death And Destruction: Congress Must Use Its Constitutional Authority To Do What The Administration Will Not: End The War In Iraq”. Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich. November 20, 2006. http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=53846
”Kucinich: Congress Needs To Oppose Bush’s Call For Troop Surge: Introduces Resolution Urging President Not To Order Troop Escalation”. Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich. January 10, 2007. http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=55163
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United States Congress House Committee on Internal Relations, 94th Congress, 2nd Session. The Vietnam-Cambodia Emergency, 1975: Part III--Vietnam Evacuation: Testimony of Ambassador Graham A. Martin, January 27, 1976. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976.
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NEVER FORGET
Sen. TED KENNEDY pushed a post-WATERGATE Democrat Congress into leaving a then Free South Vietnam without any U.S. Funding to fight for its own Freedom with.
Even though he personally saw exactly what the Fight for Freedom in South Vietnam was really all about, at the very start of the Vietnam War:
http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm
(See 5th Photo down-Sen. TED KENNEDY touring our 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) Headquarters in South Vietnam's Central Highlands-October 1965)
What price is to be paid now as Sen. TED KENNEDY again pushes a Democrat Congress hard into a 2nd 'Cut & Run' Operation..?
12 Million suddenly missing Iraqi purple Voting fingers..?
NEVER FORGET
.
Thanks for the ping!
Related:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1768256/posts
Vet support group has anti-war affiliations
Excellent post, Fedora. Thank you!
Repeating betsyross' question:
"What is wrong with people?"
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