Strategizing With leaders of the Anti-War Movement (Democrats Collude w/ Pro-Terrorist Leftists)

murtha buddy alert:

Moran: I’d be happy to. I just returned from Iraq on Monday (Aug.27), and I thought I might describe some of the impressions that I got and what I might expect will happen in the Congress in September.

I’m a member of the Defense Appropriations Committee, and it was in that capacity that we talked with General Petraeus, Oderno, and the rest of them, as well as senior Iraqi leaders. We have weaponized that entire country. There are more jersey barriers than blades of grass, and more weapons than there are people. The military is performing well, and that’s what Petraeus is going to say. The result of the military success is going to be wholly inconsistent with our values, and certainly unworthy of the sacrifice of our military families. You could have the greatest car ever manufactured and drive it at the right speed, but if you don’t have the right map, you’re never going to get to your destination, and that’s the situation we have with the military. I personally think we put too much money into the military, but any way you put it, the end result is going to be Shiite theocracy that is suppressive of woman’s rights, human rights, and is closely aligned with Iran, with the most conservative elements of the Iranian government.

The Iraqi police have coordinated with the Shia militia, and they’ve cleansed most of Baghdad of Sunnis. The last time I was there, Baghdad was about 50 percent Shia, 50 percent Sunni. Now it is more than 75 percent Shia. There have been 4 million people from the Sunni middle class forced out of their homes, 2 million out of the country. There are 20,000 people who have been imprisoned—85 percent of them are Sunni. This is in country when only 20 percent of the population are Sunni. Only 10 percent of them have actually been charged with any crime. The police under the Ministry of Interior are corrupt: They are stealing weapons and money, and it is an embarrassment that we are supporting and empowering them. The Malaki government is not something we should be supporting. They are part of the Dawa Party, a semi-terrorist Islamic secret society, and the most moderate is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), with very close ties to Iran. So I won’t go into that any more, but I’m just saying that the end result, even if we are successful, is not anything we could ever be proud of.

We know now that the President is going to recommend an additional 50 billion dollars on top of the 145 billion that he’s already said he’d going to request as supplemental. In the House, we’ve already passed 560 billion for the regular bill, and passed another 130 billion dollar supplemental earlier this year. If you add all that up, it comes to almost 800 billion dollars that we have made available for war making in this country. That’s more money than we’ve ever devoted to any other initiative; it’s more money than we would need to make this a better country and a better world.

One of the most striking juxtapositions is New Orleans. With the 450 million dollars we are spending everyday now in Iraq, we could transform New Orleans, and rescue it and make it a city we could be proud of. Instead we’re rebuilding Baghdad, and Mosul, and Tikrit and I call tell you that the Iraqi people are not appreciative. The Government is. The Government is because they’re using us and getting wealthy on our money. The people are oppressed and never see their government, and blame us for the conditions that we have imposed on them

Now, to talk about strategy: I’m going to recommend that Mr. Murtha reject the 50 billion entirely, take the 14 billion, and use it solely for withdrawal purposes. I asked Gen. Petraeus in Iraq whether he had made plans for withdrawal, and he said “No! There are no contingency plans for withdrawal.” He said: “I don’t know how to do it. It takes six months just to close down one military base, and you can’t do many simultaneously.” You can check on how many military bases we have all over Iraq. So basically they’re created a situation that they think precludes any ability to withdraw from that country in any reasonable period of time. I hope that we are going to recommend that the money that the President is requesting for Iraq be used solely for withdrawing our troops, weapons, and facilities.

And I think it is important for us to withdraw our weapons, because if we don’t take all that sophisticated, lethal weaponry out of that country they’re going to use it to kill each other eventually.

Now, one thing about Al Qaeda, since the President continues to mention Al Qaeda—there are only about 100 Al Qaeda in all of Baghdad, and only 1000 in the entire country. Now granted, they will pay people to do their dirty work, but there are very few Al Qaeda, it is hardly a war, and a policing action and [not?] and occupation, if anything. They are not going to be a sustained force in Iraq. Just to give you one example: Al Qaeda is saying that it’s a sin to smoke. They’re cutting of the fingers of smokers. Everybody in Iraq smokes cigarettes. It hasn’t been discussed, but it’s a principal the Sunni sheiks have turned against Al Qaeda in Anbar province. We’re taking credit for it, which is fine, but a lot of it is a reflection that this is a secular society, and all least the Sunni wont tolerate the Talibanization of their villages.

To go back to the supplemental: I hope we will only use the supplemental for the purposes of withdrawal. If we are successful, and I don’t know if we will be, but I know this is what Jack Murtha wants to accomplish, and if we can get it through the whole appropriations committee, and the House leadership stands firm, I think we might be able to get 220 votes in the House. That looks to be about what we can get in that situation, assuming we get two or three Republicans. The Senate is much more difficult, I don’t think we can get sixty votes in the Senate. As you know, we need more than a majority to kill a filibuster, and I don’t think even Senator Warner would support language that would do that. But if we could get sixty votes in the Senate, the President would veto it, and we can’t override a veto. It’s inconceivable that we could. So this war is going to continue until we have a national referendum, and that’s going to occur in November of 2008, when we elect a President who is absolutely committed to ending this misguided military mission that will make future generations of Americans ashamed what this generation of Americans allowed to happen. I’ve talked too much, but if anyone has any questions, I’d be happy to respond.

Everyone: Thank you.

Moran: Thank you for what you’re all doing. I’d like to think that I’d be doing what you’re doing—organizing, protesting, and speaking out. If I were performing your role, I’d hope I had the courage and the intellect that you do. But I sure appreciate the fact that you do, and you make me proud to be an American and serve in this Congress. Unfortunately, when you look at how little we’ve been able to accomplish—and I don’t think it’s the Speaker’s fault, we’ve got too many risk-averse members—when you look at what we allowed to happen with FISA and the fact that we’ve allowed this to continue, the political process is very frustrating. If we didn’t have people such as yourselves, it’d be very easy to give up on it and go to Canada. You are the democratic process and I hope that you will prevail one day, and sooner rather then later.

Lerner: Is there any strategy on how to get the Speaker to stand strong?

Moran: The Speaker doesn’t have the votes. If you see what has happened in the Democratic Caucus, I don’t think you’d be quite as critical of the Speaker. She really is trying. She doesn’t have the votes; she doesn’t even have the complete support of some of the leadership.

Lerner: House Majority Leader Hoyer is against her, right?

Moran: Well, I don’t want to name names, but…There are members who have somewhat other agendas. Principle one is, of course, to maintain a Democratic majority in the House. We cobbled together a majority by winning in a lot of seats that tend to be conservative: in the South, in the rural Midwest, and so on. These members are very much afraid that if they get to far out front, they’re going to lose their seat, and they’re be advised to not take risks so we can sustain this majority.

You know, it’s a calculated decision, and it’s a difficult one. I think I know where Nancy is in her heart, and I think she is where we are. But she’s in a leadership position now: She needs to represent more than her immediate constituency; she’s got to represent the Democratic Party, and there’s a whole lot of Democrats that are far more reluctant to challenge this President and to make waves.

Just as we have Democrats in conservative Republican seats, they’ve got more Republicans in what have become Democratic seats. We’ve got to target them. They’re going to have to choose between their loyalty to their constituency versus their President. Their President is on his way out, and when you talk to them privately, their share a lot more misgivings then they express publicly, and I think we need to tap into those misgivings. I think we need to put pressure, for example, on Chris Shays, Tom Davis, Ray LaHood, [Note: LaHood has announced his retirement from Congress] Mike Castle in Delaware…I won’t go down the whole list, but you can figure that out.

And then, look at the freshman. Look at the freshman. These freshmen think that they walked a tight rope and they barely got elected. The reality is that most of the freshman, and the entire Democratic majority in a general sense, were elected because we were supposed to carry out a referendum on the war, and end this war. And that’s what they need to understand. If they don’t fulfill that mandate from the American people, then they don’t deserve to be representing their constituencies. I don’t know if they got their [pressure?] this month in August or not, but they should have, and you guys are the best ones to articulate that.

Carpenter: Congressman, I hope that when you’re on the floor, you can have that discussion with Jerry McNerney [Note: McNerney won a tough battle in 2006 in the exurban Bay Area for a Republican-leaning seat against powerful Republican Richard Pombo]. It was very disappointing to hear his remarks this past month.

Moran: I found it difficult to believe in my friend Brian Baird, too. I know Jerry thinks that he represents fairly conservative district because Richard Pombo represented it, but that district is changing. It split down the middle, and Jerry needs to be on the right side of that divide.

Carpenter: At the teaching moment, when we did that letter with Barbara and Lynn, John Hall who basically has the same kind of district, [Note: John Hall beat longtime Republican Rep. Sue Kelly in an exurban New York City district in 2006] John had no trouble in signing that letter, where Congressman McNerney has just been all over the map this month. It’s been very disappointing.

Moran: Well, he is a good person, and I don’t want to be critical of him. There is a right target. He needs to hear from his constituents who know why they put him there, and a lot of the groups who did the fieldwork who enabled Jerry to get elected. You know, it’s difficult as a freshman. I know that when I came in in 1990, we had the first Persian Gulf War, and I was inclined to vote for the war. Then I thought about it overnight, and I decided I couldn’t. I voted against the war, and for the first few years, it hounded me. I was glad that I didn’t vote for that war, and I feel more and more comfortable with it as the years go by, but those are tough decisions, and Jerry’s facing that right now. He needs to hear from the people he’s going to be proudest to represent in the long run, and those are the people against this war, and in favor of reinvesting that money and rebuilding our society and protecting our environment. Those are the people who enabled him to get elected, and he needs to hear from them.

I’m going to sit down and talk with Brian [Baird]. I hope that some of his remarks were somewhat mischaracterized. I can’t believe that he fell for the spin of the generals and the sheiks and the Iraqi government when he was over there.

Carpenter: We’ve been trying to heat up in Northern California.

Moran: Northern California is key. There’re an awful lot of seats, and it’s turning, and as Northern California turns, it’s a pendulum that swings the national mood. I do think that thanks to President Bush—it’s the one positive legacy that’s left, that this country is going to reject that kind of conservatism, and anti-government philosophy, and militarism, and thuggishness that he has represented—the pendulum is going to swing to the left. And those members who are not part of that cutting-edge curve of the political shift are going to be very disappointed. They’re going to end up on the sidelines of history, and you guys are going to end up in the forefront. I really think we’re at a transitional time. You got to keep the momentum going, and the pressure, and you’re doing that. I keep repeating myself, but I really appreciate all that you do.

I got to tell you, Barbara, Lynn Woolsey, and Maxine Waters, you know, they really deserve a lot of appreciation. And from what I hear, I think Nancy deserves a little more appreciation than she’s getting. She’s on the hot seat, and it’s very difficult. If you heard the caucuses that are not public, and could hear the arguments that she makes to sway some of the conservative members, I think you’d be much more impressed with her. You’ve got a great delegation in California, and consistently California has been in the forefront of our national politics. Particularly working the Northern California delegation is going to have tremendous rewards for the nation in the long run.

Benjamin: Congressman, I still don’t understand the strategy. I’m in Nancy Pelosi’s district. We’re been doing a hunger strike, a campout outside her home in August—she wouldn’t even have a meeting outside with any of the peace groups—she said when she became speaker that defunding the war was off the table, so you might feel like she’s with us at heart, but we don’t fee like it out here. We don’t understand that if she can get 220 votes for some version that includes something with a timetable for withdrawal—something, as watered down as it might be—if that doesn’t go through, then why should she put anything else on the table?

Moran: There’s nothing else that she can put on the table because the spending leverage power we have is the only power we have. It’s the power of the purse. All the rest of the stuff really doesn’t matter. It amounts to rhetoric.

Lerner: She shouldn’t put forward a spending resolution. She should simply say that she won’t put anything to the floor of the House that includes spending for the war unless the President agrees to end the war, and use the money to take them home. That’s the power. The danger is that there would be rebellion in the Caucus, but from what you’re saying, it sounds as if even if she doesn’t have the votes of all of the Caucus, she would have a majority of votes in the Caucus for keeping a spending resolution from reaching the floor.

Moran: There was an amendment that Neil Abercrombie offered just before we left. Some of us spoke strongly against it. It was to give the President sixty days to come up with a plan to how to end the war. Well of course that means the plan would not have to be presented until October, after we would have appropriated all the money to continue the war indefinitely. There were a lot of people—probably the majority of the Democratic Caucus, and all of the Republicans voted for the thing. It passed out of the Armed Services Committee something like sixty-two to two. Duncan Hunter spoke in favor of it. She [Pelosi] was under tremendous pressure to do that, yet she listened us, which was primarily the Out of Iraq Caucus and the Progressive Caucus, and she killed it with no fanfare. I know, and Jack [Murtha] has told me that she wants to put a further limitation on any further funding that will [not?] end this war. That is her intent.

But I also know that some people in the leadership and a couple caucuses who don’t want that to happen, who feel that it’s going to set us back. They think the way that the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) thinks. Have you read any of Al From’s articles or listened to his speeches? That’s what he’s saying. That we’ve got to be the party of more military aggressiveness and so on, we’re too weak on security, etc., etc. I don’t want to put words in his mouth. There is a DLC element in the Democratic Caucus, and it’s enough people that it can kill legislation.

Nancy can’t let anything get to the floor that is defeated. If this was to get to the floor and we didn’t have the votes, it’d be an enormous setback.

Benjamin: Wait, you had the McGovern amendment that went to the floor and got a good number of votes, but not enough, and it wasn’t a setback, that was movement forward.

Moran: The McGovern amendment was terrific. We really did well. But it was kind of tangential. I’m talking about the supplemental spending bill.

Benjamin: But that showed that their were fifty more Democrats who were willing to put themselves forward as wanting to put an end to the war, and I think if you go forward with the supplemental that includes restrictions in using it, and if Nancy Pelosi used her weight to get the Blue Dogs…Now everything she says is that it’s the fault of the sixty votes in the Senate. She never mentions that it’s people within her own party, and I don’t think she’s put the pressure on them—in fact, I know she hasn’t put the pressure on them. So if she could get something with 220 votes, which I don’t think is impossible, if she put the pressure, and if that didn’t go through the Senate, or if by some miracle it did and it got vetoed, then she could respond by not putting anything forward. And that’s what we’d like to see her do.

Moran: I would too, and I really believe that if she can, she will. I don’t want to be an apologist for Nancy, but neither do I want to undermine her in any way. She is the strongest Speaker we’ve had. I don’t want to be in her shoes, because I imagine the pressures that she gets. I know she is as frustrated as I am and Jack Murtha, the Out of Iraq Caucus, etc., that we have not gone anywhere in terms of fulfilling our mission to end this war. And it is showing in the poll results. And they know that we lost ten percentage points in the polls when we failed to have a definitive statement on the war in the last spending bills.

Lerner: Why did she enable the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act (FISA)?

Moran: She was led to believe, as was all of the leadership, that the White House thought there was going to be a terrorist attack in August. They were trying to set us up, so we would leave the country allegedly vulnerable, not passing any FISA legislations. The Senate passed it and then went home, and if we didn’t pass what the Senate did, there would be no bill, and there would be this gap in the ability for the National Security Agency to wiretap. I thought the whole thing was phony; I voted against it, a lot of us did. We had a very vigorous Democratic Caucus [debate] but again, the prevailing view among the leadership and the same people who are reluctant to end this war was that for the sake of the Democratic Party and the long-term ability to retain a majority, we’ve got to pass the Senate version. I thought it was a mistake, I said it was a mistake, and the majority of Democrats voted against it, and Nancy voted against it.

Lerner: But she enabled it.

Benjamin: She’s the enabler, Jim. We see through that. She allows 200 Billion dollars to go through for war with no timeline for it; she’s going to lose the progressive part of this country.

Cagan: You know, there is one other thing. You know, you’re in a difficult position Congressman to speak for or against Nancy. One thing you could do is talk to her about meeting with us, so this conversation that we want to have with Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have to go through you or other member of Congress, but that that the anti-war forces, both within her own district and nationally as Speaker of the House, would like an opportunity to have her hear from us directly. Perhaps those of you who understand the value and importance of this anti-war movement could put in a word with her office and her directly that it’s not a crazy idea to meet with us.

Pelosi: I have suggested that, and have suggested that she meet with you, Michael, but she has an acute memory of you having protested in front of her office and apparently some other tactics. Everybody’s human, no matter what position they’re in, and they particularly get their feeling hurt when they feel that people who are close to them are critical.

Benjamin: You know, we camped outside of Dianne Feinstein’s house and she came out and talked to us. We were delighted—she took thirty minutes to talk to us, and we left. We’ve been outside Pelosi’s and she called us ‘nuts’. She doesn’t understand. She hasn’t talked to her constituents for a year and a half. She hasn’t had a town hall meeting. As Leslie said, she hasn’t talked to the national anti-war movement, I don’t know if she’s talked to MoveOn, but certainly not the rest of us. So we’re not ‘in’ on the strategy, all we see is that she’s become the enabler in this war, and it turns us against her, instead of working with her.

Moran: I understand that, but you know, it’s awfully difficult to get a liberal from San Francisco who is a woman elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. I have enormous admiration for Nancy: for her ability, for her intellect, for her heart, and I know where her heart is, and she is a progressive through and through. She’s under intense pressure, and that’s why I’m defending her. I’ve got my disappointments, too, but when you’ve got a woman as strong as her who is willing to make the sacrifices to get and retain a Democratic majority, and to push progressive legislation, I’m going to support her. I’m not going to argue with any of you, because I’d probably be saying the same thing if I were in your position. But I do believe that Nancy is one of us, and that’s why she has the reaction that she does. This is like family criticizing you: “Don’t you know who I am, and what I’ve done all my life? How can you do this to me”? I think she has a much more adverse reaction to what you do because she feels so close to you, then some conservative organization whose views she didn’t share.

Benjamin: Well, her strategy for ending the war isn’t working. It’d be nice if she sat down with us so maybe we could work with her in a different way.

Moran: I know that, but in all fairness, until we get a Democratic president, until we get a president who is committed to ending the war…

Cagan: …That may be a long time before we get that.

Carpenter: We’d have to be on the phone for a lot longer for that discussion.

Moran: That’s for sure. But the President gets to veto anything that gets to his desk. It’s inconceivable that we could override such a veto. The reality is that this war is going to continue as long as the person in the White House wants it to continue. And that’s what happened with Johnson, and Nixon, and throughout history. We’re going to have a national referendum, and it’s going to be in 2008. We’ve got to elect somebody who’s absolutely committed to end this war, and honestly, that’s the only way we are going to achieve that objective.

Carpenter: When we did have a meeting with Pelosi last summer when the May vote was coming up, and she calculated when MoveOn came to her with the plan, and at that we within the movement were pushing very hard, as you know, to allow the Lee amendment to come to the floor to at least get the vote. As you know, Barbara took it all the way to the Rules Committee, where Congressman McGovern [tried, attempted, in a way?]. The piece that Pelosi does understand, and the frustration what I want to remind her is that we’re winning by losing. Going up and having the vote with McGovern when we had 171 and we didn’t win, and you know how hard it took us to get to that vote.

She made a calculated decision, as did MoveOn, to go in May. It was more of a setback now that we look at it. She is winning, and I’d like to leave you with this thought if you’re able to talk to her: If we’re able to get from 171 to 182 or to 200 or 204, and yet if we ultimately lose the numerical fight on that specific vote, she needs to understand that we need to frame that we’ve moving everyday, and that is a victory. Losing that principled vote you gain more in the long run. In the short term I know she needs to watch her back with the leadership in the cloak room and so forth. She has trouble understanding this, and I hope this is the point you and your colleagues can make: We are winning, if we get the vote as you heard from Lynn and Barbara and Maxine. McGovern’s going to come back through as a result of the 171 vote. She has to make a calculated decision. If she’s going to come to the progressive members this time and ask you to be there, it seems to me the progressives need to be united in August before we get through to September, to make it clear that without that vote on the Lee Amendment, either as a stand-alone or as part of the supplemental and authorization, that the progressives simply can’t move. She’s got to go back to the Blue Dogs and not come back to the progressives to capitulate and not look to Raúl Grijalva at the last minute, who was clearly with us all the way until three minutes before the vote, when he was asked to move.

She needs to understand winning by losing: That if we can get that stand-alone vote, and even if we end up losing it, that if we move it from 171, even if it’s to 175, that we’re winning. I know it’s hard when you’re counting votes, and you’re working with your whips and your Majority Leader and you’ve got to deliver a victory. She’s got to get outside of that box and understand that she’s winning by having that vote, and how much more we outside can deliver at the end of the day to bring us to that ultimate vote. I just want to leave on that note, because if you, in that quiet moment can sit there wit Jim McGovern and so forth and explain procedurally the importance of having a stand-alone or at least getting the Lee Amendment as part of the Appropriations Supplemental, so that we at least have a vote that will allow the progressive members of Congress stand strong with the movement, those of us outside of Washington, it’ll show the American people that this party does have the wherewithal, and that although we may not succeed in this vote, we’ve come from forty-three to eight-nine, to 171, to whatever that number may be, even if it’s not the majority at this point in time. I don’t want to belabor it much more, but I hope you can covey that to her. We really are winning by having that vote.

Moran: Tim, I do agree with you. What I want to happen is that limitation to be put on the supplemental Iraq spending bill, because then it has real power. I think Jack Murtha would agree that that’s the limitation that should be on that bill, and I will express that, I agree with you, and I hope that we can see it through. You’re absolutely right. The Republicans have figured out: It’s the base that matters, and we need to understand that it’s the base that’s going to get the majority elected and continued in office, as long as we’re willing to show the kind of courage and commitment that is deserving of your efforts. I will try to convey that and I hope that you’ll see that kind of language on the Iraq spending bill. If you don’t, then we failed and…

Lerner: Meanwhile, we hope you all understand that we appreciate you, and all that you’re been doing and saying, and your stands. The frustration you’re hearing is not about you.

Moran: No, I understand, but frankly, it is about me. I know how wrong this war is and so I have a responsibility to try and end it. I saw what happened with the Vietnam War, and so many of my classmates were killed in that war, and have nothing to show for it, nothing that was achieved. There’s nothing more important than ending this war today, and if we don’t these words are nothing more than words. We’ve got to show results. I know that’s what you’re asking and you deserve nothing less. Thank you all.

Everybody: Thank you Congressman.

Moran: Thank you. Goodbye.

Cagan: Well I’m a little confused. I’m happy that both the Congresspeople we’re on the call, but I’m a little confused. It was great that both Lynn and Jim were on the call, because we got to hear their thinking and push, especially Jim, a little bit. But that wasn’t the call I thought was going to happen.

Lerner: Here’s why I invited them: I thought they were the two people that, amongst the ones that I know, think strategically at times. We didn’t get to that level. If we’re going to talk about a strategy to end the war, I think the intent of the call is to try to bring anybody with a serious constituency who thinks strategically. This got too focused on the immediate vote, and it definitely wasn’t the conversation I thought we were going to be having either, I do think it we good to have a regular conversation among the people who have constituencies, think strategically, to share their thinking. What do you think?

Cagan: I think that’s right. That’s the whole point of UFPJ. It’s a question of using the structures that are already in place and not adding more conference calls to our lives. I thought that part of the point of this was to help prepare an article for Tikkun.

Lerner: It turns out that since the call was so immediately focused and people were talking about things they’re going to do in September, it makes more sense for us to send this out on our 100,000 or so person email lists, and put it on our web site. Many of us on this call know that this war is going to be facing the next president, and if it’s a weak Democrat whose not sure that they’re willing to

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