Supporting the troops

I've been trying to understand why the Republicans have been successful, so far, in advancing an argument as specious and idiotic as the charge that failing to fund any budget request Bush pulls out of his ass to keep his various wars going amounts to abandoning the U.S. military (currently "in harm's way") to their fate. It simply doesn't make any sense. No one who thinks about it for even a few moments could escape the conclusion that it's complete bullshit. Suppose Bush sends some gargantuan "supplemental" up to the Hill, say for another $100 billion, as in fact he does on a regular basis. Congress, now under Democratic control, says no. You can't have any of the money you just requested. Nada, zero, zilch, bupkes. Fuggedaboutit.

What happens? The Army runs out of ammunition, fuel, food, e-mail service? No, those things don't happen. The Pentagon instead uses the humongous budget already under its control to begin an orderly and safe withdrawal of the troops from Iraq. What could be more obvious? If they need more money for that, Bush can ask for it. But as the Commander-in-Chief, it becomes his responsibility to extract the troops safely.

Yet La Diva and Mr. Mumbles seem as determined as The Decider himself that the troops will be supported by always granting Bush whatever obscene funding request he makes, while retaining the right to pass nonbinding resolutions expressing their distate for what they just did.

It is my experience in life that whenever something makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, it's the result of looking at it the wrong way. The Dimocrats do not really think that approving funding requests amounts to supporting the troops. Actually, the troops in Iraq are dropping like flies these days (another 9 since Saturday), and it's because of all that money Congress keeps giving Bush to make sure they can't come home. Congress is, in reality, killing the troops, as surely as the Sunni insurgents and the rest of the jihadis. Congress is keeping the American military in harm's way when it could easily save them.

So what is really going on? There would appear to be one possible interpretation which fits the facts. The Dimocrats want to fund the war so that the outcome remains Bush's responsibility. Once again, the Imaginary Focus Group which controls the decisions made by Congressional "leaders" dictates that any further unraveling of Iraq (if such a devolution would even be discernible) will be solely Bush's fault; thus, if he asks for money, they will give it to him. Looked at in another way, these supposedly mature adults, Dimocrats and Republicans alike, are more concerned with a generalized, fallacious impression of a hypothesized public audience than they are with the actual deaths and traumatic amputations suffered by real people in the course of riding around in vehicles in Iraq, waiting to get blown up. Through such conduct, they confirm the controlling hypothesis of C. Wright Mills in The Power Elite. Those in power will, whenever possible, make those decisions which tend to perpetuate their power, at the expense of any other consideration. In the political calculus of La Diva and Mr. Mumbles, therefore, the consequences of allowing the Iraq War to go to Hell in a handbasket while American soldiers die meaninglessly are positive so long as Bush can be blamed exclusively for the debacle. Looking ahead to 2008, they see their grip on power enhanced, with the prospects of Dimocratic succession to the White House improved. And the purpose of retaining power, of course, is to retain power.

That's where we are. There are exceptions, the "radicals" in Congress, that I will write about later. But I would contend that the analysis above holds for 95% of the Congress and all of the Executive Branch, who are embraced in a kind of Tango of Death. It is a definitive measurement of the breach between living reality and the bizarre world of illusion and imagery in which the pampered ruling class in Washington, D.C. pass their days.