There is no innocence here

As everyone knows, last week the US Senate approved Shrub's "request" (I love those diplomatic words) for an additional "emergency" $81 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

(What a farce: Even before the budget was submitted the Shrub gang said they were going to make this "supplemental request." They didn't make it part of the budget because they wanted to keep the Grand Canyon deficit their favors to the rich have created from looking as big as it really is. And everybody - GOPpers, Dummycrats, and the media - closed their eyes and went along with the pretense.)

But something I hadn't realized until I got a mailing from United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ): The vote was 99-0.

Oh - my - word.

It's outrageous that Congress is still funding President Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even Senators who voted in 2002 against giving Bush the authority to go to war supported this appalling misuse of our tax dollars. ...

The fact is, without targeted pressure from a broad-based movement, elected officials will take the easy route. We heard repeated reports that lawmakers supported the $81 billion for fear of being portrayed as not supporting the troops. And several Senators told us they hardly heard from opponents of the war.

Hypocrites! Cowards! Scum-licking maggots! It should not have been necessary to "hear from opponents!" The war is wrong, you know it's wrong, some of you have openly condemned it - and still you vote to spend billions more on it! Have you no conscience? Have you no convictions? Have you no decency?

I will confess here a failing of my own: I did not contact my Senators on this. First because I knew it would pass no matter what they did but secondly and more importantly, because I thought I could count on them to vote against it. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I guarantee you that is a mistake I will not make again.

What's especially galling is that this came less than a week before

[t]he US chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, ... said inquiries into weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have "gone as far as feasible".

Mr Duelfer also said an official transfer of WMDs to Syria ahead of the Iraq war was not likely.

The CIA adviser reported last year that neither expected stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons, nor evidence of recent production had been found.

In other words, they found precisely squat. After 18 months of effort involving over 1200 experts from three countries, they found nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing of the primary justification for an invasion that has so far cost over 1500 American lives (and nearly 12,000 wounded) and as many as 100,000 Iraqi lives. Nothing of the primary justification for an invasion that has so far cost over $160 billion.

Nothing of the primary justification for an invasion of a country where the phrase "civil war" is "no longer taboo."

Several clashes between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims in events apparently unrelated to the two-year-old anti-U.S. insurgency have highlighted the danger in recent months. ...

"[W]e are going the Lebanese route, and we know where that led," says Sabah Kadhim, an adviser to the Interior Ministry who spent years in exile before returning to Iraq after Saddam Hussein's overthrow.

"We are going to end up with certain areas that are controlled by certain warlords ... It's Sunni versus Shi'ite, that is the issue that is really in the ascendancy right now, and that wasn't the case right after the elections."

Nothing of the primary justification for an invasion of a country where, despite the sunny optimism of officialdom, the level of violence has not dropped.

Washington (AP, April 27) - After a postelection respite, the pace of insurgent attacks in Iraq has increased in recent weeks to approach last year's levels, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

"Where they are right now is where they were almost a year ago, and it's nowhere near the peak," said Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a Pentagon press conference.

That's about 400 attacks a week of all kinds: bombings, shootings, rocket and mortar attacks, Pentagon officials said. About half cause significant damage or injure or kill someone.

Nothing. Nothing. Zero. As clear, as strong, as stark as the zero in a 99-0 vote.

I am ashamed. At the US. At us. At my own foolish, misplaced confidence. Silence is no longer an option. I say it again: Do what you can. I don't care if it's only a little. Do it!

Footnote: Duelfer did say that while he apparently had no WMD program, Saddam Hussein had wanted to restart one. Hell, they could have saved a lot of time, energy, and money and just asked me:

1) Do I think it possible that Iraq has some small quantities of chemical and/or biological weapons stashed away in the hope that maybe sometime in the future the program could be restarted? Yeah, I certainly can buy that. - February 7, 2003

2) Before we go to war on Iraq, there’s a question about its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that needs to be answered:

What weapons of mass destruction?

Seriously. What weapons? Where? ...

By all available evidence, Iraq’s WMD program has been effectively dismantled. Unhappily, unwillingly, and grudgingly dismantled, but dismantled nonetheless. - March 6, 2003

Apparently, the only thing I was wrong about was that Saddam didn't even have the "small quantities" stashed away. He just had hopes.