A letter from a concerned TrueMajority member who is trying to figure out what to do about the Supplemental:
At the same time that I received your email to call my rep to say No to a supplemental, I received an email from MoveOn.org telling me to call him to vote Yes for an amendment????? I really don’t know what I should do. I personally have been writing and calling for the resignations of the remaining Bush administration to save the integrity of this nation and stopping this illegal war NOW. Not one more penny should be spent except to bring them home and heal the wounded and bury the dead with dignity and grace.
If they put time tables on this supplement/amendment, won’t the prez veto his own money requests?
Stuck in concerned limbo!!!
Wendy XXXXX
My response:
Hi Wendy:
I certainly understand your quandry. These are very difficult times and I appreciate your passion for this life and death issue. As you saw in your in box, even here in the community that is working to stop the Iraq War in Washington have moments when we disagree. When Bush’s audacious request for $100 billion more for a surge and continuing war in Iraq was introduced, I was hoping for an up or down vote on the ridiculous proposal. However, one of the Democratic leaders who advocated for an end to the war, Rep. Jack Murtha, was in the position to write the House version of the Supplemental bill and saw it as an opportunity to incorporate many of the war-ending strategies he supported into a bill he assumed would pass the House. With that in mind, he talked about incorporating closure of Guantanamo, restrictions on troop deployment that would have effectively put a stop to the surge, date certain deadlines for redeployment, a sanction against an attack on Iran without coming back to Congress with justification, and other very effective war-ending platforms in the Supplemental. Rather than hearing rousing cheers from the newly minted majority of Democrats, he was attacked by the more conservative members of the Democratic majority who were concerned about “micro-managing” the war. So compromises were made. Gone is Guantanamo language, gone is the Iran prohibition, a waiver is added ensuring the surge will continue.
With these changes, our members found the supplemental coming out of the appropriations committee to be unacceptable, you will need to decide whether you agree. TrueMajority.org have advocated against every supplemental since Bush’s first request and we remain consistent in that advocacy. I am sure we have made mistakes. I now wish we had more loudly objected to the idea that the party that was elected to the majority to end the war would take any part in crafting a bill to fund the war, but that ship has sailed now and we have the political situation before us. As we go foward, we will continue to work with other groups here in DC to end the war in Iraq, with agreements and disagreements. We are not able to predict what the Senate or the President will do, but we will continue to monitor the situation for you. We hope that we are acting in a way that best represents our members and email from members like you helps keep us on the right tack. Thank you for all you do.
Darcy Scott Martin
TrueMajority.org Washington Director
