Cooper-Church and Case-Church

I regret choosing Frank Church as a pseudonym now. For a liberal in George Bush's America to go by "Frank Church" is like a Catholic going by "Pope John Paul II" or a Latin scholar going by "A. E. Housman". I chose Frank Church as a pseudonym on a whim - how about choosing a little known senator that was a liberal champion and should be more remembered. Perhaps I should have chosen another name, like Charles Mathias, Clifford Case, John Sherman Cooper, or Mark Hatfield. All of those senators are remembered, at least by folks older than me, but none of them stood steadfastly against everything still president Bush stands for. (Interestingly, all four senators I just named were all Republicans. They cooperated with Church on various legislation or committees.)

I guess I wanted to start off by talking about Vietnam. The parallels between Vietnam and Iraq that I see mostly concern the secrecy and obscurity around the conduct of both wars. Why did we wage war in Iraq? Not for WMDs, and the real reason may be forever unknown. Vietnam? The event that started US involvement in earnest was the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Turns out, that was a fraud too. BTW, Frank Church voted for that resolution. Not one of his finest moments, but he helped us get out of Vietnam later on.

I refer specifically to Cooper-Church and Case-Church, two defining amendments in the struggle to end that stupid war. As you recall, but the Vietnam War encompassed more than Vietnam. Nixon expanded it into Cambodia and Laos. Cooper-Church sought to end fighting in Cambodia and Laos by cutting off its funding. It failed in mid-1970 and passed at the end of 1970. Case-Church pretty well killed off the war. It ended funding for American forces in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. It passed in 1973 and US involvement ended, mostly, on August 15, 1973.

As far as expanding the Iraq war - I've always wondered about that and Bush. I think certain forces in his administration might have been pushing him to declare war on Iran. Cheney especially, a lot of Pentagon folks, perhaps the Israeli government. Iran doesn't particularly scare me - remember, it's a Third World country - but I can see how it would scare Israel. And pretty much everyone in government supports Israel. Some support Israel because they're Jewish. That's good. Some support Israel because it's our only democracy in the Middle East. (That's why I think Israel should absolutely exist, although calling Israel a democracy comes with troubling caveats.) And some, my favorite, support Israel because the existence of Israel is a precondition for the Rapture, Armageddon, Second Coming, etc.

Anyway! I wish Congress had been a little more forthright in talking about cutting off funding for the war. I think Iraq has been pretty eclipsed in our consciousness by our new depression - and before that the American public was pretty solidly against the war. Of course, it's an open question how much the American public would support cutting off funding for the Iraq war. But - Congress controls the purse strings. Congress finances the war. If you want to end a war, the best thing to do is stop the funding. Stop the money. And our Congress never had the testicular fortitude to do that. (Ironically, Frank Church had testicular cancer as a young man.)

Maybe I'll ramble my way into talking about Vietnam fallout tomorrow.