Email I got from Barney Frank today - Go Barney!

[Sydnie]

By now you are aware that I voted for the supplemental
appropriation that provided further funding for the military, and set
a date of March 2008 by which American troops must begin to be
withdrawn from Iraq, if that has not happened before.

I voted for this bill because I believe it represented the best chance
we have, given the current composition of Congress, to begin to
end American involvement in this disastrous war.

As you know, I voted against this war from the outset and I have
been critical of it ever since. In addition to being badly conceived
and based on justifications that were blatantly false, it has been
conducted in a way that compounds the original error. I have for
some time been a sponsor of the bill filed by my colleague Jim
McGovern to begin a withdrawal in the very near term, and I was
one of the founding members of the Out Of Iraq Caucus. I voted
for the supplemental bill because I was and am convinced that it
was the best way for us to advance these objectives.

I would of course have preferred a bill calling for a much earlier
withdrawal - that is why I am a cosponsor of Jim McGovern's.
But the unfortunate fact is that while we made great gains in the
last election with regard to people who are opposed to this war
serving in Congress, we have not yet reached the majority that we
need. This is especially problematic in the Senate where the
Democrats have finally moved to a position of opposition on the
whole, but where the illness of Senator Johnson and the continued
strong support for the war of Senator Lieberman mean that there is
not yet an effective majority for the kind of legislation that I think
we need. I am hoping that the Senate will at least do what the
House did in the near term, but even that is uncertain as I write -
although the outcome may be clear by the time you receive this.

I am not very confident that the various benchmarks included in
this bill will prove much of an obstacle to a president who is
prepared to say or do anything to perpetuate this terrible mistake of
a war that he has launched us on. But I am encouraged in two
ways by the fact that the bill includes a firm date by which we
must begin a withdrawal - even though it is a date far later in time
than I would have preferred.

First, it is a firm withdrawal date for this war and if the bill that
included it did not pass - and if in fact it is subsequently defeated
by a veto or in some other way - I am afraid that we will be in Iraq
for an even longer period. That is, I can see no alternative to this
bill that would get us out of this war sooner, and I am afraid that
the alternatives that we may yet see will be alternatives that will
prolong our stay. I can say that I am strongly inclined at this point
to vote against any legislation that might come subsequent to this
that weakens the commitment in that bill for a withdrawal, and I
will certainly vote against any appropriation for this bill that
simply provides money without any withdrawal date of a firm
nature, which has been my position from the beginning with regard
to this war.

But this bill was important for another reason as well. In addition
to the specific need to withdraw from Iraq, the bill represents the
beginning of a break with the longstanding Congressional practice
of dereliction of duty with regarding war. For the last hundred
years at least, Congress has failed to exercise any of its
constitutional and democratic responsibilities to control the use of
American military force. The pattern has been for Members of
Congress to complain about various military activities but in fact to
do nothing to try to end them. Even in the case of Viet Nam,
Congress did not act until American troops were withdrawn. This
supplemental bill that passed the House represents the first time in
American history that either house has met its constitutional
responsibility to take a strong position on an ongoing war. The
fact that we voted in the majority to compel a withdrawal of
American troops - again even though it is much later than I would
like it to be - has a great deal of significance. I believe going
forward we are much less likely to see the kind of unchecked
executive power in the field of war-making, because of this
important precedent.

The angry denunciations of this bill by the President and the Vice
President reinforce my view that it was in fact the most effective
thing we could do with the current composition of Congress to
generate pressure for American withdrawal. I will continue to do
everything I can consistent with the political situation in which we
find ourselves in Congress - by which I mean the composition of
the membership - to put an end to American involvement in what I
believe is from many perspectives the worst mistake our country
has ever made in the international sphere.



BARNEY FRANK

[frogcycle]

1. good explanation

Nice to see a politician respecting his constituents sufficiently to give an accounting of
why he voted the way he did

I had to laugh, though, at the repeated "even though it is much later than I would like it to be" qualifier - seems like he is expecting some flak -