Rep. Kucinich on Iraq War

Iraq and Afghanistan:
Ten Years, a Million Lives and Trillions of Dollars Later
by Rep. Dennis Kucinich
U.S. Representative, Ohio 10th District

October 2, 2012
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Ten years ago today the debate over the Iraq War came to
Congress in the form of a resolution promoted by the Bush
administration. The war in Iraq will cost the United States as
much as $5 trillion. It played a role in spurring the global
financial crisis. Four thousand, four hundred, eighty eight
Americans were killed. More than 33,000 were injured.

As many as 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi civilians were killed. The
monetary cost of the war to Iraq is incalculable. A sectarian
civil war has ravaged Iraq for nearly a decade. Iraq has
become home to al Qaeda.

The war in Iraq was sold to Congress and the American people
with easily disproved lies. We must learn from this dark
period in American history to ensure that we do not repeat the
same mistakes. And we must hold accountable those who misled
the American public.

On October 2, 2002, the day the legislation to authorize war
in Iraq was introduced, I sent and personally distributed a
memo to my colleagues in Congress refuting point-by-point
every reason given by the Bush administration to go to war.

On October 3, 2002, I held a press conference with 25 Members
of Congress and then presented an hour long explanation to
Congress on the House Floor, refuting the lies upon which the
cause of war was predicated.

It was clear from information publicly available at the time
that Iraq did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs),
that Iraq had no connection to 9/11, and that Iraq was not a
threat to the United States. Anyone who wanted to look could
have seen the same information that I did.

Yet some of America's top political leaders bought into the
Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld drumbeat of war. Two leading Democrats
were among those taken in by the White House hype and the WMD
argument:

    "I believe the facts that have brought us to this fateful
    vote are not in doubt. Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who has
    tortured and killed his own people ... [I]ntelligence
    reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his
    chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile
    delivery capability and his nuclear program. He has also
    given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists including
    Al Qaeda members." -- Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY),
    October 10, 2002.

    "September 11 was the ultimate wake-up call. We must now
    do everything in our power to prevent further terrorist
    attacks and ensure that an attack with a weapon of mass
    destruction cannot happen. ... the first candidate we must
    worry about is Iraq... [Saddam Hussein] continues to
    develop weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear
    devices." -- Leader of the Democratic Caucus in the House,
    Richard Gephardt (D-MO), October 10, 2002.

Even the most trusted newspapers around the country blindly
repeated as fact grossly incorrect assertions by leaders of
both parties.

"No further debate is needed to establish that Saddam Hussein
is an evil dictator whose continued effort to build
unconventional weapons in defiance of clear United Nations
prohibitions threatens the Middle East and beyond." The New
York Times, Editorial Board, October 3, 2002.

Notwithstanding the blizzard of disinformation, 133 Members of
Congress voted against the resolution that authorized the use
of military force in Iraq, including nearly two-thirds of the
Democratic Caucus in the House. Seven Republicans, including
Ron Paul (R-TX), also voted against the resolution. In the
Senate, the vote was 77 to 23 in favor of a war of choice.

Ten years ago Congress voted to wage war on a nation that did
not attack us. That decision undermined our fiscal and
national security. To this day we are suffering from the
blowback. While most of the troops are home, the United States
maintains a significant presence in Iraq through the State
Department and its thousands of private security contractors.

The war against Iraq was based on lies. Thousands of Americans
and perhaps a million Iraqis were sacrificed for those lies.
The war in Afghanistan continues. New wars have been
propagated in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia pursuant to the
never-ending "War on Terror." This mindset puts us at the edge
of war against Iran. Ten years and trillions of dollars later,
the American people by and large still do not know the truth.
It is time to usher in a new period of truth and
reconciliation.

Follow Rep. Dennis Kucinich on Twitter:www.twitter.com/RepKucinich

Prop 30 Taxes Rich, Prop 32 Breaks Unions

Dueling California Measures 

Set to Tax Rich, Gut Unions

Californians will vote November 6 whether to approve the largest tax hike on the wealthy in that state since 1978.
Unions say Proposition 30 is necessary to forestall further deep cuts to education and other public services. The state is already 47th in the nation in expenditures per pupil, and without Prop 30 conditions in the schools will get worse.
So campaigning hard for Prop 30—TV ads, mailings, door-knocking, phonebanking—would seem to be a no-brainer for unions.
But this fall's election season is complicated by the presence of another initiative on the ballot. Prop 32 would make it virtually impossible for unions to play a major role in California politics, by disallowing the use of any money garnered through payroll deductions.
Why is such money tainted? Well, because that's how unions do it. The aim of Prop 32 is simply to keep unions out of politics. Almost no corporations collect political funds from employees through payroll withholding.
Fred Glass of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) calls the Yes on 32 campaign "astonishingly deceptive." Its website trumpets, "The politicians are not listening to us. We need to start taking back California by reducing the influence of Special Interests across the board"—including corporate money.
With language like that, no wonder a mid-July online poll by conservative groups showed Prop 32 with 60 percent in favor and only 29 percent opposed.
Steve Gilbert, a retired Service Employees Local 1021 activist, says that early on, his local showed pro-32 commercials to members who weren't familiar with the measure. They liked what they saw.
Mike Parker, active in local politics in Richmond in the East Bay, says conservatives are cynically "trying to ride the Occupy sentiment to take big money out of politics."
Although it would ban direct contributions to candidates, Prop 32 would still allow corporations and unions to support candidates through independent committees—like the Super PACS the Citizens United decision let loose.
Corporations have proven themselves adept at this game. A preliminary report on 2012 elections in California from the National Institute on Money in State Politics shows business interests spending $127 million and unions $29 million.
"What they're counting on is obfuscation," Glass said. "And they're counting on the general public's anti-politician mood," noting that state legislators poll just 20 percent support.
Six states in the West and Midwest have passed "paycheck protection" laws, which forbid public employee unions to use dues for political ends without a member's written consent. Prop 32 goes much further.
HISTORY REPEATS
California unions have faced such anti-union initiatives before, defeating "paycheck protection" in 1998 and 2005. Unions vastly outspent their opponents to win by 53 percent both times. Prop 32 would make such spending impossible.
Glass said labor's opponents learned from those losses, crafting a new message that would appeal to anyone in the 99%.
"We start off behind because the other side has figured out a way to make this sound good," he said. "We have an uphill climb—but this gets the labor movement engaged because it threatens its ability to function."
"It would be nice if the labor movement got as engaged on proactive issues," Glass said.

TAX THE WEALTHY
Which leads us to Proposition 30, which in its first year would bring $6.8 to $9 billion to state coffers, and $6 billion per year after that. The proposal is designed to fend off a projected $6 billion in cuts to schools and colleges.
The measure squarely targets the 1%, beginning the increase with families that make more than a half million dollars per year. Their income tax rate would jump from 9.3 percent to 10.3 percent, and families making a million would pay 12.3 percent.
Controversially, the measure would also add a quarter of a percent to the state sales tax, raising it to 7.5 percent. That part of the measure would cost "a penny on a $4 cheeseburger," as CFT puts it. State sales tax in California is already the highest in the country.
Some union backers of the tax measure have been less enthusiastic about it since an earlier proposal initiated by the CFT was scuttled.
The union was promoting a permanent "millionaires tax," and a grassroots campaign gathered thousands of signatures early this year. When Governor Jerry Brown put forward his own proposal—backed by the state's largest unions—CFT leaders worked out a compromise rather than have two similar measures on the ballot.
The compromise, which became Prop 30, limited the income tax hike to seven years and added the four-year sales tax hike, but it also raised taxes on a bigger swath of the wealthy. The threshold was lowered from $1 million to $250,000 for individuals.
Now Brown is seen as Prop 30's main proponent, not the unions, and he is decidedly not running a "tax the rich" campaign. He leads with the dire consequences to education if Prop 30 fails, and speaks of the need for government to stay within its means and pay down debt through "shared sacrifice."
TAX MILLIONAIRES
Unlike Brown, the CFT is making "tax the rich" the centerpiece of its campaign. Along with the California Nurses, they've led creative actions to bring a spotlight on the tax. They put on a skit in front of a yacht club mocking billionaires for worrying about their toys instead of on the state of education in California.
The tax measure was polling at 55 percent in late August, with 36 percent opposed, possibly fostering complacency. Most private sector unions are focused on defeating Prop 32.
Michael Sasson, a clerical worker at UC Berkeley and a Teamster, says his union's Labor Day picnic featured many "No on 32" signs but almost nothing on Prop 30. A memo from the local asked for volunteers against the anti-union measure, but didn't mention anything else on the ballot.
"I'm on board against 32," Sasson said, "but when I talk to my co-workers or to other parents at my daughters' schools, if we don't also talk about saving the UC budget and keeping teachers from being laid off, people won't want to listen."
The state AFL-CIO and the 700,000-member SEIU state council are shying away from emphasizing the threat to union rights. Instead, they call Prop 32 the "Special Exemptions Act" and decry its "loopholes" for "corporations, billionaires, and SuperPACs"—not an entirely accurate claim, since unions get the same loophole.
The state fed's Steve Smith says the organization is planning the "largest voter mobilization effort we've ever had in California," with up to 40,000 volunteers. Spending will be in the tens of millions of dollars, depending on how much TV the other side buys. Opponents of the last such bill, mostly unions, spent $54 million in 2005.
Unions enjoy 18 percent density in the state, with 2.7 million members, and the state fed believes it has identified 2.5 million more voters with similar values.
Smith says high turnout of union and likeminded voters will have a spillover effect favoring the tax measure, whether or not they've been talked with about it directly.
The biggest donors to both the anti-32 and pro-30 campaigns are unions. The California Teachers Association (the NEA affiliate) has given $16 million to fight the paycheck-deduction measure and $1.6 million for the tax fight.
For the SEIU state council, which has spent $8.2 million on both measures, the disparity runs 3:1.
Josh Pechthalt, president of the much smaller CFT, predicts that national unions will jump in against Prop 32.
"California is seen as an exception against the Republican right-wing juggernaut," he said. "So if this were to pass it would deflate the Democrats and labor and it would have national implications."
Martha Kuhl, a nurse and delegate to an East Bay labor council, says the council's phonebanking has focused on 32. "It would completely flop the entire system on its head and give the big money interests even more power than they currently have," she said. "Who else speaks up for working people besides unions?"

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. 

Jane Slaughter

Jane Slaughter is a journalist who writes frequently on labor affairs. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, The Progressive, Monthly Review, and In These Times. She is based in Detroit.
Slaughter is on the staff of the labor magazine Labor Notes. Before that, she worked for several years as a UAW activist.
Slaughter is the author of Concessions and How To Beat Them and co-author, with Mike Parker, of Choosing Sides: Unions and the Team Concept and Working Smart: A Union Guide to Participation Programs and Reengineering. She is also the editor of Troublemaker's Handbook 2.

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