Nobody is blaming Vermont's U.S. Representative Peter Welch for not ending the military occupation of Iraq, as he seems to think (in a strange chimera of egomaniacal humility). But neither is anybody buying his line that he is "doing everything possible" to end it, as he again asserted in the Aldrich Public Library in Barre last night.
Welch voted to continue funding the occupation. That is the simple fact that has angered his constituents, who voted for him because of his firm stand against that occupation.
By pleading that he alone can't stop the occupation, by pretending that Vermonters are scapegoating him out of impotence, frustration, or (as he implied) amusement, he refuses to admit his small part in the war's perpetuation.
To argue political "reality" is bullshit in this case. If Bush is going to veto any anti-war bill, that is not a reason to give him the funding he needs to keep his (our) killing machine going in Iraq. It is instead a reason to refuse to be a part of the crime.
This situation demands being "bad" not a "good German", Congressman Welch. It demands standing up to Nancy Pelosi and her committee assignment bribes. It demands remembering the principles you ran on.
Does anyone now believe that Martha Rainville's votes would have been any different than Welch's?
Keep up with this issue at Michael Colby's "Broadsides" blog.
Vermont, anarchism
