Why Dems capitulated to Bush on Iraq

Danny Schechter nails the real reason Congressional Democrats wimped out in Thurday's Iraq war budget vote.

...[I]t is sometimes hard to remember that war is business, not just politics. The Military Industrial Complex does business in every state and in every congressional district and the politically distributed pork or war booty employs constituents in every district (emphasis added.) Members of Congress are very aware of that.

The MoveOn’s and anti-war groups are not the only lobbyists in this game. Behind the scenes, employees of war industries and their lobbyists are pressuring the Congress too. Their pressure comes in the form of threats to cut off political contributions unless those they patronize act “responsibly.” They don’t have to make too many threats to the natural born compromisers on the hill for whom selling out is part of buying in. They know who butters their buns.

And then, forever lurking in the background and in foreground, there is the unbrave world of media that gives endless newsprint and airtime to debates about whether the war has been managed well enough. In a media filled with crime shows, this crime goes uncovered as such. Instead, CBS fires a General whose politics they fear may blowback in their face. The reporting is still mostly one-sided and the anti-war movement is barely heard from or seen. No wonder the public is sending mixed messages. They are still being lied to by our weapons of mass deception. There are more new faces in Congress than on the networks.
MediaChannel.org

There. Schechter has written the undeniable truth which the MSM forget and most progressive and liberal commentators seem to ignore. For example, Working Assets blogger David Sirota is highly incensed by Congressioanl Democrats' vote, and righty so. Yet in his blog entries no mention of "The Military Industrial Complex" and its hold over Congress.

Likewise at the anti-war After Downing Street.org, retired US Army Reserves Colonel, Ann Wright, writes:

Thursday, May 24 the US Congress voted to continue the war on Iraq. They called it “supporting the troops.” I call it stealing Iraq’s oil-the second largest oil reserves in the world. The “benchmark” or goal the Bush administration has been working on furiously since the US invaded Iraq is the privatization of Iraqi oil. Now they have the US Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds.

And, yes, the rape of Iraq's oil resources is of overridding consideration for Bush and many in the U.S. Congress, but as Schechter points out the tentacles of The Military Industrial Complex stretch into every nook and cranny of the country.

So keeping in mind the power of The Military Industrial Complex, it was an extreme act of political courage for Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd to cast a no vote for the Iraq funding bill. "Although the State of Connecticut is the third smallest state in the union, it is the home of many major defense contractors, including Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, Sikorsky Aircraft, and Electric Boat." (US Department of Justice.gov)