revoke the AUMF

since the november elections, the discourse surrounding the protracted failure that is Gulf War II provides a studied contrast between the effective, unified messages of the republicans and the scattered disarray of democratic messages. i won't go through the lexis/nexis record to prove this because a summary is clear enough. the basis of the republican message is fear (we must stay and "win" in iraq or else face disaster there and at home), most recently supplemented with the charge that congress is trying to "micromanage" the war (a perfectly crafted luntz-esque soundbite). by contrast, the democrats have been all over the place -- from non-binding resolutions of disapproval to various means of limiting the funding, to caps on new troop levels, to whatever hare-brained scheme they'll come up with tomorrow.

the only solution to my mind, the ONLY way to get the bush people to own up and change their utter failure of a policy, is to revise, revoke, rescind either the 2001 or 2002 AUMFs (authorization for the use of military force).

while over at znet stephen lendman paints a rather grim picture of why this won't happen and cutting off funding is the only way (tho that won't happen either), dave lindorf says otherwise at counterpunch. and in no uncertain terms:

The only way to stop the ongoing rape of the Constitution is to change the laws that have been used as legal cover by the rapist-in-chief and his accomplices.

strong language, nevertheless equal to the direness of the situation. because while lendman is probably correct realistically, lindorf appeals to the optimist/idealist in me that thinks if you went to bush and said your AUMF expires at the end of the month, and if you don't come back to us with a reauthorization then your funding is cut off too, this might just work.