{"id":434,"date":"2007-07-18T20:20:30","date_gmt":"2007-07-19T00:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/2007\/07\/18\/senate-sleepover-ends-in-war-busines"},"modified":"2007-07-18T21:34:30","modified_gmt":"2007-07-19T01:34:30","slug":"senate-sleepover-ends-in-war-business-as-usual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/2007\/07\/18\/senate-sleepover-ends-in-war-business-as-usual\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Sleepover Ends in War Business as Usual*"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> A significant number of Republican Senators have publicly called for a change in strategy in the war in Iraq. Nonetheless, they have blocked even a hint of a timetable with the threat of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/index.php?search=filibuster&amp;searchmode=none\" target=\"_blank\">filibuster<\/a> that none dared call filibuster<sup>1<\/sup>. Surely, in the cold sober light of CSPAN2, those Senators would be forced to put their vote where there mouth is. Or at least that&#8217;s what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV] hoped. But NO!!! After 30 hours of debate, the Senate voted 52-47 to end debate and vote on the Levin-Reed<sup>2<\/sup> Amendment to the Defense Authorization Act for 2008. Falling short of the 60 votes required, the amendment did NOT come to a vote. Senator Reid withdrew the the Defense Authorization Act from the floor, leaving open the possibility of resubmitting Levin-Reed at a future date.  Presumably, pressure on the Repugs will be greater in September.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bobgeiger.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The best account I&#8217;ve seen, including full text of Levin-Reed, is at BobGeiger.com.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>How much of a change in strategy are we talking about?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not a lot. Levin-Reed calls for a reduction in troops in Iraq to be completed by April 2008, but leaves some in place indefinitely. Presumably their role would be limited. It does nothing to reduce <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/csm\/20070718\/ts_csm\/acontractors;_ylt=Ai1c5xKCs8BmNY8Xj2ykk6bMWM0F\" target=\"_blank\">the number of American paid mercenary soldiers in Iraq<\/a>. Lastly, and most important for the long term, it leaves the door open for &#8220;redeployment&#8221; in the region. It may be a turn in course, but it is not an obvious turn away from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newamericancentury.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">the neo-conservative pursuit of hegemony<\/a>. With the Lieberman amendment already attached to the the Defense Authorization Act, Levin-Reed might merely mean a turn in the course of the pursuit of hegemony away from Iraq toward Iran. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chomsky.info\/books.htm\" target=\"_blank\">That would not be a course for survival<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>*I&#8217;m goin&#8217; for a little Matt Drudge thing here. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p><sup>1<\/sup>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/index.php?search=cloture&amp;searchmode=none\" target=\"_blank\">cloture<\/a> vote to end debate and bring a measure to a vote, requires 60 of the 100 votes. Rather than say filibuster, the Repugs simply say, &#8220;you know it takes 60 votes?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><sup>2<\/sup>The homophonic Senator Jack Reed [D-RI] is distinct from the Majority leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A significant number of Republican Senators have publicly called for a change in strategy in the war in Iraq. Nonetheless, they have blocked even a hint of a timetable with the threat of filibuster that none dared call filibuster1. Surely, in the cold sober light of CSPAN2, those Senators would be forced to put their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[776],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sand-oil-and-tears"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}