American democracy in decay: US Congress debates the Iraq war

Patrick Martin, WSWS

The congressional debate last week on the Iraq war combined Republican bullying, Democratic hand-wringing and lies piled upon lies from both sides of the aisle. Neither the Republicans, who hold a narrow majority in both the House and Senate and generally support the Bush administration’s conduct of the war, nor the Democrats, the nominal opposition party, could tell the truth to the American public. Neither side in the debate could admit what the vast majority of the world’s politically conscious population, including millions of Americans, already knows: that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq constitute a crime of historic proportions. Instead, the debate was conducted entirely within the framework of what was best for the foreign policy interests of American imperialism and its corporate ruling class...

continua / continued