Apparently, I have stumped the DU community with this question:

[tgnyc]

For the last several days I've been fishing for DU-ers' thoughts on the following question:

What if the congressional GOP's next act is to put up for a vote a resolution that declares it "a mistake to have invaded Iraq."

What percentage of the Dems would vote "yea?"

Maybe it's just because it was a weekend, but my three attempts to collect responses to this question over three days yielded a total of just 6 comments.

But after all the Murtha-related fury last week, I can't help wondering whether my fellow DUers aren't having as much trouble as I am facing what might be the true answer to my question: that despite all that we have seen and learned over the last two and a half years, a significant percentage of the congressional Democrats -- maybe half -- would find a way to avoid voting "yea" to such a proclamation (either voting "no," "present," or just not being around on that day). This, in spite of the fact that not just most Democratic voters feel this way, but also most Americans, period, now feel this way.

Assuming my estimation is correct, does that have any implications for America's presence in Iraq? Does it have any implications for 2006 elections?

Come on, folks, what do you think?

[ananda]

1. Well, I'm a well-informed person..

.. and I've known it was a mistake to invade Iraq from day one.

So I'd vote yes, it was a mistake.

I often vote Dem and I never vote Reep. So if Dems represent me, they would vote yes too.

I'm sure that some would and others wouldn't.

[tx_dem41]

2. I think the key point would be "whose" mistake it was. n/t

[Mass]

9. Bush is the one who signed the order to invade.

Voting the IWR gave him the possibility to do it. It did not force him to do it.

So, the way the question is worded, it should require 100 % YES.

[tx_dem41]

13. I would expect it would get 100% vote...

unless they are trying to be factual and don't want to give Bush an out by saying it was a mistake on his part. Most Democrats think it was no mistake at all, but a deliberate action.

[Mass]

14. I guess I see your point.

[Mass]

3. Any Democrat who still thinks it was not a mistake should rethink

his belonging to the Democratic party.

Whatever you think should be done now, how can somebody think it was not a mistake.

So for me, it should be 100 %.

[XNASA]

4. I'd like to know who made the mistake myself.

[KittyWampus]

5. Maybe the reason noone bothered w/ your question is it rests on conjecture

about a possiblity that would never happen.

[tgnyc]

18. Wouldn't you have said the same thing one week ago about a GOP

resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal from Iraq?

[sonofliberty]

I think we are screwed

We have been voting for laundry.... we have had the left pulled so far to the right that there is little diffence..... cooperate america and the world banking and major industries have bought all the votes so where dose it leave us .... neck deep in shit at the shallow end

[Crankie Avalon]

6. Hopefully, the cowards in Congress will finally figure out...

...what the American People are thinking and vote accordingly. It will take a while for them to be sure of it, and it would be nice if they would just vote their own principle rather than holding their fingers to the wind for that long, but that's just the way these folks operate, I guess.

[laruemtt]

7. where about 80% of the dems in congress are concerned,

i'm in an 'i'll believe it when i see it' state of mind. for the most part, they're spineless cowards, looking out for their next election cycle. pretty cynical, i know, but hey, prove me wrong, congress critters. you've all heard from me many times. i'm waiting.

[Nimrod2005]

8. I would vote - YES! it was a mistake

Any politician who does not is a MORON!!!

[leftofthedial]

10. about 8 percent

[kentuck]

11. A huge majority of Democrats would vote "yes"

And quite a few Repubs, in my opinion. But what do we do now?

[Demit]

12. Maybe DUers who saw your What If? question just weren't interested in

speculating on your scenario. Looks like they saved themselves some time, too, now that you say there is just one "true" answer. :eyes:

[flyarm]

15. FIRST I WOULD SAY..ONLY THE PRESIDENT CAN SEND THE TROOPS TO WAR...

MANY DEMS IN CONGRESS were not supporting sending the troops when * sent them...but the ultimate decision to send them to this war was *

and i do believe Lieberman would say it was justified , he is no dem in my book...he is a neo con...

and many in the DLC would not sign and say it was a mistake , as they are run by the same corporations that run the neo cons, and they are all run by the illuminati, and all members of cfr, trilateral commission and the bilderbergs support them...

i look at the letters D L C..and to me the "C" stand for corporations...

i do believe those who are only DNC would all vote it was a mistake, i believe the Black Caucus would unanimously vote it was a mistake, i believe anyone who represented minorities would vote it was a mistake..

but do not be fooled by the DLC..they are not full fledged neo cons, but they are the next best thing!

fly

[Upfront]

16. Howard Dean

Told America it was a big mis-take before we invaded. Not many listened. I did, it was a huge mis-take, and the Democrats should say so.

[johnaries]

17. That's easy to answer.

recent polls show that 54% of Americans think it was a mistake, and 60% think it was not worth it.

So, considering it's only a year before elections, somewhere between 54% and 60% of Dems will vote yes.

[dogday]

19. While people sit around and debate the

merits of why we got into this war and who was voting which way, let me just say this. Who gives a flying fuck. The war is based on intelligence that is wrong and what are we going to do about that?

The wrong thing done for the right reason is still the wrong thing. If the intelligence is wrong, the war is wrong and to continue even another day is wrong. America's Sons and Daughters are dying every day while these stupid discussions continue. Bring them home now.....

[TallahasseeGrannie]

20. I'm a fairly bright person

but I am no expert in Congressional matters so I am staying mute on this one.

[Oilwellian]

21. 2/3 of all congressional Dems voted against the IWR

Why would that change at this point in time?

[tgnyc]

22. Fear that in the next year the violence will die down, 25,000 troops

will come home, and the GOP will be able to spin the adventure as a "success."

[Lexingtonian]

23. I'm not sure this is such a great problem

because the Murtha proposal is (as I see it) a gambit. It is not intended to be the realistic solution to the Iraq dilemma(s). It is designed to level the field of debate by proposing the extreme idea that is equal and opposite to the Republican party line, forcing the middle ground (in which the best political solution lies) to become where public opinion gravitates.

As a merely American military matter, Murtha's view is the rational one: there's nothing to win and everything to lose, so it's time to get out. It does, however, very deliberately bypass the political issue of what the American obligation to common Iraqis is and the imposition of government in the country.

The Republican-identified view/'policy' is militarily pure stupidity, attrition for reasons of ego alone. Their political project, of building a constitutional government in a country run by totalitarian warlords, is ridiculously naive at bottom for all their proclaimed cynicism and rejection of innocence and supposed understanding of bad behavior. But it has the virtue of admitting an American obligation to common Iraqis as a result of toppling Hussein and occupying the country, even if badly and stupidly misconceived.

Of course, this is a pure role reversal for the two Parties relative to the Vietnam War- Demcrats claiming only to care for American troops, Republicans reveling in humanitarian concern for and liberalism toward average Iraqis.

By building up these two faux extremes that neither side really believes in (of course), it flushes the idiots on both sides into the open and forces their annihilation. Which is the first step toward recovery of sanity.

The right solution to Iraq is in the middle between the two sides. There has to be an admission that a Sunni/Shia civil war is the realistic next and necessary step in Iraq's history, that American military power can only defer it rather than head it off militarily, and that the American puppet government in Baghdad is merely transitory, a political mistake. American obligation to common Iraqis boils down to minimizing civilian casualties in this civil war, i.e. the creation of 'safe havens' for women and children.

The political and military consequences are the giving up of the faux 'government' and partial American withdrawal/pretty large troop reduction (say, reduction to 50,000 troops)- out of Baghdad and the Sunni/Shia overlap zone entirely, to control of zones that will essentially consist of refugee camps. Then the civil war must pass and the UN handed the control of creating a new Iraqi state after that.

It would be nice for Democrats to win a complete and partisan victory of policy change on Iraq, of course. But the far wiser course is a bipartisan "compromise" that achieves the same policy- Republicans generally have no soul or inherent dignity to fall back on, so one must let them 'save face' in public or suffer their lack of dignity and integrity in its vile and idiotic and nihilistic/desperate/immoralist forms further down the line.