Steve Burns: Searching for - and finding - antiwar Republicans

Combing through the smoldering wreckage of Wednesday's 395 to 34 House vote for war funding - which provided about $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - a few glimmers of hope emerge, in the form of antiwar Republicans who have not yet received the attention - and thanks - they deserve from the peace movement.

Republicans supplied 12 of the 34 "no" votes on the war funding bill, and most of the twelve were in the mold of Wyoming's Cynthia Lummis, who had this to say about her "no" vote:

“The terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay are there for a reason. They are enemy combatants apprehended on the battlefield while fighting American soldiers. It defies logic that Democrats are using the same bill to fund our troops to bring the very terrorists they are fighting onto sacred American soil."

Not a vote for peace there, I think.

Among the genuinely antiwar Republican voices was Ron Paul of Texas, of course, long a principled voice of small-government conservatism who is willing to apply his small-government principles to our big-government empire. But there were also some new faces (or at least new to me), like Tennessee Representative John Duncan (above, left), whose 1-minute speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, "War is Not Conservative", would make the perfect holiday gift for that Republican brother-in-law on your list. Here's a quote:

"There is nothing conservative about the war in Afghanistan...Conservatives who oppose big government and huge deficit spending at home should not support it just because it's being done by our biggest bureaucracy, the Defense Department. We have now spent a trillion and half dollars we did not have, that we had to borrow, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eight years is long enough, in fact it's too long, let's bring our troops home and start putting Americans first, once again."

Another interesting case is Republican "no" voter Jason Chaffetz of Utah. While Chaffetz does not have a statement on his website regarding his vote against the war-funding bill, he does have a statement directed at the President with his recommendations for Afghanistan, which ends with this:

Mr. President, it is time to bring our troops home. If our mission in Afghanistan is simply to protect the populace and build the nation, then I believe the time has come to bring our troops home.

Chaffetz is no peacenik. His advice to the President also includes:

Mr. President, go big or go home. Our Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines are trained to fight and WIN wars. They are the best trained and equipped fighting force in the world. But we’ve tied their hands. The American people want us to give our troops everything they need to win so they can come home. In short, give them everything they need or bring the troops home.

Given that our drone strikes on Pakistan have an estimated 98% civilian casualty rate (that's 50 civilians killed for every suspected terrorist killed), it's hard to imagine what the U.S. military could do with its hands untied. Nevertheless, on the basis of his statement, let's give Rep. Chaffetz' credit for half a vote against the Afghanistan war on the grounds that it's too humanitarian.

And let's also give some thanks to Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, another "no" voter. Flake's vote was most likely motivated by the inclusion of hundreds of earmarks inserted into the bill at the behest of the politically well-connected lobbying firm PMA group, which is now under investigation by the FBI for violations of campaign finance laws: “It defies logic that the House would move ahead with no-bid contracts to former clients of the PMA Group at the same time the Ethics Committee is investigating the PMA scandal,” said Flake. Good for you, Congressman. It's nice to see the corruption of the military-industrial complex getting some attention from your side of the aisle.

And finally, let's not forget "no" voter Tim Johnson, from the bedrock-Republican 15th district in central Illinois. After President Obama spoke at West Point, announcing his decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan, Johnson said that the President's choice was “exactly the reverse” of what the U.S. government should be doing, saying we need a "responsible troop withdrawal" from that country. Johnson is also a co-sponsor of Rep. James McGovern's "Afghanistan exit strategy" bill, and Johnson was one of 57 legislators who wrote the President in September urging him to reject a troop increase. But, unlike too many of his colleagues who merely claim to be antiwar, Johnson was willing to go beyond stern letters and scolding press releases and actually vote against the funding that allows the war to continue. That's a model that many Democrats could learn from.

Steve Burns is Program Director of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.