Outsider in the White House (15 page)

In early January, I attended a meeting in which Speaker Foley and the Democratic leadership—Gephardt, Bonior, and others—talked about the upcoming vote. At that time the Democrats had a strong majority in the House and Senate. Simply stated, if the Democratic leadership wanted to block the war, they had the votes to do it. My friend Tom Andrews, a fellow antiwar freshman from Maine, asked a straightforward question: Would the leadership impose party discipline on this vote, and refuse to give Bush the authority to declare war? Foley looked straight at Tom and told him that there would be no party discipline. While he, and every other member of the leadership, was going to vote against giving the president the authority to send our troops into battle, he was not going to demand that all Democrats support that position.

At that moment, I knew the war was inevitable. Ostensibly, the Democrats controlled the House. Yet, on the most important issue facing the country, the Republicans were going to win. It was clear that there would be enough Democrats joining the Republicans to give Bush the necessary votes.

On January 15, just before the war broke out, I spoke on the floor of the House: “Mr. Speaker, let me begin my saying that I think we all agree in this body, and throughout this country, and throughout virtually the entire world, that Saddam Hussein is an evil person, and what he has done in Kuwait is illegal, immoral, and brutal. It seems to me, however, that the challenge of our time is not simply to begin a war which will result in the deaths of tens of thousands of people, young Americans, innocent women and children in Iraq, but the real challenge of our time is to see how we can stop aggression, how we can stop evil in a new way, in a nonviolent way.

“If ever there has been a time in the history of the world when the entire world is united against one small country, this is that time. It seems to me a terrible failing, and very ominous for the future, if we cannot resolve this crisis, if we cannot defeat Saddam Hussein in a nonviolent way. If we are not successful now, then I think all that this world has to look forward to in the future for our children, is war, and more war, and more war.”

My speech, and many other fine speeches, had little impact. Bush had the votes. On January 17, 1991, American planes attacked Iraq with a massive show of force.

On January 18, 1991, I once again spoke on the House floor: “Mr. Speaker, a few months ago the entire world rejoiced that the Cold War had finally ended, and that the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on bombs and tanks and missiles could finally be used to improve human life, not to destroy human life.

“Mr. Speaker, a major war in the Persian Gulf, costing us thousands of lives and tens of billions of dollars, could well be a disaster for the people of our country—especially the working people, the poor people, the elderly, and the children. I predict that this Congress will soon be asked for more money for guided missiles, but there will be no money available to house the homeless. I predict that this Congress will soon be asked for more money for tanks, but there will be no money or effort available to develop a national health care system, guaranteeing health care for all of our people—as virtually all of the industrialized world has.

“I predict that this Congress will soon be asked for more money for bombs, but there will be no money available to reindustrialize our nation so that our working people can have decent-paying jobs. There will be no money available for education and for our children—25 percent of whom live in poverty. There will be no money available for the environment, or to help the family farmer—many of whom are being forced off the land today in my state of Vermont and throughout this country.

“Mr. Speaker, I predict that in order to pay for this war, there will be more cutbacks in Medicare for the elderly, and even an effort to cut back on Social Security payments.”

For me personally, this was a very depressing period. I am not a pacifist. I believe that there are times when war is legitimate, when the alternative is existence under a horrendous status quo. I think those instances, however, are much rarer than most government leaders admit.

It would seem that after thousands of years in which one group or country has resolved its problems by killing the people of another group or country, the human race should be ready to learn something about resolving differences nonviolently. I had been a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, an opponent of the war against the people of Nicaragua, an opponent of the U.S. invasions of Grenada and Panama. Now, as a U.S. congressman, I had voted against the Persian Gulf War.

As the bombs began falling and American troops entered combat, I learned a very painful lesson about congressional politics.

A resolution was brought before the House on January 18—a Republican-drafted document endorsed by the Democratic leadership. The resolution urged congressional support for our troops in combat and simultaneously commended “the efforts and leadership of the President.” An amendment on March 5 praised the president for “his decisive leadership, unerring judgment, and sound decisions with respect to the crisis in the Persian Gulf.” I was incredulous. Unerring judgment? Not only did this phrase sound like some Stalinist propaganda of the 1930s, it directly contradicted what 183 members had said through their votes against the war less than two months earlier.

It was one thing, now that the war had begun and American troops were fighting for their lives, to express support for them. I was ready and willing to do that. But it seemed to me that it was a very different thing to declare that President Bush had been right all along regarding the situation in the Persian Gulf, and that war had been the only solution. After all, almost half of Congress had opposed the president's militarism. Sending in the troops and bombers changed the situation for soldiers, but it did not nullify our basic argument that peaceful solutions are preferable to military ones. We had not been wrong, but that is exactly what the resolution asked us to say.

In the face of a growing and massive media campaign to justify and celebrate the war, it was hard to vote no this second time. A week earlier, 183 members had voted to support a continuation of economic sanctions, and against a war. Now, as I looked up at the vote tally board,
everyone
was voting yes. I remember putting my card into the machine—we vote on the floor by using a card with a magnetic strip to activate a voting machine, and then pressing either the yes or no button—and thinking to myself, “This is going to be a short congressional career.” I pressed the no button. Only five other members did the same. The vote was 399 to 6.

That vote would haunt me. In every election since, political opponents charge, “In the middle of a war, Bernie Sanders did not vote to support the troops.” It's a lie and a distortion of reality, but it works well in a thirty-second radio ad.

I had been in Congress for less than a month, and already I was feeling awfully lonely. But how I was feeling personally or politically was a lot less important than what was happening in the country.

And what was happening was frightening. A more or less totalitarian system was kicking into effect. Even a longtime critic of the media like myself was stunned by the servility of the media, by how quickly they fell into line behind the militaristic imperatives of the president and Pentagon. Their obedience paid off. When I returned to Vermont, there was a yellow ribbon on what seemed like every house and tree. The media had succeeded in creating a national war mood.

Television gave virtually no coverage to people who opposed the war. Reporting was tightly controlled and totally one-sided. A study done several years later found that pro-war National Football League players got more air time to discuss their views on the Persian Gulf War than the whole antiwar movement put together. During the early days of the war, Jesse Jackson led a large march on Washington, and it received almost no coverage. Simply stated, there was massive censorship of dissent, criticism, debate.

Clearly, the government had learned a lesson from the Vietnam War. This time, the media would not play a role in providing information to support any sort of antiwar sentiment. No Americans would be televised coming home in body bags. No photos of American atrocities would reach the evening news. No critics would be heard above the din of the president's pumped-up war rhetoric.

And it was not just the national television. It was the radio, the newspapers, the magazines. I tried to get news in Washington from the supposedly liberal National Public Radio network, but they were as bad as everyone else. In fact, there was no pretense at objectivity. The government
announced
that it was censoring the news. Instead of contesting this flagrant violation of the public's right to be informed, the media submitted to the blackout and lapped up the government's doctored reports. Before Congress had voted to give the president authority to send troops into combat, polls showed the country was pretty evenly divided on the wisdom of U.S. involvement. Three weeks into the war (and a massive media campaign), the overwhelming majority of Americans supported it.

One of the very few newspapers courageous enough to oppose the war was located in my own state. Stephen Faye, the editor of the
Brattleboro Reformer
, withstood criticism from some of his advertisers, and wrote forceful editorials against the war week after week. Tragically, in those emotional days, there were very few journalists with that sort of courage.

Six years after the war, I wonder how many Americans have seen even one story about the enormous loss of life suffered by the women and children of Iraq. An estimated 200,000 noncombatants died in that war, killed by our “smart bombs.” This figure does not include the terrible loss of life incurred after the war as a result of hunger, contaminated water, lack of health care, and the destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure. Though brief, the war caused enormous slaughter and suffering for the ordinary people of Iraq. No, our “smart bombs” did not avoid “collateral damage.” No, it was not just Iraqi soldiers who died.

The president and the Pentagon claimed the war was a success: we achieved our objectives with very little loss of American life. What they did not tell us was that some 70,000 American soldiers returned with a variety of ailments commonly referred to as Persian Gulf syndrome. In fact, ever since the war, the Pentagon has lied and attempted to conceal almost all information about the devastating effects of the war on American soldiers. It took five years for the military to even acknowledge that American troops had been exposed to chemical warfare agents when they blew up an Iraqi munitions depot in the town of Khamiseyah. Even today, it is difficult for those of us in Congress who are demanding adequate treatment and compensation for these hidden casualties of the war to get the truth from the Pentagon.

And let me be very clear. Given their enormous success in selling the Persian Gulf debacle, there is no reason to expect that the government and the media will behave any differently when the next war comes. If they could win massive public support for defending “freedom” in Kuwait, they can use the same techniques to build support for
any
war. After all, Kuwait was, and is, a country controlled by billionaire emirs. Kuwait is not so free that it allows women to vote, or even to drive automobiles. It is not so free that the Christian and Jewish soldiers we sent to defend Kuwait were allowed to celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah when they were there.

Hard as it was to be in Washington in those days, it was even harder to be in Vermont. I recall, with deep hurt, seeing off a unit of the Vermont National Guard as they departed for the Gulf. I was booed by a few people there, one of the few times in my political career that had ever happened to me. War is a very strange phenomenon. I do not claim to understand its psychological effects. Here I had done my best to prevent young Vermonters and other Americans from getting killed, and I was being booed for my efforts. One day I was at the airport waiting for a flight to Washington, and a woman said to me, “My son is over there. I'm appalled that you're not supporting him.” That wasn't true, but nothing I said would convince her otherwise.

On a more optimistic note, a poll came out during that period which found my “favorability” ratings reasonably high. Apparently, a number of Vermonters respected my standing up for what I believed, even if they disagreed with my position on the war.

Those early days in Congress were very tough. I even managed to make a fool of myself at a nationally televised Washington event. To this day, whenever the subject of that night comes up, my wife, who saw it on TV in Vermont, involuntarily winces and shakes her head. I was invited to speak before the annual dinner hosted by the National Press Club. Of course, I didn't know it at the time, but this is a major event on the Capitol calendar, attended by everybody who is anybody: Supreme Court justices, leading business people, major politicians, celebrities, and, of course, all the Washington media. Four new members of Congress, including me, had been invited to speak.

But they wanted more than a speech. We were expected to be funny, too. It was supposed to be a lighthearted and amusing evening, with everyone guaranteed a good time. I had three problems with the event. First, I have no talent for stand-up comedy before hundreds of strangers with whom I have nothing in common. Second, I was in no mood for jokes when a war I vigorously opposed had just broken out. And third, this was a black tie affair and I didn't have a tuxedo or a black tie (and I had no intention of ever buying either).

For those reasons and a few more, I called the organizers and told them that, on reflection, I didn't think I should attend. They strongly disagreed. The invitations had already gone out with my name as one of the speakers: everybody would be
terribly
disappointed. I just
had
to be there.

The upshot was that I allowed myself to be talked into going. The evening was a disaster. There I was, morose, telling lame jokes that a few of us in the office had cooked up minutes before I left for the event, my performance beamed by C-Span back to Vermont and across the country. The only consolation was that Senator Paul Wellstone, another invited speaker, was equally bad. This was a miserable night for me during a miserable period.