In September, Senate Democrat leadership failed to get the votes necessary to stop a prowar filibuster and vote on an amendment ordering most U.S. troops home from Iraq in the next nine months. The vote was 47-47, well short of the 60 required to bring debate to an end.

Only the day before, the Senate had blocked legislation by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) that would have cut off funding, albeit only for “combat” forces in June 2008.

Later in the month came the news that Bush would soon ask for nearly $200 billion more for the wars in 2008. Essentially Bush is thumbing his nose at antiwar sentiment in the country, and the Democrats are going along while trying to preserve a rapidly eroding antiwar veneer. To get their way, prowar senators make free use of the filibuster provision. In this 110th Congress, the filibuster tactic has already been used 56 times, at which rate there will be 143 such events in this session!

But the question must be raised: Why don’t the “antiwar” senators like Feingold or Obama or Kennedy or Kerry or Clinton or (Republican) Hagel initiate a filibuster to stop Bush’s supplemental funding requests for the war? Think about it for a moment. Yes, it takes 60 votes to terminate debate on a bill, but by the same token it only takes 41 to continue debate—and then the bill cannot come to a vote. It is dead.

So why not filibuster Bush’s supplemental budget? Unless Bush can muster 60 Senate votes, his request is dead in the water. Then there is nothing for him to veto.

The 47 senators who voted to bring some of the troops home from Iraq are more than enough to filibuster Bush’s spending requests and end the war. Why don’t they do it?

Could it be that they are really all prowar but this tactic allows them to appear antiwar to their constituents? Are they proclaiming their prowar bona fides to the voters while demonstrating to the military-industrial complex and Israel lobby that they will do nothing to stop the war? That is the way it looks from down here.

The silence of the clams

Why is the media perfectly silent on this possibility? I defy anyone to find a single mention of the use of the filibuster to end the war now anywhere in the mainstream media.

A good example is a September 16 New York Times piece by Frank Rich. He complains that the Democrats are not acting to end the war, but then he laments that they really do not have the power. He perpetuates the myth that they have only a razor-thin majority, a thought encouraged by Senator Reid, and so they can do nothing.

But Mr. Rich is surely smart enough to recognize that a filibuster can defund the war at once, that there are 51 Democrats, and that it takes only 41 votes to sustain a filibuster. Most important, why does the antiwar movement not demand a filibuster?

Such a demand would bring enormous pressure to bear on Senate Democrats who like to proclaim themselves antiwar. However, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) has explicitly refused to do this.

Why? Because, according to the UFPJ leadership, their friends on the Hill (Democrats) say it does not have a chance. Of course, that could be said of any of the antiwar gestures they have made.

No, the truth is that the filibuster and the vote that would follow in its wake would expose each and every Democrat Senator for what they are. And that is a no-no for the UFPJ leadership, which more or less shares a bed with the Democrat party.

There is one way to push this forward. At FilibusterForPeace.org there is a petition calling for a Senate filibuster against the war. Sign it and circulate it.

And if you are a member of UFPJ or other peace group, get them to support this in an active way. There will be mighty resistance but it is still possible.

John V. Walsh is a Massachusetts delegate to the National Committee, Green Party of the United States