From CounterPunch
By Winslow T. Wheeler

More than three decades ago, argument over the war in Indochina raged among the public and in Congress. Today, opinion polls show real popular dispute about the war in Iraq, but Congress shows no evidence of genuine debate, just some toothless carping.

In the early 1970s, I sat in the staff gallery of the Senate and listened as congressional leaders argued over the merits of bringing home the troops from the divisive war in Indochina. Senators from both parties broke away from the fabrications of the Johnson and Nixon administrations to oppose a war they deemed not in the national interest. They cauterized policies that sustained the calamity, while war advocates perceived endless lights at the end of the tunnel and an end to freedom if the country did not stay the course.

We hear the same rhetoric today, but in the past there was an important difference: then, the critics of the war did not just talk, they acted using the prerogatives the Constitution gave them as members of Congress to pursue their convictions in legislation. Their bills had teeth.

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