“The U.S. military announced the deaths of 11 more U.S. troops in Iraq.” - AP Report, May 7, 2007

“She has literally ‘paved’ the way for me and countless other women who now serve in the Congress,” gushed the want-to-be president, Sen. Hillary “War Lite” Clinton (D-NY). Bubba Bill’s other half was referring to Sen. Barbara “Pro Surge” Mikulski (D-MD), who had just proclaimed her support last month for Clinton’s candidacy. Mikulski has, indeed, done a lot of ‘paving,’ while pretending to serve the people of Maryland over the last three decades. For example, she has turned our once-vaunted manufacturing base, like the ex-General Motors’ plant in Baltimore, MD, into a “paved” parking lot! The Procter & Gamble facility and Bethlehem Steel’s huge steel-making and shipyard facilities, likewise, are history. The country has lost more than 3.7 million solid middle class jobs on her watch. (1) Sen. Mikulski, a globalist lapdog, has been a pallbearer for native industries that once gave working families a decent living wage, with real fringe benefits. (2)

Meanwhile, Sen. Mikulski is also regularly canonized by the Establishment media, “as a champion of women!” Yet, when the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), on March 16, 2003, ran over peace and justice activist, Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American from Olympia, WA, with a 9-ton bulldozer, she was silent. Not one word came out of her mouth! Corrie was run over, not once, but twice by the Israeli thugs. (3) This is the same Sen. Mikulski, who has made a career out of signing onto Congressional Resolutions in support of Israel’s Hard Right regimes, like that of Prime Minister’s Ehud Olmert. Even after the IOF slaughtered the Lebanese innocents, mostly women and children, at the village of Qana, on April 18, 1996, and again on July 30, 2006, Mikulski remained silent. (4) The more Mikulski fails her duty, the more faultless people die, and, ironically, the more popular she becomes. Go figure!

Part of Mikulski’s putative pit bull persona is built on a myth in my opinion. Supposedly, she took a significant part in stopping the building of a massive federal highway that would have devastated large areas of Baltimore City. One key player in that drama sharply disagrees about her role. “Mikulski didn’t write any letters, speak out, attend any [Baltimore] City Council meetings, or work on the project.” These are the words of the Hon. Thomas Ward, a retired jurist and former Baltimore City Councilman (1963-67), in referring to Mikulski’s supposed activism, during the critical ‘60s period, against the construction of a proposed federal highway system through the historic Fells Point and Federal Hill areas. Judge Ward was at the center of the effort to stop the highway. I reported his views on the U.S. Senator in an article for the Baltimore Press, entitled, “Did Sen. Mikulski Inflate her Political Resume?,” on May 22, 1999. Nevertheless, the Mikulski activist/highway myth persists. (5)

We know, too, from Sen. Mikulski’s press releases that she is against the terrible disease, Alzheimer’s, and that she wants to raise “awareness” about it. Brava for her! But, she also voted for the draconian USA Patriot Act, not once, but twice! (5)

What about the Iraqi War? Sen. Mikulski voted against it, but she has never, in any public arena--like at a Pro Peace Rally--spoken out against it! Instead, she has consistently voted to fund the war to the tune of $423.8 million. However, persistent pressure from her Pro Peace constituents, on March 14, 2007, forced her to take a stand. She said: “I will not vote to end funding.” In other words, Sen. Mikulski now wants to protect U.S. troops by placing them in the middle of a vicious, horrific Civil War in Iraq. (6) Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, USA, Retired, doesn’t buy that line at all. He said that the U.S. leaving Iraq “is neither cowardly nor imprudent. It is the ‘only way’ to recover from what is turning out to be the greatest strategic mistake in American history.” (7) As of today’s date, 3,378 brave U.S. troops have died in the Iraqi conflict, 181 were killed since Mikulski’s March 14th spiel. Of the total U.S. fatalities, 64 of those heroes called Maryland home. Over 1,300 Maryland National Guard troops are now headed for Iraq to fulfill the bizarre “Surge” strategy of the demented Bush-Cheney Gang, with Mikulski’s explicit approval. (8) As she goes along with the War Party, more Americans, and Iraqis, will continue to die. The Iraqi death toll is estimated by experts at over 655,000. (9)

Now, as a result of a recent shocking disclosure, we realize that Sen. Mikulski “knew” before the Iraqi War started on March 20, 2003, that the Bush-Cheney Gang was deliberately “lying” to the American people about some of its key reasons for wanting to go to war. (10) On April 28, 2007, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) admitted, on the floor of the Senate, that as a member of the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, that he knew, five years ago, that some of the relevant data that the Bush administration was feeding to the American people to hype a war with Iraq was in “direct contradiction to the information [intel] given to this Congress.” (11) Activist Kevin Zeese revealed there were sixteen members on that Committee, “who were given the same information as Durbin.” One of those members was none other than--Sen. Mikulski! (12) Isn’t it time that she comes clean about that fact and explains to the voters of Maryland her complicity in this life and death matter? How in God’s holy name could Sen. Mikulski vote to fund a war that she personally knew was launched by the Bush-Cheney Gang based on a pack of rotten lies?

At press time, there are rumors flying around Capitol Hill, that if Sen. Clinton does win the presidency in 2008, that Sen. “Pro Surge” Mikulski will be given a high-ranking Cabinet post. Well, bully for her and her lauded paving abilities! Question: How many more innocents, however, have to die because Sen. Mikulski has failed miserably her duties as a U.S. Senator, especially in putting the public’s interest first?

Notes:

1. www.economyincrisis.org/
2. “$11.30! Can People Live on that Hourly Rate?” by Jamie Smith Hopkins, Baltimore Sun, May 6, 2007.
3. www.rachelcorrie.org/
4. www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/robert_fisk_qana.html
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5228554.stm
5. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Mikulski and
dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/133425/index.php
6. baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/14770/index.php 7. www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp
8. baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/14834/index.php
9. www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/
10. www.afterdowningstreet.org/
11. democracyrising.us/content/view/899/151/
12. intelligence.senate.gov/members107thcongress.html

© William Hughes 2007.

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes-AT-comcast.net.