- The demos have signed on to Bush's war when 20% of the population supported it.
- Therefore, most congressmen and senators voted against their constituencies.
- Since even centrist media have finally reported that the Bushies excused their invasions in a cascade of lies, one must assume professional politicians have long recognized that. So few if any of these votes can be tied to conscience over Iraqis.
- The troops can be withdrawn at no cost to the troops with the money the government now has. Being in Baghdad is more dangerous than being in the US. So this bill kills troops; it does not protect them or support them. This is obvious enough that one must find it unlikely that anyone signed off on the war to support American troops.
- Politicians and there immediate families rarely get involved in war. (The current ex-Vietnam politicians were at draft age in a time when the lottery draft did not respect economic differences, not in the current, more typical poverty-draft.) So the votes did not come from direct personal concerns (indirect concerns, including payola, may be another matter).
- Republicans may have voted against their better judgment from party loyalties, but this would not apply to democrats.
- Anyone could have voted out of some obscure ideological ideas. But if so, the ideas seem more thoroughly obscure than usual. The war violates liberty, may result in disorder within the US as well as outside of it, and will be vastly unprofitable to much of the elite as well as most all American citizens. Moreover, politicians engage in adjusting ideals to practical circumstance professionally, on a daily basis. The substitution of childish lies (WMD after inspectors had verified their nonexistence, regime replacement after Hussein offered to step down, terrorism when bin Ladin represents religious and political factions opposed to Hussein) for even the most arcane of ideological argument suggests that ideological cannot be a primary reason.
- Bribery laws don't get enforced efficiently, but when they do, the results are costly for politicians, who could otherwise retire on comfortable albeit vastly reduced pensions.
- Politicians who have no campaign funds get removed from office regardless of how they vote. One could even argue that politicians should kowtow to lobbyists simply because any who don't will have to leave the beltway with dispatch
We might conclude that the intersection of two groups will be an approximate list of those who bought the war:
- Corporations who have given or will give funds to democrats who voted for war
- Corporations who have profited or stand to profit greatly from the war. This includes not only contractors, but companies that sell oil that does not come from Iraq.
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