The Hill tells us that House Republicans are going to vote en bloc against the war funding supplemental today.

For years, Republicans portrayed the bills funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as matters of national security and accused Democrats who voted against them of voting against the troops.

Matt Yglesias remarks: “We can all recall the days when voting against an emergency war supplemental bill was the most evil and un-American thing ever.” But IOKIYAR.

Republican intransigence comes at a critical juncture, as General Stanley McChrystal replaces General David McKiernan as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal is expected to bring about major changes in strategy. “Although I expect stiff fighting ahead, the measure of effectiveness will not be enemy killed. It will be the number of Afghans shielded from violence,” he said during testimony before Congress this month.

By their unanimous opposition to the supplemental, the House Republicans inadvertently gave progressive Democrats enough leverage to force the removal of the Lieberman-Graham secrecy amendment that was tacked on to the Senate version of the bill. The amendment would have suppressed photos of detainee torture and abuse during the Bush administration, exempting them from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and overriding a court order that requires the Obama administration to release images requested by the ACLU.

UPDATE: J.M. Bell snarks: “Why do Republican’ts hate America so much? Why have they thrown in their lot with the terrorists that are trying to destroy us?”

UPDATE: Atrios:

It would be one thing if this was just a story about Republicans being big hypocrites. Water wet and all. But this premise – voting against funding = hating military and killing troops – was fully incorporated into the basic mainstream press narrative for years.

UPDATE: Rep. Dennis Kucinich stands on principle: “Another $106 billion dollars and all we get is a lousy war… Pretty soon that is going to be about the only thing made in America – war.”

UPDATE: Today’s vote is expected to be close. Anti-war Democrats demanding a quicker end to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been a hard sell. Fifty-one Democrats voted against the bill when the House first voted on it in May.

UPDATE: The House vote was was 226-202. There were 32 Democratic “no” votes and five GOP “yes” votes, while 170 Republicans voted “no.” Rep. Jim Matheson voted for the supplemental, while Reps. Bishop and Chaffetz voted against.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald’s report:

Thanks largely to the tenacious, resourceful efforts of a handful of bloggers — Jane Hamsher, Howie Klein, Bob Fertik, and David Swanson — the White House was forced to scrape, claw, cajole and threaten in order to scrounge up enough House Democratic votes yesterday to pass its $100 billion war funding and foreign-bank bailout bill. The administration succeeded only by convincing 19 House Democrats who had voted against the war spending bill just last month to switch their votes, and they even had to resort to having Obama himself call House members to whip up enough votes for passage.

Related One Utah post:
Washington vs. The Rule of Law (June 1)