Senator Feingold says "The Senate should insist that the president provide a flexible timetable for military withdrawal" We have also heard Senators Leahy and Kerry say the same. Now there may be a shared program behind the words. But it is not clear why those leaders and the Senate should be waiting for the President to propose a timetable. Nor is it clear why the Senators are not jointly putting on the table answers to other major questions about our withdrawal.

What I propose is that Senator Feingold and the Senate provide the President with a timetable and a set of conditions for a responsible withdrawal. I recommend their adoption of a program doing just that, one which was developed by one block of 'the American street': see the website for the Jerry Voorhis Claremont Democratic Club and the page on Iraq.

Waiting for Bush is rather like waiting for Godot.

Merrill Ring

Thanks, Senator Feingold. I appreciate that you are breaking silence. I have appreciated Senator Boxer on this issue as well.

I wonder at San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi, who has been sadly out of touch with her congressional district. You have to imagine that there are dozens in congress who wish they represented people who were so distrustful of the motivation and methods for this war, and there she has been, failing to step up and take a stand again and again.

There are some in the Democratic Party who have some 'splainin to do. I hope we can all support them in coming around, now.

First let me say that I do not support the war in Iraq at all personally. OK? Now...

I think the reason for the silence on Iraq is that the adminstration does not want to appear weak by being drawn into a debate on the issue. Debate is almost always a sign of weakness. Powerful people command and are obeyed, they do not debate.

There are two things that I don't like about the idea of setting a timetable for leaving Iraq.

First, why wouldn't anti-american forces there simply wait for the U.S. military to leave and then take control, using the intervening period to consolidate power?

Second, can the U.S. military commit to any long term international goals or is it bound by the whim of public opinion?

If the U.S. military does not assert long term control over Iraq then it opens up a space for other countries to assert some influence there, countries like Iran and Syria. I think one of the main reasons that the U.S. is in Iraq is that our military leadership wants to demonstrate to countries like China and Iran that we can make a long term commitment to an unpopular war and win because the perception in the world is that we are too sensitive to loss of life to actually win a war. Mainly I think the military establishment is trying to combat the perception in China and in the world that we cannot really defend Taiwan in the long run. We cannot defend Taiwan because Americans simply would not tolerate a war where several hundred thousand Americans died defending a tiny island. The right wing military establishment in America has made it clear that in the long run we will have to fight more wars in more places if people all over the world get the idea that they can challenge the U.S. in the military arena.

I think that the Democratic Party has to do a better job of articulating a coherent global military strategy and then sell that strategy to the public. This would have to include some sort of plan for shrinking the size of the military radically in the long term. Leaving Iraq is not enough of a solution to the real problem that we face: the military is the single biggest bureaucracy in our government and like all bureaucracies it seeks to increase its influence.

Finally, let me add that the fact that people feel like the war is going badly does not mean that it really is going badly. The peculiar thing about this war is that it is emblematic of George Bush's entire life: we are winning just by being there.

It is encouraging that some American politicians, such as Senator Feingold, are starting to wake up from the sleepwalk that took the nation into a war based on lies.

However, while Feingold accurately calls the absence of the missing Iraq debate in the Congress "deafening", there's something about his article which is also remarkable for its absence. He talks about the many American casualties of the war; those who have already been injured or killed, and those who will be. Certainly every one of them has been, or will be, sacrificed in vain.

But when recounting the costs, shouldn't there be some recognition of the far greater number of innocent Iraqis who have been injured or killed as a result of this catastrophe? It will never be known exactly, but the dead already number at least in their tens of thousands; and there are many, many lives yet to be cut short or maimed as a result of destroyed infrastructure, scattershot fire by US troops, torture, depleted uranium, and insurgent attacks. The suffering will go on for long after the last US soldier has left the country.

Perhaps it's too early in the war to ask even critical US politicians to pay some attention to lives of foreigners, but the lack of the merest acknowledgement of such in this context is jarring. I am reminded of the manner in which Americans usually recount the dead of the Vietnam war -- remembering the 58,000 Americans, but not the the two to three million Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laosian lives that that other unnecessary, stupid, bloody blunder cost.

Feingold writes, "We owe each and every one of these soldiers, and their families, and the nation they serve, serious congressional debate and action." That is true, but you owe something more.

There are several ways to unite the country or get us out all at once:

Option A: Time for Presidential children to show their patriotism to their parents, their country and their generation: By becoming officers and gentlewomen in the US Army or US Marines. As 2nd Lts, they will show courage in battle and unite the Dems and Repubs behind the Great War for Freedom. Remember the old Viet Nam war tune: "I ain't no Senator's Son" by CCR. Then the rich will see what has happened over the years: The rich send the poor to die. BTW, I served and retired from the US Navy. So far 2,040 dead, 15,000 wounded versus Viet Name: 58,000, 100,000s wounded forever.

Option B: Let the people decide- National Referendum on whether we stay or go! Majority wins: No electronic voting machines without traceable means. Diebold can not run the electronic voting machines.

Option C: Win the Senate or House in 2006. Purse strings control of the appropriations.

Anyone who wishes to reply (opine?) in the open can or e-mail me at Novaoutdoorsguy@gmail.com.

Ed

Herndon, VA