Bring the Troops Home Amendment

As the Senate considers another emergency supplemental appropriations bill to fund the occupation of Iraq, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, has proposed an an amendment that would require the redeployment of U.S. forces from the country by the end of this year.

"Our country desperately needs a new vision for strengthening our national security, and it starts by redeploying U.S. forces from Iraq," Feingold explained. "Our military has performed valiantly in Iraq, but the indefinite presence of large numbers of U.S. forces there tends to weaken our ability to fight the global terrorist networks that threaten us today."

Feingold, who in June, 2005, became the first senator to call for an exit strategy, won the support of 40 Senators in November, 2005, for an amendment that proposed a flexible timetable for the withdrawal. His current amendment, while pressing for a deadline for a general withdrawal, maintains a measure of flexibility with regard to limited initiatives that might continue beyond December 31. In other words, it is a moderate proposal that will be opposed only by those who n-- whether they admit it or not -- have embraced the concept of open-ended occupation.

"Our current path is unsustainable," says Feingold. "While this amendment recognizes the need for certain U.S. forces to be engaged in counter-terrorism activities, the training of Iraqi security services, and the protection of essential U.S. infrastructure, it also recognizes that the President's current strategy in Iraq is undermining our nation's national security."

The Feingold amendment tests all senators. It asks Senate Democrats to stop playing games and make a clear commitment to opposing the Bush administration's policy of permanent warmaking. It asks Senate Republicans -- especially those, such as Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee and Nebraska's Chuck Hagel, who have been critical of the war -- to make an honest break with the White House.

The American people now recognize that the war was a mistake. They understand that an exit strategy is needed. If the Senate fails to back Feingold's proposal, it will not be the Wisconsin Democrats who stands outside the political mainstream, but, rather, those senators in both parties who cannot bring themselves to chart a course indepedent of that misguided one dictated by George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld.

Comments (22)

1. Kerry and Feingold call for withdrawal by 2006 December 31, and the Republicans are in very deep political trouble.

   Most troops will be out of Iraq by Mid-October 2006.

   Posted by oraibi1952 at 04/27/2006 @ 12:51pm

2. Relax! It's not even a partial withdrawl. It's just the patented Murphy Redeployment Shuffle.

   They'll shift some troops around, pull a few home for the election, and by 2007 they'll all be back in the Iraq meatgrinder. You don't think Lieberman or Bayh would co-sponsor anything like a real withdrawl, do you?

   Posted by AlanSmithee at 04/27/2006 @ 1:06pm

3. Kerry and Feingold call for withdrawal by 2006 December 31, and the Republicans are in very deep political trouble.

   Most troops will be out of Iraq by Mid-October 2006.

   Posted by ORAIBI1952 04/27/2006 @ 12:51am

   That would be very illogical on their part. Withdrawal would be an admission of failure. That would compound the Republican's political problem. They would be perceived as losers and if there's one thing the average person/voter despises it's a loser.

   The Republicans will not engage in anything other than a politically motivated partial withdrawal before the next Presidency. If they win they can either stay or they can withdraw and have four years to recover.

   If they lose and a Democratic administration withdraws they can blame everything bad that happens in Iraq in the future on the Democrats. They will claim that they did the right thing to start with and the Democrats screwed it up. They'll harp on that hoping that voters will forget that the whole disaster was caused by Republican ideological incompetence and strategic misleadership from the start.

   Posted by fromredbird at 04/27/2006 @ 1:16pm

4. Feingold is an embarrasment. What better way to tell the world when the going gets tough, we will get going.

   Does Feingold ever THINK strategically, how can anyone take him serious?

   ALANSMITEE

   Iraq is not a meatgrinder, Pusan was, Anzio was, Omaha beach was, Bastogne was, and Gettysburg was; in each we lost more men in a matter of weeks or days than we have in 3 years in IRAQ. Get some perspective, dont get spooked, that is what Zaraqawi wants you to think.

   Posted by CPT at 04/27/2006 @ 1:19pm

5. FromREDBIRD

   Maybe you could have done better in hindsight as well. Hindsight is a wonderful thing

   Posted by CPT at 04/27/2006 @ 1:20pm

6. "If the Senate fails to back Feingold's proposal, it will not be the Wisconsin Democrats who stands outside the political mainstream, but, rather, those senators in both parties who cannot bring themselves to chart a course indepedent of that misguided one dictated by George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld."

   Good. Let America more clearly identify who is responsible for the policies that have done nothing but harm to our country.

   Posted by fromredbird at 04/27/2006 @ 1:23pm

7. Iraq is not a meatgrinder, Pusan was, Anzio was, Omaha beach was, Bastogne was, and Gettysburg was; in each we lost more men in a matter of weeks or days than we have in 3 years in IRAQ. Get some perspective, dont get spooked, that is what Zaraqawi wants you to think.

   None of those were guerilla wars and I would point out that we've been in Iraq for three years and have 1) a continuing insurgency that we've made no progress in supressing and 2) a government that can be called dysfunctional at best and that doesn't look able to head-off a civil war. Now, let's look at your examples. The Korean War only lasted three years, our involvement in WWII only lasted 3.5 years (and by the time of Bastogne, the win was assured, it was just a matter of time) and the War of the Rebellion only lasted four years (again, after three years, by April 1864, the Union had a definite ascendancy). Your analogies just don't work.

   Posted by brunowe at 04/27/2006 @ 1:27pm

8. Hindsight is a wonderful thing

   Posted by CPT 04/27/2006 @ 1:20pm

   So is sight and foresight. But those who choose not to learn from the past cannot be trusted to see or forecast accurately. If Iraq is a comparative no big deal for you, well then I think you might need to increase your standards a touch on how a war is to be planned and conducted, how a new government is to be created, and what the benefits are to the tremendous costs in money and lives. You may think that this is as good as we can do. You are wrong, and if you have any truly positive hope for the future of this country you will have to face that or plan for our decline.

   Posted by tjbehrens1 at 04/27/2006 @ 1:38pm

9. CPT,

   Are you aware that the Iraq endeavor has already exceeding the financial cost to the USA of the entire Vietnam war in INFLATION adjusted dollars.

   Posted by freedomplease at 04/27/2006 @ 1:48pm

10. exceeded not exceeding!

    Posted by freedomplease at 04/27/2006 @ 1:49pm

11. "Get some perspective, dont get spooked, that is what Zaraqawi wants you to think."

    I wouldn't require a grossly different context to replace the word "Zaraqawi" with "BushCo".

    Posted by drhammer at 04/27/2006 @ 1:53pm

12. I meant "It" wouldn't require a grossly different context.

    Posted by drhammer at 04/27/2006 @ 1:55pm

13. zinni had foresight. what he said before the war hasn't changed much. what he says makes a lot of sense. and part of the reason the financial cost of is so great are things like losing nine billion dollars. and halliburton/kbr ripping us off at every turn. every time someone tries to question their rabid incompetence and greed they respond with a smirk and a sneer.

    the human cost is a whole different consideration.

    Posted by loveloki at 04/27/2006 @ 2:10pm

14. Hindsight is a wonderful thing

    Posted by CPT 04/27/2006 @ 1:20pm

    If you had it you would know the difference between your ass and a hole in the ground, CAPTAIN. With geniuses like you making up the core constituency of the Republican Party it's no wonder that America is mired in an ever-deepening debacle.

    Posted by fromredbird at 04/27/2006 @ 2:10pm

15. someone has been terrorizing this country...causing fear...constantly. for quite a few years now, we've been under a terrorist attack.

    Posted by loveloki at 04/27/2006 @ 2:14pm

16. The people's growing awareness of "the decider's" decisions: the national debt due to the war, loved ones lost or maimed, prosecutor's exposing the crooks in and about the white house, the president's insistence on selling our ports to Dubai, this administration's incompetence in dealing with natural disaster, the citizenry paying the cost for corporate greed and plutocracy, insecurity at our borders, the renditions, tortures, domestic spying . . . it is becoming obvious to everyone the is economy has been pilfered, no one is safe, and that America's children may not have a bright future. It is becoming more difficult for anyone to sell this war, no matter what spin they would like to put on it.

    Posted by barkingspider at 04/27/2006 @ 8:27pm

17. What news reports to you guys look at? When you say the Iraq debacle, i wonder WTF you are looking at, evidently we are not looking at the same thing.

    It is suprising, since so many of you claim to be smarter and more nuanced thinkers, that you dont see beyond the headline of the day.

    As far as troop drawdown, these are occuring specifically because Iraqi forces are standing up to take over certain areas, exactly what was predicted to happen.

    Not with a bang but with a wimper will this insurgency die, and nary will anyone notice. least of all the nation.

    Posted by CPT at 04/28/2006 @ 10:35am

18. Brunowe

    You talk of false analogies, well as a war and an insurgency, this is not a meatgrinder, behind the German lines in Russia was, the philipines was, malaysia was, and one other slight FACTOR, is that this is taking place in an URBAN envrioment, historically the WORST of all "meatgrinders," yet despite these doom and gloom, scenario, casualties are relatively light in comparasion.

    I beleive that works much better

    Posted by CPT at 04/28/2006 @ 10:40am

19. I know we've been talking about Iraq a lot, but something here sparked my attention:

    the president's insistence on selling our ports to Dubai

    Why was this a bad idea? I've never actually been able to get a coherent argument as to what harm it would do. The only argument anyone's made is "but it would decrease our security." This is blatantly false. First of all, the United States would still be responsible for port security, not Dubai. Second of all, Dubai would do everything in their power to make sure that nothing happened to our ports. We know this because they've been working with us a great deal (ie, we have a bunch of our Navy sitting in their ports), and because they have every incentive not to be associated with terrorists. This means that the chances of a terrorist attack on New York ports could actually have been substantially decreased by allowing the Dubai company in. Third, any information that the Dubai company could get access to, about the traffic that goes into and out of our ports, is a matter of public record anyway. So, there would literally have been no real harm from letting the company in. Why was it a bad idea to not let them in? For one thing, it was a retarded business decision. In addition, it looks terrible to the Middle East, because it looks like we said "wait, we don't want you because you're Arab." That's the last message that the United States should want to send right now. So in the end, the opposition to the Dubai ports was silly; we may have alienated a valuable ally for nothing.

    Posted by Thrawn at 04/28/2006 @ 1:28pm

20. Posted by THRAWN 04/28/2006 @ 1:28pm | ignore this person

    Not a valuable enough ally that trashing them wasn't more vaulable.

    Really, the whole Dubai thing was just an opportunisitic bit of election year Arab bashing. The donks found an issue appealing to a jealously coveted audience (righwing bigots) and ran with it. No doubt we'll be seeing them do the same with immigration.

    Posted by AlanSmithee at 04/29/2006 @ 07:24am

21. One problem with that: both parties participated in the "Arab-bashing." Major players from both parties made active efforts to prevent the deal from happening, so it's not something you can exclusively blame on Republicans. Also, I think it's significant that the President specifically chose not to appeal to a bigoted audience, and took the high road instead.

    Posted by Thrawn at 04/29/2006 @ 1:19pm

22. There is a difference between Kerry and Feingold. Kerry has made a public statement to bring COMBAT troops (NOT ALL troops) home by year's end. Then in his Senate resolution he omitted that deadline!!! (He is really a slippery sleaze.) Moreover he specifically calls for enough troops to stay in Iran to provide training, security and emergency measures. (What is a combat troop anyway? If a soldier is fighting with a few Iraqis in tow, is he providing training or is he in combat?)

    When confronted with the discrepancy between Kerry's public position and his resolution, a snooty Kerry staffer (they all are) said it is unconstitutional to put such a dealine. Then I guess Feingold has just violated the Constitution. The Democrats still bow to their masters in AIPAC who love this war and want more.

    Posted by jvwalshmd1 at 04/30/2006 @ 08:11am