In a mostly party line 51-47 vote, the Senate signed off on a bill providing $122 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also orders Bush to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days of passage while setting a nonbinding goal of ending combat operations by March 31, 2008.
This is disgusting. Our Congress voted to declare war in 2002. That's what it was and everybody knew what their vote was going to lead to barring an unexpected retreat by Saddam.
When we got that declaration of war, by a Republican House and a Democratic Senate no less, I assumed that we had the gold standard for war. Now I discover there was a tremendous drafting error in the war resolution--it didn't say that Congress authorized a war we intended to win.
So now Congress wants to retract that declaration of war's implicit vote for victory with a deadline for fighting--whether we win or not.
I am disgusted by the ability of our Congress to betray our troops in the field. And horrified that many in the House were bought off with bribes to support their version of slow surrender.
Congress has many powers. But ending a war that our enemies are determined to bring to our shores is not one of them. So instead, they'll settle for mandating our retreat and hope there is a decent interval between that retreat and another attack our country.
