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Today's Stories October 3, 2007 Vijay Prashad Gang of Four   October 2, 2007 Ibrahim Warde Logical Lies About Bin Laden's Wealth Gary Leupp "I Hate All Iranians": Frank Talk from a Defense Dept. Official David Macaray The Hunt for a Blue November: In Pursuit of the Labor Vote Conn Hallinan Religion and Foreign Policy John Ross The Great American Chess Match Alan Farago Ripping Off Miami's Poor Sonja Karkar The Right to Exist: States or People? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Meteor and the Mahatma Website of the Day Grandin on Che's Legacy   October 1, 2007 Al Giordano The Clinton Campaign's Reckless Race for Big Money Donors Paul Craig Roberts From Burma to Iraq: Hypocrisy Rules the West Moshe Adler The Crimes of Microsoft Ingmar Lee My Kayak Journey Down the Wild Pacific Coast John V. Walsh Ahmadinejad is Not My Enemy Norman Solomon Political Science and Truth of Consequences Roger Burbach Historic Victory in Ecuador for the Left Ramzy Baroud The Politics of Assassination Stephen Lendman The Maestro of Misery: Greenspan's Dark Legacy Susie Day Honey, I Shrank the Military! Website of the Day Letters from Fort Lewis Brig   September 29 / 30, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Clinton Time: Do We Set Our Clocks Forward or Back? Uri Avnery So What About Iran? Andrew Cockburn Iraq's WMD Myth: Why Clinton is Culpable Jeffrey St. Clair Through the Gates of Lodore Wajahat Ali The Good, the Bad and the Iraqi Andy Worthington The Curse of the Military Commissions Don Santina Ethnic Cleansing in San Francisco Ralph Nader Free Lunches, for Corporations! Fred Gardner The Man Behind the MoveOn Ad Seth Sandronsky The US Economy Since 1980 Gideon Levy The Children of 5767 William S. Lind A Ticking Bomb Reza Fiyouzat An Anti-Imperialist Case Against a Nuclear Iran Richard Rhames Wag the Tail, Frag the Dog David Michael Green Buyer's Remorse: Their Purchase, Our Regret Zach Mason Hate and Hope in Herndon Poets' Basement Gibbons, Ali, Davies and Suss Website of the Weekend Domestic Crusaders     September 28, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison The Teflon Alliance with Israel Roberto J. González / David H. Price When Anthropologists Become Counter-Insurgents Saul Landau September, the Cruelest Month in Chile Tom Clifford Burma by the Numbers Christopher Brauchli Of Toxic Almonds and Bad Beef Martha Rosenberg Spinning Suicide Statistics Dave Zirin Soldier in Winter: John Carlos Speaks Out on the Jena 6 Laray Polk Bush Library or Lockbox? Binoy Kampmark When Reagan Turned Brown James McEnteer Hell, Columbia: an Academic Hotshot Introduces a Petty Tyrant Website of the Day Concerned Anthropologists   September 27, 2007 Alan Farago Housing Market Crashes and Burns Andy Worthington A Bad Week at Guantánamo Jonathan Cook Why Did Israel Attack Syria? William Hughes Billy Graham, a Prince of War Exposed Ray McGovern Bush, Oil and Moral Bankruptcy Ron Jacobs Joe Biden's Plan to Chop Up Iraq Dave Lindorff Quit the Party! Join the Mass Resignation Movement! Joshua Frank Pruning the Green Party Anne Dachel The CDC, Vaccines and Autism Website of the Day The God-O-Meter   September 26, 2007 Bill Quigley HUD's Home Wreckers Paul Craig Roberts A Pandemic of Police Brutality Jeff Kisseloff Still Smearing Alger Hiss China Hand Is China the True Target of Financial Sanctions Against Iran? Behzad Yaghmaian At the Gates of Paradise Sonja Karkar The Quality of Mercy in Gaza Mike Ferner Interrupting the Empire, 30 Seconds at a Time Col. Dan Smith Freedom to Speak, Freedom to Learn Clifton Ross Bollinger's Barbarous and Ignorant Speech Brenda Norrell A Meeting of Indigenous Peoples in Caracas Website of the Day The Smearing of Jean Maria Arrigo, a Psychologist Opposed to Torture   September 25, 2007 Nicole Colson On the March Against Racism Uri Avnery Foam on the Water Brendan Cooney Ahmadinejad on Broadway: Free Speech? Arrest Him! Harry Browne Bruce Springsteen Comes Home ... to Hell Marjorie Cohn The Drift Toward War with Iran David Macaray The UAW-GM Strike: the Long Knives are Already Out Ralph Nader Hypocrisy and Inverted Priorities in Congress Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger, the Climate Change Hypocrite Anthony Papa Perverted Justice & America's Drug Laws Christopher Ketcham All Politicos Now Classed as Sexual Deviants Website of the Day John Waters on Free Speech   September 24, 2007 George Ciccariello-Maher Racist Violence from Jena to Oakland Saree Makdisi The War on Gaza's Children David Keen Action-as-Propaganda: Learning About the Iraq War from Hannah Arendt Sherwood Ross Just How Powerful is the Israel Lobby? Only Cheney Knows for Sure Ron Jacobs Greenspan's Open Secret Donna Saggia The Cult of the Military and the Decline of Democratic Values Mike Ferner Free Speech Takes a Capitol Beating Malini Johar Schueller Norman Hsu is a Model Minority Monique Dols and Dylan Stillwood Ahmadinejad and Columbia Website of the Day The Promotion September 22 / 23, 2007 Alexander Cockburn On Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" Jennifer Loewenstein Beneath the Hideous Veneer of Security Linn Washington, Jr. The Injustice in Jena: Prosecutorial Misconduct More Dangerous Than Racism Jeffrey St. Clair Going Down in Dinosaur: Oil, Dams and Whitewater (Part One) Alan Farago Genuflecting to China Brian Cloughley Of Hate, Hubris and Atrocities Robert Fantina The Deadly Pattern of US Imperialism Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Land Tenure and Resistance in New Mexico Jason Hribal Fear of an Animal Planet David Rosen Slugger Sex: Athletes, Violence and Male Sexuality Mike Whitney The Era of Global Financial Instability John V. Walsh Who Will Lead a Filibuster of the Iraq War Spending Bill? Dave Lindorff Why Aren't We Banning Blackwater Here? David Michael Green Hiding Behind a Camouflage Skirt Fred Gardner Claudia Jensen (Look Back in Anger) Cassandra Jones Support Our Mercenaries Roger van Zwanenberg Pluto Press Under Attack by Israel Lobby Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Ford Website of the Weekend "For the Bible Tells Me So"   September 21, 2007 Karim Makdisi Letter from Lebanon M. Shahid Alam A History of Violence Alan Farago Who Will Buy My House? Joshua Frank The Demise of the Congressional Black Caucus Dave Zirin Notre Dame and the Economy of Sports Kenneth Couesbouc A Short History of Lending and Borrowing Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein Mass Health Care Failure Ben Terrall The Streets of San Francisco: Where Impeachment is Taken Seriously--By Everyone But Pelosi Steve Fournier Ex-Dems, Sign Up Here Frederico Fuentes, et al Voices in Defense of Bolivia Website of the Day Sabra and Shatila, Remembered   September 20, 2007 Kathleen Christison Whatever Happened to Palestine? Zoltan Grossman An Endless Occupation? Paul Craig Roberts As the Empire Slips: Greenspan and the Economy of Greed Stan Cox and Wes Jackson Carbon-Free and Still Wrecking the Planet Russell Mokhiber AARP to Kucinich: Drop Dead Charles Modiano Jim Crow's Children: the Jena 6, Shaquanda Cotton and Blog Power Raymond J. Lawrence Bush's Worrisome Use of Religion Brendan Cooney Body-Snatched Nation Website of the Day Mind Control for Breakfast   September 19, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By? Paul Krassner The Power of Laughter Sgt. Martin Smith The New Private Warriors: Blackwater in Iraq Seth Sandronsky Living in a Dilapidated Market: To Rent or Own? Claud Cockburn Looking back at the Great Crash Victoria Buch Israel's Agenda for Ethnic Cleansing and Transfer Robert Weissman Oil Warriors: From Greenspan to Kissinger Mike Ferner Can We Talk? Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger's $9 Billion Boondoggle for Big Water Website of the Day Housing Cost Calculator   September 18, 2007 Mike Whitney U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel Alan Farago Interviewing Alan Greenspan: How 60 Minutes Blew It John Ross America's Great Wall: Where Will the Workers Go When They Finish It? Ron Jacobs Nooses Hung From Jena, La. to College Park, Md. Alex Doherty Britain's 9/11 "Truth Movement": Who's Responsible? September 17, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Erwin Chemerinsky and the Post-9/11 Attack on Academic Freedom Paul Craig Roberts Conservatism Isn't What It Used to Be Ricardo Alarcón The Return of C. Wright Mills Amid the Dawn of a New Era Marc Levy Fake Vets Chasing Fame Eva Liddell In 1969 We Already Knew What 2007 Would Look Like Website of the Day Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by Frank Capra, and written by Theodor Geisel Sept. 15-16, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The General Came to Washington Vicente Navarro How the U.S. Schemed Against Spain's Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy Mike Whitney Plummeting Dollar, Credit Crunch Herman Mindshaftgap Has There Ever Been a Surge? If so, Has it a Future? Ellen Cantarow Girls! Music! Palestine! Jordan Flaherty K-Ville: Fox's New Paean to the N.O.P.D. Zachary Hurwitz Julio Cusurichi on Amazonian Development September 14, 2007 Debbie Nathan New York Times reporter was a member of an illegal underage porn site, claims he was only "posing as online predator" Franklin Lamb Sabra-Shatilla, 25 Years Later Patrick Cockburn Greet Bush and Die: The Killing of Abu Risha Farzana Versey The World's Richest Muslim Tycoon Alan Farago This is Florida, Epicenter of the Housing Bust and of Public Corruption Hank Edson Bill's New Book is Giving Me a Headache September 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Petraeus Confided Presidential Ambitions to Iraqi Official Scott Vest, former Air Force Captain at Minot The Barksdale Nukes Andy Worthington Guantánamo: "Ghost" Prisoners Speak At Last Michael Baney Mr. Fixit of Quake-Stricken Peru Has Death Squad Past Dr. Susan Block Is U.S. Run by Secret Homintern? September 12, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts American Economy: RIP Stan Goff The Petraeus Report William Blum When Soldiers Mutiny...Only Those Fighting the War Can End It. Manuel Garcia Forgetting 9/11 Debbie Nathan Why One Sex Survey Didn't Make the Big Time September 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Fakery of General Petraeus Iain Boal Specters of Malthus: Scarcity, Poverty, Apocalypse Michael Dickinson Osama on 9/11 Guerry Hoddersen Free Speech is Not Given, but Taken Bill Hatch Irish Politics in Old Time California Gary Leupp The Legacy of Luciano Pavarotti Website of the Day Elisa Salasin's "My September 11th" September 10, 2007 Uri Avnery A Big Victory Against the Wall Patrick Cockburn Petraeus's Closet Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen Screwing Up In Iraq David Michael Green Why Fred Thompson is Uniquely Qualified to be the GOP's Nominee Pius Adesanmi A Solidarity Letter to a Victim of Michael Vick Betty Schneider How to Deal With Sex Offenders   September 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Will the US Really Bomb Iran? Saul Landau The Irrational Drama of a Declining Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Hurricane Katrina and Bush's Wars Ray McGovern Petraeus, the Westmoreland of Iraq Matthew Abraham Finkelstein's Legacy at DePaul Alan Farago The Governor and the Growth Machine Christopher Brauchli Grand Old Party Animals Rannie Amiri Battle of the Camps Fred Gardner Will Snoops Get Stopped? James L. Secor B-52 Flexing Nuclear Muscles: H-Bombs Over Barksdale Missy Comley Beattie Choices: Shall We Stay or Shall We Go Now? Ben Tripp Still in the Clover Francis Boyle The University of Illinois' Little Red Sambo Show Joe Allen and Paul D'Amato Jason Bourne vs. James Bond Website of the Weekend Drilling Wyoming: the View from Above September 7, 2007 Robert Fantina Those Iraq Reports: Bush vs. Reality John Ross Coca-Cola's Raid on a Sacred Mountain James Brooks The Occupation Within Russell Mokhiber Robert Reich and the Elimination of Corporate Criminal Liability Joshua Frank The Green Implosion Continues: Cyberlynching John Murphy John Walsh On the Green Party Mark Brenner New York Taxi Workers Strike Over Tracking Devices Mike Ferner "I Will Salute No More Forever" Website of the Day Help Save Osny Zachary's Life   September 6, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden Hand Allan J. Lichtman When General Petraeus Speaks, Don't Listen ... Norman Solomon The Secret Addiction of Thomas Friedman Yifat Susskind Hurricane Felix's First Responders: Courage and Tragedy on the Miskito Coast Catherine Fenton Why I Am Going to the Protest Laura Santina Can the War Machine be Contained? Farzana Versey Fission Kashmir Yves Engler Haiti: Where a Wage of $2 a Day is Too Much for the Lords of Industry to Pay Kelly Overton Bang Bang; Shoot Shoot: Is Hunting Racist? Michael Simmons One Jew's Views: The Strange Genius of Drew Friedman and Kominsky Crumb Website of the Day Dams and Genocide in Guatemala     September 5, 2007 Stan Goff The End Begins Michael Dickinson Working for Mother Teresa: Memoirs of a Rebellious Volunteer Matthew Abraham Standing Firm with Norman Finkelstein and DePaul's Heroic Students: a Defining Moment Patrick Cockburn The Basra Debacle Dave Lindorff Beware the Wounded Beast Paul Craig Roberts Who Are the Fanatics? Clifton Ross Ecuador and the Struggle for Latin American Unity Elizabeth Schulte Katrina's Forgotten Refugees Joseph Grosso Labor Day in New York City Ben Terrall Where's Nancy? On Trying to Protest Pelosi in San Francisco Website of the Day A Guide to Narco Dollars   September 4, 2007 Jean Bricmont Why Bush Can Get Away with Attacking Iran Patrick Cockburn Cut and Run in Iraq Ron Jacobs The Haditha Massacre: Spinning a War Crime Tom Kerr Buried Alive on San Quentin's Death Row Gary Leupp The Case of Jose Maria Sison Sonja Karkar The Weeping Olive Trees of Palestine Heather Gray The Best and Worst of America: 9/11, Joseph Lowery and the Lethal Silence of Billy Graham Fidel Castro The Super-Revolutionaries Jackie Corr Home Depot Comes to Butte--Begging Bowl in Hand Sunsara Taylor Katrina and the Progress of the System Website of the Day Colombia Journal   September 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Brits Flee from Basra Eamon McCann Qana, Derry: The Dead Lie in Familiar Shapes Joshua Frank The End of the Green Party? Chris Floyd Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph Marjorie Cohn A Look at Bush's Iran War Plans Walter Brasch The News Drones: How Fake Photos Helped Lead the US to War in Iraq Matt Reichel Redefining the American Dream Website of the Day Don't Get Fooled Again   September 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Entrapment Snares Larry Craig Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo Saul Landau The Tragic Ordeal of the Cuban Five David Keen An Occident Waiting to Happen: Intellectuals and the War on Terror Patrick Cockburn The Collapse of Iraq's Health Care Services Diana Johnstone Back in Uncle Sam's Pocket George Longstreth, MD & Karen Longstreth, RN The Sorrows of Occupation: Life in the West Bank Linda M. Woolf A Sad Day for Psychologists--a Sadder Day for Human Rights Ralph Nader Wrapping the World with Advertising Fred Gardner The Trial of Mollie Fry, MD Ben Tripp Enquiry in America Today David Michael Green American Indigestion: Why Bush Governs from the Gut Missy Comley Beattie Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: What the GOP Hasn't Learned About Tolerance Michael Dickinson Who's Cheating: Remembering Princess Diana Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Larry Craig to Wesley Clark Ron Jacobs A Sports Nation of Millions Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Mickey Z         Subscribe Online

October 3, 2007 It's Time to Redeploy Our Troops from Iraq We Must End This Tragedy By Sen. RUSS FEINGOLD Some of my colleagues like to call Iraq "the central front in the war on terror." But they don't spend as much time talking about the other areas where al Qaeda and its affiliates are operating, nor do they recognize that the Administration's singular focus on Iraq is depriving those other areas of the attention and resources they need. Take Afghanistan, for example, where an already weak government is grappling with a resurgence of the Taliban and rising instability. Reports indicated that there has been a 20 to 25 percent increase in Taliban attacks in recent months. Because this administration seems blind to the threats to our national security outside of Iraq, Afghanistan has been relegated to the back burner for far too long, at grave cost to our national security. Last week, President Bush met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in New York City, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly opening session, but according to news reports he made no mention of the Taliban's resurgence. That's a pretty big omission. After all, it was the Taliban that supported Bin Laden and provided him and his associates with sanctuary in the run up to 9/11, and shortly thereafter. President Bush was right to take us to war in Afghanistan. That was a war focused on those who attacked us on 9/11 and on the government that provided a safe haven to al Qaeda. But with the 2003 invasion of Iraq we have been significantly distracted and the war in Afghanistan, once the main show, now has a supporting role, at best. As a result, al Qaeda has protected, rebuilt, and strengthened its safe haven in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. You only have to look at the front page of today's Washington Post--and see the headline "Pakistan Losing Fight Against Taliban and Al-Qaeda" -- to realize how dangerous this situation is to our national security. We have taken our eye off the ball. The war in Iraq has shifted our focus and our resources. We are focused on al Qaeda in Iraq--an al Qaeda affiliate that didn't exist before the war--rather than on al Qaeda's safe haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. In Afghanistan, the absence of adequate security and development has led to increased disillusionment with the national government, which has in turn resulted in increasing civilian support for the re-emerging Taliban. It goes without question that the vast majority of Afghans have no desire to return to the Taliban era, but the inability of President Karzai to extend control outside the capital has meant that much of the Afghan population suffers from pervasive fear and instability. We may see Afghanistan once again engulfed by chaos, lawlessness, and possibly extremism. As long as Bin Laden and his reconstituted al Qaeda leadership remain at large, Afghanistan's future can not be separated from our own national security. But with our myopic focus on Iraq -- and so many of our brave troops stuck in the middle of that misguided war -- we have lost sight of our priorities. Mr. President, we are attempting to help stabilize and develop Afghanistan "on the cheap," and that just isn't good enough. Afghanistan is teetering on the edge. Pockets of insecurity across the nation are becoming strongholds for anti-government insurgents who are, in turn, exploiting the local population to support their anti-western agenda. This problem is compounded by the dearth of sufficient international ground troops, which has coincided with coalition forces using increased air attacks against insurgents. Those attacks carry a greater risk of civilian casualties, undermining our support among the populace. Although the majority of attacks on civilians are perpetrated by the Taliban and other insurgent groups, the lack of ground troops is seriously undermining our efforts in Afghanistan. We also face instability and insurgent attacks in Iraq, of course. But unlike in Iraq, where 165,000 U.S. troops are stuck in a civil war that requires a political solution, in Afghanistan we are fighting with far fewer troops to protect and advance the political progress of the Afghan people. Our troops accomplished their mission in Iraq when they took out Saddam Hussein--maintaining a massive troop presence in that country just fuels anti-Americanism and serves as a recruitment tool for terrorists. We have not accomplished our mission in Afghanistan -- denying a safe haven to those who aided and abetted the 9/11 attacks. Instead of seeing the big picture--instead of placing Iraq in the context of a comprehensive and global campaign against a ruthless enemy, al Qaeda--this administration persists in the tragic mistake it made over four years ago when it took the country to war in Iraq. That war has led to the deaths of more than 3,700 Americans and perhaps as many as one million Iraqi civilians. It has deepened instability throughout the Middle East, and it has undermined the international support and cooperation we need to defeat al Qaeda. The war in Iraq is not making us safer; it is making us more vulnerable. It is stretching our military to the breaking point and inflaming tensions and anti-American sentiment in an important and volatile part of the world. It is playing into the hands of our enemies, as even the State Department recognized when it said that the war in Iraq is "used as a rallying cry for radicalization and extremist activity in neighboring countries." It would be easy to put all the blame on the Administration, but Congress is complicit, too. With the Defense appropriations bill before us, we have another chance to end our complicity and reverse this President's intractable policy. Finally, we can listen to the American people, save American lives, and protect our nation's security by redeploying our troops from Iraq. I understand that some members of Congress do not want to have this debate now, on this bill. They would rather keep the Defense appropriations bill "clean" and postpone Iraq debates until we take up the supplemental. I respect their views, but I disagree. Like it or not, this is, in part, an Iraq bill. It isn't possible to completely separate war funding from regular DoD funding,. In fact, this bill pays for a significant part of our operations in Iraq. It is therefore appropriate and responsible that we attach language bringing that war to a close. That is why I am again offering an amendment with Majority Leader Harry Reid to effectively bring the war to an end. Our amendment is very similar to the amendment we introduced last month to the Defense authorization bill. It would require the President to safely redeploy U.S. troops from Iraq by June 30, 2008. At that point, with our troops safely out of Iraq, funding for the war would be ended, with narrow exceptions for troops to do the following: provide security for U.S. government personnel and infrastructure; train the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF); and conduct operations against al Qaeda and affiliates. In order to make clear that our legislation will protect the troops, we have specified that nothing in this amendment will prevent U.S. troops from receiving the training or equipment they need "to ensure, maintain, or improve their safety and security." I hope we won't be hearing any more phony arguments about troops on the battlefield somehow not getting the supplies they need. Passing this amendment will not deny our troops a single bullet or meal. It will simply result in their safe redeployment out of Iraq. When I chaired a Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this year on Congress's power of the purse, Walter Dellinger of Duke Law School testified about my proposal. This is what he said: "There would not be one penny less for salary of the troops. There would not be one penny less for benefits of the troops. There would not be one penny less for weapons or ammunition. There would not be one penny less for supplies or support. Those troops would simply be redeployed to other areas where the armed forces are utilized." The Feingold-Reid amendment is a safe and responsible use of Congress's power of the purse. It is the path we took in 1993, when, in the aftermath of the "Black Hawk Down" incident, the Senate overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the Defense appropriations bill that set a funding deadline for U.S. troop deployments in Somalia. 76 Senators voted for that amendment, sponsored by the current senior Senator from West Virginia. Many of those Senators are still in this body, such as Senator Cochran, Senator Domenici, Senator Hutchison, Senator Lugar, Senator McConnell, Senator Specter, Senator Stevens and Senator Warner. They recognized that this was an appropriate way to safely redeploy U.S. troops. With their support, the amendment was enacted and the troops came home from Somalia before that deadline. In order to avoid a Rule 16 point of order, this amendment is slightly different from the version we offered last month. The new amendment only covers funds in the 2008 defense appropriation bill, and it omits the first two sections of the old Feingold-Reid amendment, which required the President to transition the mission and to begin redeployment in 90 days. In addition, the exceptions for operations against al Qaeda and for training the ISF are less detailed and restrictive than they were before. The intent is the same, but--after consulting with the parliamentarians--we have made these changes to ensure we are not blocked from getting a vote. The heart of Feingold-Reid--the requirement that our troops be redeployed by June 30, 2008--remains. Some of my colleagues will oppose this amendment. That is their right. But I hope they will not do so on the grounds that we should keep the Defense appropriations bill "clean" or that brief debate and a vote on this amendment will somehow delay that bill. Passing a defense spending bill without even discussing the most important defense and national security issue facing our country is simply irresponsible. As long as our troops are fighting and dying for a war that doesn't make sense--as long as the American people are calling out for an end to this tragedy--as long as the administration and its supporters press ahead with their misguided strategy -- we have a responsibility to debate and vote on this issue, again, and again, and again. By enacting Feingold-Reid, we can refocus on our top national security priority--waging a global campaign against al Qaeda and its affiliates. We can refocus on developing a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan that links together the policies and programs needed to establish a viable state there, and we can focus on the other areas around the world--from North Africa to Southeast Asia--where al Qaeda and its affiliates are operating. The war in Iraq is the wrong war. It is overstretching our military and undermining our national security. It is time for this war to end. This column is adapted from Senator Russ Feingold's remarks delivered from the Senate floor today calling for a vote in the Feingold-Reid legislation to redeploy the troops by June 30, 2008 after which funding for open-ended military mission would end. The Feingold-Reid Amendment is co-sponsored by Senators Feingold, Reid, Leahy, Dodd, Kerry, Boxer, Whitehouse, Kennedy, Harkin, Sanders, Wyden, Schumer, and Durbin. Your Ad Here

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