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Feingold got nowhere, but at least he tried even though his record isn't lilly pure. His end of February comments showed it saying congressional Democrats are beginning to move in the right direction on Iraq. He knew then and now that's false and saying it tarnished his otherwise good intentions. He also praised the flawed March 8 Democrat leadership proposal to continue funding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with legislative provisions for troop withdrawals by 2008 that's wishful thinking at best.
Nonetheless, Feingold stood tall earlier as the only senator voting against passage of the USA Patriot Act in October, 2001. He also fought its renewal and is now part of a bipartisan congressional minority demanding lawmakers defend our constitutional rights because those on Capitol Hill swore an oath to do it. Further, he opposes the president's right to "surge" new troops to Iraq, believes the notion is flawed and unconvincing, and feels congressional action must go beyond nonbinding resolutions. It must include Congress using "its power of the purse (not about) cutting off funds for troops (but) cutting off funds for war." He rightly believes Congress has constitutional power to do it and wants a strategy for getting them out to be redeployed "within the context of the global fight against al-Quaida....and other international terrorist organizations."
Indeed Feingold isn't true blue, but at least he's got it half right even if he sadly misstates the terrorist threat that's a home-based state-sponsored one inciting people around the world we attack to strike back. Ending the threat is simple as the senator knows. Stop attacking them, and they won't hit back, but keep it up as we do relentlessly, and it guarantees eventual harsh blowback at home and abroad certain to get worse and may become catastrophic in US cities if the administration pursues a plan to attack Iran, with or without nuclear weapons.
Is There An Edward Boland in the House....or the Senate?
Readers may forget his name but should recall his amendment during the 1980s Contra wars when the Reagan administration secretly escalated them. It led to the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986 involving illegal administration arms sales to Iran, then illegally diverting funds from them to US-armed Contra forces adding to what CIA supplied them with through illegal drugs trafficking.
In 1982, the House passed the Boland Amendment as a rider to the Defense Appropriations Act of 1983. It cut off CIA and other intelligence agency Contras funding used against Daniel Ortega's Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) that led the popular 1979 revolution ousting the hated US-backed Somoza dictatorship. The bill became law because politicians from both parties were outraged by Ronald Reagan's secret Central American wars undertaken without notifying congressional oversight committees as required. The president went around the restriction, got in trouble doing it, and only escaped criminal responsibility when the Tower (investigating) Commission absolved him other than to blame him for not better supervising his subordinates.
What Congress did in 1982 and during the Vietnam war, it can do now with full constitutional authority backing it. With an administration possibly heading for nuclear war with Iran, Congress must head it off, defund the Iraq war and end our ill-fated adventurism in the Middle East. Some in high places want it, but it remains to be seen what's next and whether a majority in Congress will ever put their legislative powers where their rhetoric is, act before it's too late, and be able to override a certain presidential veto from an administration bent on wars without end for goals impossible to achieve.
Is There An International Lawyer in the House or Senate?
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