A time for peace, I swear it's not too late

Can anyone explain to me what we will accomplish by staying in Iraq till December 31, 2006?

Is there a magic number of needless deaths we will not achieve if we pull out sooner? Would it really make a difference if we left in November? It will to those who die there in December.

I give Feingold a lot of credit for standing up and telling the truth here -- that we need to get out of Iraq -- but how can anyone justify hanging around for another 15 months?

I agree with Max Cleland, quoted below -- winning is nice. But how much longer can we afford to wait for a "strategy to win"? And from whom will this miraculaous strategy come? Not from the "stuff happens" guys at the Pentagon, I hope. Surely not from the same intelligence folks who brought us Curveball, Abu Ghraib, and the infamous WMD.

Apparently, not from Clinton, Biden, Reid or Dean either.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) broke with his party leadership last week to become the first senator to call for all troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by a specific deadline. Feingold proposed Dec. 31, 2006.

In delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address yesterday, former senator Max Cleland (Ga.), a war hero who lost three limbs in Vietnam, declared that "it's time for a strategy to win in Iraq or a strategy to get out."

Although critical of Bush, the party's establishment figures -- including Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) -- all reject the Feingold approach, reasoning that success in Iraq at this point is too important for the country.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who rose to public prominence on an antiwar presidential campaign, said on television a week ago that it was the responsibility of the president, not the opposition, to come up with a plan for Iraq.

Come to Washington this weekend. Stand up and be counted.

Your voice will be heard. Your voice matters. It is time for a change.

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