Timetables for withdrawal are not only morally reprehensible in the case of a brutal occupation (would you give a thug who invaded your house, smashed things up, and terrorized your children a timetable for withdrawal?) but logically nonsensical. If our troops are preventing civil war, helping people, controlling violence, then why withdraw at all? If they are in fact doing the opposite -- provoking civil war, hurting people, perpetuating violence -- they should withdraw as quickly as ships and planes can carry them home. If Congress thinks it must compromise, let it. But we should not encourage that. We should speak our minds fully, boldly and say what is right, whatever they decide to do..

"I would add this: To me it is tantamount to the abolitionists accepting a two-year timeline for ending slavery, while giving more money to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.

"There is an understandable predisposition for reasonable people to compromise, but there are compromises which are real, and others which are surrenders. See the new movie THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY. The Irish rebels were offered a compromise, which gave them the Irish Free State, something palpable, a ledge to stand on from which to fight for more, which they have done. There is nothing palpable in this "compromise," only a promise whose fulfillment is in the hands of George Bush, and meanwhile funds the ongoing slaughter in Iraq."

First posted at www.democracyrising.us