Endless War: It's a Bipartisan Budget Buster

A $58.8 billion wartime spending bill advanced steadily in the Senate Thursday with Democrats giving President Barack Obama broad discretion — and funding — to pursue his expanded military commitment to Afghanistan and its neighbor Pakistan.


A liberal-backed amendment, requiring the president to more fully spell out his long-term expectations for a U.S. troop withdrawal, was easily defeated, 80-18. Minutes later, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) won a 69-29 roll call to limit debate and set the stage for passage this week.

Since taking office last year, Obama has twice increased U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan but also committed to begin making reductions by July 2011. Obama announced this approach in December to put the Afghan government on notice that it must do more to take over its own security. But in doing so he also promised Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the pace and design of any withdrawal will depend on real conditions on the ground at the time.

This permits more latitude than restless liberal critics of the war can easily accept. To push the White House further, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) has argued that Obama must at least give Congress some idea of “his vision” for withdrawal by the end of this year. “You could take one troop out. That starts it,” Feingold said of July 2011 target. “That’s not a vision of when we complete it.”.....

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said that Feingold was demanding, in fact, a “timetable” for completion of the withdrawal — six months before Obama wants to begin. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) bluntly suggested it was “naïve.” Levin, who authored his own share of withdrawal timetable amendments during the Iraq War, said that Feingold’s language would “reinforce” what he described as an “already a deep-seated fear in Afghanistan that the United states will abandon the region.”....

No Republican backed Feingold, and Levin — allied with Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) — commanded a solid majority of Democrats. But within the party leadership, the divisions were striking. Reid stood with his chairmen in opposition, but virtually all of his lieutenants including, Majority Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York sided with Feingold.