[Vision2020] Vets Vow to Watch All-Night Senate Debate

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (July 17, 2007) Daily News Roundup edition of the Army Times -

-------------------------------------------------------------

Vets vow to watch all-night Senate debate

By Rick Maze - Army Times Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jul 17, 2007 15:50:16 EDT

A group of Iraq war veterans opposed to the war have vowed to spend the
night watching, in person, the Senate's overnight debate over an Iraq
withdrawal plan.

"We know a little something about battles that go through the night, so we
are more than prepared to sit in the Senate for the entire filibuster to let
senators know that by blocking this bill they are blocking the will of the
troops and the will of the people," said Iraq war veteran Jon Soltz,
chairman of VoteVets.org.

Soltz may be speaking for some veterans, but two major veterans' service
organizations - the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars - have
opposed efforts in Congress to force a withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from
Iraq and side with Senate Republicans who are trying to block the amendment.

The Senate will be engaged in what Senate majority leader Harry Reid,
D-Nev., called "an old-fashioned filibuster." He promised to keep the Senate
up all night and to have a series of votes to make senators come to the
floor.

It is not clear how Reid's strategy would force Republicans to change their
minds. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader, said
he sees no reason for delaying what he views as an inevitable outcome.

"Any plan to leave Iraq before we have had a chance to understand the
outcome of the troop surge tells the enemy, first of all, they have been
successful and that their methods worked," Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said.
"Those individuals who were perpetrating the crimes of terrorism will come
back and do them again. It gives them patience to wait us out."

The purpose of the all-night session is to try to call attention to the fact
that Republicans are blocking Senate Democratic leaders from holding a
simple majority vote on Iraq policy and instead are using parliamentary
maneuvers that require a 60-vote majority in the 100-member Senate to bring
the issue to a vote.

"If the Republicans are going to play this procedural game ... then they're
going to have to live with the fact that the American people are going to be
watching this all night," Reid said.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., an Army veteran and one of the chief sponsors of the
disputed amendment calling for the withdrawal of most combat troops from
Iraq, said part of the reason he is pushing for a change in strategy is
concern about the future of the military.

Reed called it a "nonrebuttable fact" that the U.S. military will not be
able to continue having 160,000 troops in Iraq by spring without
morale-busting measures such as 18- to 20-month combat tours and wide use of
stop-loss orders to prevent people from separating from the service.

Reed, working on the amendment with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the Senate
Armed Services Committee chairman, said that if the end of the surge is
coming by spring, "we should start thinking right now of how we do it."

The Levin-Reed amendment would allow combat troops to continue training
Iraqi security forces, protect U.S. and coalition personnel and engage in
counterterrorism operations, but a withdrawal would be ordered for troops
engaged in security operations beginning 120 days after the bill becomes
law. The amendment does not order a specific troops cap and does not set a
specific withdrawal timetable.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
and steady dedication of a lifetime." 

--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.