Congress's War Funding Bill - A Victory Over Common Sense

Both Republicans and Democrats declared victory last night as congress finally passed a war funding bill that gives the president everything he asks with no time table. The amazing thing is that congress seems to have been outsmarted by a president with a brain roughly the size of one of Rush Limbaugh's Oxy-Codones. Or is it that they've simply been outstubborned, like a parent who finally gives in and buys his kid a toy, simply to put a stop to the endless screaming and crying?
Because no serious student of the Iraq war seriously thinks that keeping our troops in Iraq benefits anyone. Whether we pull out tomorrow or twenty years from now, our pullout will result in an explosion of religious violence unheard of since the Reformation. Sticking around builds unnecessary resentment among Iraqis towards the US, puts our troops in the crossfire, and temporarily contains the pressure-cooker that is Iraq.
Of course, Bush doesn't know this. Not that it would make a difference if he did, because Republicans in congress are calculating that if they can delay the pullout until a Democrat is elected president (which will almost certainly happen given the laughable assortment of Republican candidates), they can blame all of the ensuing violence and death on the Democrats, hoping voters will forget that they are the ones who started and perpetuated the war.
Which is not to imply that the Democrats are not complicit. Being both spineless and not terribly farsighted, they think that if they only vote for a bill with a timetable, they will somehow be characterized as not supporting the troops. Never mind that Bush vetoed the bill which would have funded them. Never mind that, pushed to its conclusion, Bush would have ultimately been forced to sign the bill anyway. No, the Democrats don't want to take the blame for the consequences of an Iraq pullout either, even if they know it's going to happen eventually.
So our troops remain in Iraq, fighting, killing, and dieing each day, not for freedom, not for democracy, not to fight terror, but because it is politically expedient for the politicians in Washington to keep them there. Bravo, Congress.