Long-winded and nonsensical

God, this article goes on and on, but the basic point remains: the supposition of the argument is that withdrawing troops from Iraq will "end the war" when, in fact, this would be the means for the largest escalation in fighting and the process through which the most civilians would die.

Can Lobbyists Stop the War?
The New York Times

One weekday morning in mid-July, perhaps two dozen liberal organizers gathered around a conference table in an office building on Washington's K Street. Their mission: American withdrawal from Iraq. In one sense, the location was unlikely; K Street is a symbolic address, like Madison Avenue or Fleet Street, in this case representing the capital's thriving industry of trade associations and corporate lobbyists. Yet this was a group of mostly young progressives drawing meager salaries who had no ties to corporate America. Still, the venue was not inappropriate. Those arranged around the table represented the new face of the antiwar movement - now one of Washington's most vigorous single-issue lobbies.

The purpose of the meeting was the daily conference call conducted by Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, a coalition of activists, policy outfits and labor unions brought together this year by MoveOn.org, was the 3.4-million-member-strong liberal advocacy group, which was convinced that Democrats on Capitol Hill needed help to end the war. By the end of this month, Americans Against Escalation will have spent $12 million on a combination of grass-roots organizing, polling and television advertisements in order to get the United States out of Iraq.

Tom Matzzie, the group's campaign manager, was in charge. Only 32 years old, Matzzie is a rising star of the resurgent progressive movement. Neither bohemian nor slick technorat, Matzzie is an Italian-American guy who grew up in Mount Lebanon, a middle-class suburb of Pittsburgh. Apart from his attire - on this day, a pink dress shirt and pin-striped suit pants - he wouldn't seem out of place at a Steelers tailgate party; he's heavyset, bearded and his terse speech can have a gruff edge. He is also a sharp political analyst with a gift for spin and broad strategic thought. When I first met him he illustrated his idea of how to force Republicans to end the war by sketching into my notebook a diagram of something called Bernoulli's principle, which describes the relationship between pressure and speed in the movement of fluids.

An A.A. E. I. staff member began the conference call, which connects the group with advisers and activists around town and around the country, by summarizing the morning's key war-related headlines. A suicide bombing in Kirkuk that left 85 people dead drew an audible sign from somewhere in the room. Then the conversation moved to the war votes scheduled in the Senate that day, including an amendment to a military spending bill sponsored by John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, resolving that America won't allow Iraq to become a failed state and a haven for terrorists.