Rep. Tom Allen began pointing out the folly of war in Iraq when the nation was still in shock from 9-11 and willing to trust President Bush when his administration linked that attack to Saddam Hussein. The congressman has since called for clear end goals for the war, looked for accomplishments to mark the beginning of troop withdrawal and called attention to more serious threats to the nation than Iraq. He has also voted every time for funding the war.

An independent opponent running on an anti-war platform, Dexter Kamilewicz, says opposing the war but supporting its funding is “intellectually dishonest and it’s fundamentally dishonest.” To end funding of the war is to end the war, says Mr. Kamilewicz, because, “Do you know of any enterprise that, not funded, survives?”

We don’t, and if merely ending U.S. involvement in a war America started was the goal, then cutting off not only a funding line in a budget but actual spending would be one way to accomplish this. But that isn’t the calculation in Congress on at least two counts. The first is that the United States began a chain of events that let loose the chaos in Iraq today, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians.

There is an argument to be made that the U.S. presence makes the violence worse and endangers even more civilians and troops there, but even if that is so, the alternative is not to leave a void to be filled in with a growing civil war but with a mitigating force. President Bush wants this to be the Iraqi security force. Perhaps there are better alternatives.

Second, the White House listens to Congress regularly but nowhere near always – who is to say that ending the congressional approval of funds would cut off all funds? Given the secrecy and independence of the White House, the chances are greater that the war would continue with “found” money previously meant for other terrorism-related programs. That would ensure that those programs were short of cash and that the troops in Iraq would be more likely to go without proper protection, training or other resources.

This is not a simple issue, and we respect Mr. Kamilewicz’s sense of urgency in finding an end to the fighting. But supporting the troops, which these days means not blaming them for disasters created in Washington, also means ensuring they are properly supplied in Iraq even if you preferred, as Rep. Allen evidently does, that they not be there at all.