The Democratic Party continues to play politics with the war in Iraq, by attempting to tie appropriations for carrying on the war in Iraq to a timetable for cutting and running. The Senate majority leader, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada), and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, say that if Congress cannot pass legislation that ties military appropriations to troop withdrawals, they will not send the President a bill this year.
Shame on Reid and Pelosi, shame on their party, and shame on the voters who sent them to Washington. Harry Reid, who bloviates about "our troops" continuing to "fight and die valiantly" while he sabotages the money for their food, fuel, medicine and bullets -- clearly cares more about what MoveOn and Code Pink and the left loons who run his party want than he does the troops. If you don't support victory, you can't be supporting the troops.
5 comments:
Very well said. What's so perplexing to me is that there is ample evidence that we're actually WINNING. See http://brelevant.blogspot.com/2007/11/more-evidence-that-were-winning-in-iraq.html for more.
I also liked Mr. Yon's piece.
I think that things have improved on the ground in Iraq, but I'm reserving judgment on "winning." We have managed to put enough troops into danger zones to tamp-down on the violence; and the worst of the ethnic cleansing appears to have abated. This said, winning means creating viable military and police instruments for the new Iraqi government -- that will follow its orders, and not those of the local militia bosses. We must also create an administrative apparatus that functions. Note that I have not used the word "democracy" even once. Viable institutions are more important FIRST. Democracy is for when the homework's been done.
Security is the necessary precondition to an economic revival that could tamp down the chaos.
We must insist the Iraq government make political progress in conciliating some of its enemies. We are hurting them, but I am highly suspicious that some of our enemies are simply laying low and waiting us out -- confident that Dingy Harry (love Rush's nickname for him) and Ms. Pelosi and the rest of that crew will pull the rug out from under the Iraqi government the way their spiritual comrades in the Congress of the 1970s did to the Republic of Vietnam. We must not let that happen. The disgraceful abandonment of Vietnam (not so much the withdrawal, as the cutoff of aid), must not be repeated.
In short, we have a work that will take years set out in front of us. Even had everything gone perfectly since the war (that is, high-tempo combat operations) ended -- we were still looking at a minimum of five years to put this together. Things did not go perfectly, and the administration took forever to recognize it had a problem and longer to change the strategy.
I'm firmly convinced this war is winnable and that it is worth winning, and vital that it be won. But the real work for us is to persuade our people of that. Much of the rest is up to Iraqis -- and we can only help them -- we can't win it for them.
Things are indeed better. It is good to see the religious service talked about by Mr. Yon going on in Baghdad. We will have won when it can peacefully proceed without American troops in the neighborhood.
Winning? Seriously?
Last time I checked, President Bush told us the surge was only a stopgap measure, to buy time for the Iraqi leadership to accomplish political objectives that are preventing any "winning", and the surge is now ending (the first troops have just started withdrawing). Problem is, the Iraqi leadership have accomplished NOTHING! In fact, last week PM al-Maliki said he's not making any concessions to Sunni's, on anything henceforth. In fact, in response to requests from our military to recruit more Sunni into the police in places like Anbar province (where the Sunni are in the majority), al-Maliki announced hes signing up more than 18,000 Shia in/around Baghdad into the police and Army from the Badr group (the same people who were assassinating and terrorizing Sunni into fleeing Iraq over the last year or two)! So if you use Bush's criteria - while the surge accomplished a lowering of violence, the reason to do it is a total failure. And, per the GAO, of the 18 measurements of success established by Pretaeus and Bush, only 3 have been met. 16%? Perhaps that was a passing grade when Bush was a college student, but where I come from its considered a total failure! Oh, and only in the Orwellian up-is-down wingnut world are Democrats at fault here: they passed a spending bill to cover the war! The GOP shot it down. The GOP have refused to fund our troops! That is fact. There is no other way to spin this!
El Jefe
From a post of mine earlier this year.
I sometimes sarcastically think that the President should sign one of the withdrawal bills then he and Chaney resign, now the fun part: watching the now President Pelosli try to get the law repealed, declared unconstitutional, or just telling congress she's going to ignore it “so impeach me!” I assume that she realizes how stupid the idea is and is only trying to force a veto for leverage in the general election. If she were to have any effectivness as president she could not start with a meltdown in Iraq, especilly as a result of her actions. But even if she didn't every country in the Middle East and Europe will explain it to her - the US broke it, the US fixes it.
A March Up Country?
And see Dymphna’s Post in response.
Z,
I never said "winning." We are a long way from winning, although winning is certainly possible, and certainly worth it. Long struggles are tne nature of counterinsurgency-type conflicts.
Our focus at present must be on building up the Iraqi military, and, equally as important, the police; as well as the institutions to support them. We have only limited influence over internal politics, except at the local level, but if the al-Maliki government cannot get the job done, it will be replaced.
It is a gross abuse of language to contend that the Republicans have blocked funding for the troops in Iraq. It is the Democrats who show us that they are past-masters of "Orwellian" politics by the proposal of such cynical and even seditious legislation. The Republicans have blocked enactment of a poison-pill piece of legislation designed to tie the hands of commanders in the field and the national political leadership while "funding" the troops. The Democratic majority in Congress seeks to do the bidding of its evil far left masters, and cause the country to lose the war, but without being seen as authoris of our defeat.
As for the murder, chaos and worse than Egyptian bondage defeat would cause for our local allies in Iraq, and elsewhere, just as in Vietnam thirty years ago -- they will avert their eyes and perjure themselves claiming innocence, their tongues dripping with false sympathy for all the widows and orphans resulting from their favored course of cutting and running.
The Democratic bill the Republicans voted against is pure spin, like everything else the Democratic Party does.
Hank, I agree, I would love to see the Democrats made responsible for the chaos that their congressional majority presently delights in making. That day appears to be coming, one way or another. I'm no financial planner, but it looks to me like time to buy gold; minimize your taxable activities; and spend plenty of time de-bugging your kids from the increased amound of ordure shortly to be coming out of the idiot box.
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