New Surrendercrat Strategy: Betray The Troops -- Update 6
The cost of defeat
Posted By Uncle Jimbo
The fact that most Democrats are not involved in discussions of victory is telling and problematic. They do run both Houses of Congress and initial actions lead me to believe they are not interested in any type of victory. They wish to drive a stake through our imperial aggression and ensure we are unable to use our power pursuing oil or any other treasure. That is decidedly unhelpful during a time when there is a lot of ugliness going on and we are the one entity capable of projecting a credible military presence anywhere in the world. That is really the greatest reason we cannot afford to lose, there is no one else capable of responding to threats and taking the final step on the path of diplomacy, military force. ...
See previous:
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*** Reid: Iraq war 'worst foreign policy mistake' in U.S. history
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After months of heated rhetoric slamming President Bush's Iraq policy, the Senate's top Democrat moved into new terrain by declaring the Iraq war a worse blunder than Vietnam.
"This war is a serious situation. It involves the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."
"So we should take everything seriously. We find ourselves in a very deep hole and we need to find a way to dig out of it."
Asked whether he considers it a worse blunder than Vietnam, Reid responded, "Yes." ...
*** Democrats Prepare For Next Clash in Iraq War Debate
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats said Sunday they might try to restrict President Bush's ability to wage war in Iraq by approving a more limited version of the 2002 measure that authorized the use of force against Saddam Hussein. A top Republican doubted the idea would have enough support to pass.
After a week of contentious debate in Congress on Bush's war strategy, the White House scoffed at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's claim that U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 has become "the worst foreign policy mistake" in U.S. history.
"The war is tough, but the solution is not to get out. It is to provide the kinds of resources and reinforcements our forces need to get the job done, and at the same time say to the Iraqis `You guys got to step up,"' press secretary Tony Snow said.
Two Senate committee chairmen spoke of possibly modifying the 2002 resolution that authorized Bush to go to war.
*** Democrat's assault on the Constitution
Posted By Uncle Jimbo
For all the caterwauling from the left about W's continual disregard for the US Constitution in his relentless pursuit of an Imperial Presidency, the Democrats in both houses of our Parliament of Whores seem blissfully unaware of it's division of war-making powers. A couple of the leading lights in the Senate are considering an attempt to usurp Presidential authority and go ahead and run the war from Capitol Hill. Where is Andrew Jackson to slap them with a glove and call them out for a duel? Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), who chairs the Armed Services Committee, said Democratic senators would probably seek to capitalize on wavering Republicans to limit the "wide-open authorization" Congress gave Bush in 2002.
"We will be looking at a modification of that authorization in order to limit the mission of American troops to a support mission instead of a combat mission, and that is very different from cutting off funds," said Levin, D-Mich.
Absolutely Carl, you only want to cut off funds for any missions that might lead to victory, but you want to make sure you fund the defeat. Remarkably calculating and extremely cold-blooded as you leave enough troops there to manage the defeat and any lives lost only prove your position that it was a lost cause.
Continue reading "Democrat's assault on the Constitution"
*** Video: Reid says Iraq is the worst U.S. foreign policy mistake evuh
Allahpundit
It was a matter of time before “Iraq = Vietnam” became “Iraq > Vietnam”, and just coincidentally, we seem to have arrived there at the very moment Harry Reid’s trying to get his anti-surge resolution past the GOP filibuster. There’s no political downside to him saying this: debating which war is the “worst” is as stupid as debating which minority has been treated the worst, but it’s a useful way of locating an issue rhetorically on the far end of historical badness. The point isn’t to get people to agree that Iraq is as bad as Vietnam, or pre-WWII isolationism); the point is merely to get them thinking that it’s a reasonable comparison. (U.S. News & World Report is using the same tactic in another context this week.) The irony? If we pull out and the mass slaughter starts in earnest, it will be.
But of course, no one’s calling for a pullout. The word of the day is “redeployment,” as you’ll hear in Reid’s wormy non-response to the following quote from the NIE, which Blitzer read to him just before the clip picks up: “[I]f such a rapid withdrawal were to take place, we judge the Iraqi security forces would be unlikely to survive as a non-sectarian institution. Neighboring countries invited by Iraqi factions, or unilaterally, might intervene openly in the conflict and massive civilian casualties and forced population displacement would be probable.”
Nice that someone’s asking this question of Democrats, even if he’s not insisting too hard on an actual answer.
*** Do Americans Want To Cut And Run?
Ed Morrissey
Investors Business Daily reports on a poll they conducted earlier this month that appears to contradict the conventional wisdom that the midterms were a referendum on the war. In fact, the IBD poll shows that sentiment has actually built towards a commitment to victory in Iraq, and they angrily denounce John Murtha and the defeatists (via Power Line): There's a reason the founders of this country designated a single commander in chief and placed the responsibility to wage war in the hands of the president. We saw recently the futility of having 100 commanders in chief when the Senate tried to pass a resolution of disapproval of the war in Iraq and couldn't agree on the terms of our surrender.
Now it's the House of Representatives' turn, led by Rep. John Murtha, who believes the fine young men and women we send to defeat terror and our sworn enemies are cold-blooded killers. While the House works on its own nonbinding resolution, Murtha has bigger plans and considers such a resolution only a prelude to the real battle in March over appropriations for the war. ...
Murtha plans to stop the Iraq War by placing four conditions on combat funds through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. The Pentagon would have to certify that troops being sent to Iraq are "fully combat ready" with training and equipment, troops must have at least one year at home between combat deployments, combat deployments cannot be longer than a year, and extending tours of duty would be prohibited. ...
More from the IBD piece: ... As we've noted on several occasions, Democratic talk of "redeployment" has encouraged terrorist groups around the world.
Jihad Jaara, a senior member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said before the 2006 vote: "Americans should vote Democratic," adding that "it is time the American people support those who want to take them out of the Iraqi mud." The statement could have come from Murtha, Kerry, Hillary or any number of Democrats.
We find it scary that the Democratic and terrorist game plans are indistinguishable.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was for the war before she was against it, has denied she supports cutting off any money for U.S. forces. But she has admitted she would cut off funds to our Iraqi allies to "get their attention." Such a move would likely lead to a collapse of the fledgling Iraqi democracy and a withdrawal of U.S. forces amid chaos similar to what happened when the 1974 Watergate babies cut off aid to our allies in South Vietnam.
If Clinton and Murtha et al. have their way, we may yet see U.S. helicopters lifting off our embassy roof in Baghdad and a jihadist bloodbath like the killing fields of post-Vietnam Cambodia. If her husband's cowardly withdrawal from Somalia after the bodies of U.S. soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu inspired Osama bin Laden to plan 9/11, imagine what a Democrat-led defeat in Iraq might spawn.
Clinton would leave us with an Iraq as the new base camp for terror, replacing Afghanistan under the Taliban. She has already warned the Bush administration that it must come to the Democratic majority in Congress for permission to deal with an Iran that is providing high-tech explosives to kill American soldiers and developing nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them.
It's not that the Democrats think we're losing or that the war is unwinnable. They simply don't want to win it. ...
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