Iraq

Iraq, Political wind, War on Terror

Can This Washington Be Saved? Can This War?

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The National Review Online has posted a symposium of opinions as to whether Washington and this war can be saved after Congress’ vote to set timelines for withdrawal from Iraq and President Bush’s veto of the measure. William J. Bennett, Peter Brookes, Victor Davis Hanson, Clifford D. May, Mackubin Thomas Owens, Bill Roggio, Joseph Morrison Skelly, W. Thomas Smith Jr., Jim Talent, and I all commented there. Here is what I said plus a link:

Can this war be saved? Yes, but Republicans in Congress have to step up. Confident of Bush’s veto, they did not fight the supplemental bill hard enough, letting the Democrats’ repeated claim that the American people “support them” go unanswered.

Americans have a great deal of faith in our military. What they are not so sure about is the Iraqi people. According to a poll conducted last September, a strong majority of Iraqis support the Maliki government and trust the Iraqi security forces. When asked about their support for al Qaeda, an overwhelming majority of Shia (98 percent) and a large majority of Sunni (71 percent) firmly rejected al Qaeda and Osama bin Ladin. Increasingly, Iraqis know that foreign fighters are responsible for most of the bloodshed in their country, including attacks intended to provoke sectarian violence.

This is a p.r. war, both here and there. Americans need to be reassured that the Iraqis strongly support the U.S. mission of standing up the Iraqi army. General Petraeus called the unprecedented number of volunteers who are showing up for training a “stunning development.” Equally significant is the huge increase in intelligence from Iraqi civilians about insurgents and their activities. Americans will give the surge time, and accept casualties, if they know the Iraqis are not sitting out the fight.

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Iraq, War on Terror

Harry Reid should have eaten green eggs and ham

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I have two questions for both the ‘anti-war’ and the ‘stay the course’ crowds about the current Democrat Party candidates for President: if one of them is elected:

Regardless of what happens in Iraq, will any of them make more than a token commitment of additional American troops to Afghanistan?

Would any of them, if necessary, use the full force of our military against Iran?

We all know the answers: no and no. So much for those candidates being tough on terror.

For those of us who regularly ate old C-rations (back before MREs), the following video triggers memories that have nothing to do with Dr. Seuss:

The politics of personal destruction now places our troops in contact with the enemy within the political kill zone. Want an example? Perhaps if Senator Harry Reid had been there and eaten green eggs and ham from a can (they used to be an entree in C-rations yet the eggs were once yellow), he would have never said “the war is lost.” He would not have, no matter what he thought, because of such a statement’s negative effects on troop morale. Is that unfair? If it is, then remember that the next time you hear someone accuse a Republican or a conservative talk-radio host of being a chicken hawk.

We should not care if the next President ever wore a military uniform; we need to know who intends to fight the War on Terror — no matter how long it takes — and who wants to quit now. We need to hear a detailed plan for winning the War on Terror from every candidate running for the Oval Office in 2008. In addition, we need a plan that ends Iran’s state-sponsorship of terrorism.

If a general deliberately threw away lives to ensure defeat, we would call them a traitor. Yet when liberal Democrats attempt to throw away the sacrifices already made, they expect the rest of us to not even question them when they say they support the troops.

Both the enemy and the leaders of the Democrat Party know withdrawal is not a plan for victory. Some glibly say the Democrats only seek to overthrow our current government yet I wonder if they realize our common enemy seeks to do the same thing.

Many tips of the hat to Mary Katharine Ham of Hot Air