Posted on 06/22/2005 8:11:04 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
There's a reason George Washington didn't take a poll at Valley Forge. There are times in the course of war when the outcome is simply unknowable. Victory is clearly not imminent, yet people haven't really thought through the consequences of defeat. Everybody just wants the miserable present to go away.
We're at one of those moments in the war against the insurgency in Iraq. The polls show rising disenchantment with the war. Sixty percent of Americans say they want to withdraw some or all troops.
Yet I can't believe majorities of Americans really want to pull out and accept defeat. I can't believe they want to abandon to the Zarqawis and the Baathists those 8.5 million Iraqis who held up purple fingers on Election Day. I can't believe they are yet ready to accept a terrorist-run state in the heart of the Middle East, a civil war in Iraq, the crushing of democratic hopes in places like Egypt and Iran, and the ruinous consequences for American power and prestige.
What they want to do, more likely, is somehow escape the current moment, which is discouraging and uncertain. One of the many problems with fighting an insurgency is that it is nearly impossible to know if we are winning or losing. It's like watching a football game with no goal lines and chaotic action all over the field.
...there are signs of progress. U.S. forces have completed a series of successful operations, among them Operation Spear in western Iraq, where at least 60 insurgents were killed and 100 captured, and Operation Lightning in Baghdad, with over 500 arrests. American forces now hold at least 14,000 suspected insurgents, and have captured about two dozen lieutenants of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. There were reports this week of insurgents fighting each other, foreign...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Which comforts and excites bin Laden, Zarqawi, Mullah Omar, and the Democratic Caucus.
Lets see......we pulled out in 1991, leaving the job unfinished.....to go along with the UN and world opinion. Given everything that has transpired since then and as a result of emboldened terrorism/islamofascism, I can't think of a single reason to pull out or even begin to pull out at this time.....discussing it only encourages the bad guys.
Still, one thing is for sure: since we don't have the evidence upon which to pass judgment on the overall trajectory of this war, it's important we don't pass judgment prematurely.
Quite right. And more importantly still we should not make such judgments purely on the basis of domestic politics. We should make them on what happens in Iraq, and that requires a suspension of the tendency to cast those events in whatever light is most expedient for one's party's domestic advantage. If the Democrats do not learn this lesson and Iraq continues its slow but steady progress toward independent democracy, then the Dems will pay dearly for their short-sightedness.
....and not necessarily in that order!
Too bad the DNC and its members have not stopped to consider that their party's greatest hopes, and things that they consider a benefit, involve the collapse of democracy, hope, and freedom. One has to be pretty sick to root for thugs and murderers.
President Bush needs to "outsource" management of this war. He'll never fire Rumsfeld but he has got to bring someone in who can size things up for the way they really are and devise a plan to win this thing. Cheney and Rumsfeld have been so far off the mark about how this war would go that we can't count on them anymore.
The current moment is made dangerous by the chaos merchants in the media and government. It is true leadership that gets people through tough times.
Right now, we're seeing an epidemic of doubt from the efforts of the Make America Lose crowd.
Bremer was the biggest screw up of all, I still can't believe some of the boneheaded things he did. We could have had an election in Iraq in late 2003 or early 2004 and forgone Fallujah, Sadr, and the rest of this crap. If we had given over power to Allawi in May of 2003 instead of Bremer Iraq would be totally stable today.
Well .. considering who wrote this - what were ya'll expecting.
At least two amusing factors are at play on this little sortie. #1 The dear old traitorous NYT is at it again. And #2 A gaggle of barking-dog arm chair generals are yapping and yipping about how Bush's cabinet members can't carry water in a bucket.
More "spontanaiety" from the Liberal-left propaganda machine out to support the Al Queda.
The Democrats nominated an anti-war military man for President. They called for an immediate pull out and allow the insurgents to take their country and run it without the US trying to stop them. The cost in lives was too great and it was obvious that the US was losing the war.
Fortunately the Republican President won the election and even in the face of discontent from his own party, pressed on.
That was the 1864 election during the Civil War.
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