[Billthedrill]

Quid, good to see you. Been awhile.

This whole hysterical media campaign is beginning to reek of desperation, and I think I know why. Despite the insistence on an artificial timetable there really is one of sorts, and we've met every milestone so far. Does anyone now doubt that there will be an election in Iraq next month, and that after it a representative government will be seated? What is left is the last resort of the defeated, an attempt to "frame" the topic in such terms as to make it appear other than everyone knows perfectly well it was - a mission accomplished.

The Dems know this perfectly well. The screaming about Valerie Plame (a woman who is quite alive and well, unlike the CIA operatives the left has outed for the last thirty years) and the insistence on focusing on the war's roots - "Bush lied" - are the hallmarks of a group of people who simply cannot abide the imminence of a free and independent Iraq that they first said was impossible and now say was unwarranted. It isn't their finest moment.

I take gentle issue with your suggestion that for the war to be a victory it has to be recognized as such by people who know perfectly well that the witholding of that recognition is their last pathetic grasping for legitimacy. In fact, it does not. We'll know this one for a victory when the media and the Dems start to bleat about the economy, the Supreme Court, medicare, and...hmm..and Valerie Plame. Come to think of it...

[quidnunc]

If the U.S. militry leaves Iraq on any terms other than the administrations — including those of the Democrat's and the Republican apopeasers — it will be seen by the whole world as a defeat.

That's what happened in Vietnam when Congess cut off all money to South Vietnam in violation of our treaty with them.

I'm afraid that the "Bush lied" and "Iraq is a quagmire" memes are gaining substantial traction with the Americanm polity.

[Names Ash Housewares]

"This whole hysterical media campaign is beginning to reek of desperation,...."


Agreed! Your right. I know it. This is their last chance. They have nothing to lose. Desperate people will do ANYTHING.

[nathanbedford]

You are quite right in your post. Two things are now obvious: 1) free elections will occur within a month as a democratic government will be stood up and undertakes to govern Iraq. 2) after that occurs, the United States will begin to draw down forces in Iraq.

The drawdown of forces in Iraq will proceed as Iraqi forces are increasingly brought to readiness and the process will accelerate as the mid term elections approach -which is the fact driving Democrat behavior.

We will now see a parade, indeed a rush, of Democrats proclaiming that it is now time for America to get out of Iraq. They will do this for two reasons: 1) because they can, and 2) because they must.

They can do it because George Bush has given them the space to mount these attacks by his incomprehensible rope a dope strategy which has nearly brought his administration to ruin. Now that the administration has finally come out of its torpor, the leftists must sense that the window of opportunity to get away with baseless lies to the effect that, "George Bush lied and people died," is rapidly closing. More, diminishing returns on this ploy are setting in as the administration fights back and names names of prominent Democrats who did the same "lies." No matter, the lives worked in the face of an inexplicably passive administration. The Libs seen their opportunity and they took it. Now they see that the opportunity and has passed.

The move to get us out of Iraq is really a chess move to get in front of events. The Libs know that they can convert George Bush's shining victory into an ignominious defeat simply by being the first to set definitions. This worked wonderfully in the past and nearly succeeded in throwing the election to John Kerry. By defining 2000 KIA as an excessive amount of loss rather than a trivial loss in the history of warfare, the left nearly succeeded in unhorsing George Bush and did succeed ultimately in convincing the majority of Americans that the price is too high and the war is a failure.

Now the Libs are trying to redefine the victory of American withdrawal to be a shameful bug out. If the administration does not come off the ropes on this issue and fight as it failed to fight about the characterization of casualties and the Bush lied theme, the left will succeed in Vietnamizing the war.

In doing so the left will have achieved one of its ultimate goals, the removal of waging war as an option in foreign policy because the nation will have surrendered irrideemably to the myth of quagmire.