"In other words, he wants to cut and run."
Yep. If he truly wanted to help the troops, he would help them get the job done, not stab them in the back and give a propaganda victory to the mullahs.
Ron Paul is worse than the Murtha Democrats, because Ron Paul knows better.
You're right. Paul knows better. He knew back in 2002 that starry-eyed predictions that Iraqis would embrace liberty and democracy, that the war "would pay for itself" via Iraqi oil, that the other dominoes would soon fall for liberty, etc. were nonsense. He knew that this would be a ntion-building, Wilsonian quagmire, long before others did.
It would be a good start if we could define what "the job" is, since no one seems to have a clue except "supporting them in whatever they are doing."
Someone VERY dear and precious to me is stationed in Baghdad right now, a sgt in the 82nd, cleaning out the rat's nest of Sadr City. I applaud him and the kids with him, and can tell you that most of us are not worthy to untie the shoe latches of these fine young men. The fact that I am full of admiration, pride and love for these guys does NOT translate into thinking we have a freaking clue as to what we are doing. As another aside, I have a friend of 25 years who was recalled into active service after retirement in Special Forces. He is as good a man as I could ever hope to know. He is headed for Iraq. My support for the troops AND FOR THEIR MISSION is not some abstraction from a leftoid. However, I defy anyone on these threads to give me a clear, QUANTIFIABLE mission for which we are sending people. Regime change? over --Dismantling the Iraqi military? complete -- Free elections? done that-- Cleaning out the rats nest of terror in Fallujah? done with class, honor and courage
EVERY SINGLE TASK that our guys have been given to do, they have done. The problem is that no one from Bush on down has any concrete goals that says "when we are here, the job is over." I pray to God that Petraeus will develop some, and that he will have a secretary of State who will say "here is the checkbook" rather than trying to force him to rebuild an entire 3 nation state on the cheap.
It is against THAT backdrop that Ron Paul is voting, and to turn his principled vote into some flag waving rant about "abandoning the troops" is just plain stupid.