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Every member of FR (and all throughout our base) need to be contacting Washington and all Representatives with the SAME intensity given to the 30yr in the making immigration issue.

Our warriors down range need our base to cover their flanks. Allow them to continue to be successful and see this mission through.

Call GOP Representatives today.

“And the main “compromise” proposal — adopting the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group — would have all American combat troops out of Iraq by the end of March 2008. It is self-evidently impossible to fight al-Qaida in Iraq without any combat troops to do it. What all those abandoning the surge essentially want is a return to the old failed Rumsfeld strategy of prematurely drawing down and handing over to unprepared Iraqi forces.”

I heard this on NPR this morning coming to work. The RATS want us to only fight al-Qaida (apparently not the Sunni or Shia insurgents). We are supposed to do that Murtha style by “redeploying” to Kuwait or the Kurdish region, or with a reduced number of troops! However, as the surge has shown, more troops are better, were are able to go into areas previously sanctuaries for terrorists, and the locals are helping our troops to ferret out al-Qaida. They want a stop to roadside and suicide bombs. How are we to do this from Kuwait?

It seems that the biggest mistake Bush made was adopting Rummy’s concept of a small footprint, based on the Afghan model that the people would hail us as liberators. Redeployment is another name for surrender, not a change in strategy!

Where is Bush and his bully pulpit on the war? If he wants the war to succeed, he needs to re-find his voice and end-run the media censors. He needs to redefine the war and provide some yardsticks for success that average Americans can understand.

I often think he “changed his meds” over the past 2-3 years. He has seemed so off and adrift.

He needs to create a “faces of victory” series and tell Americans each week about one freed Iraqi, one brave soldier, one rescued town, one new school, — IF this is the truth on the ground and IF he can get off the dime.

And if we drive terrorists from towns only to have them reappear once our troops leave, then he needs to face that fact and call for the forces/strategies necessary to get the job done. He needs to, if necessary, remember his own bold “Bush Doctrine” and its stance vis-a-vis “any state that supports terrorists...”

The US will not, I think, support an open-ended tit-for-tat war; I will not support one. But if Bush can lose the hyperbole and communicate success and progress AND define exit criteria, he will do himself a service.

PS - I suspect several Arab states are more than a little off-put by the idea of an empowered Iran and Al-Quaida, boasting of having chased off the one super-power and great Satan. It is time they share the load. We are not Hessian mercenaries for the timid royalty of the Arab world.

If Bush knew what he was getting into with this war, this wading into the centuries-old ME turmoil, now would be a good time to tell folks.

Yep, it’s a complicated issue. Bush opened a can of worms with a sledgehammer.

Once again, all depends on President Bush. Senators of his party are ready to quit Iraq with al-Qaida undefeated. Is he?

No, President Bush will not quit. He did not quit before, he will not quit now, and he will never quit as long as he is the Commander in Chief.

God bless our brave troops and President Bush.