Posted on 12/08/2005 10:25:20 PM PST by RWR8189
All my life, said Voltaire, "I have never made but one prayer. ... 'Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."
George Bush must have been praying the same way lately.
In his "Plan for Victory" address to the Naval Academy, the president declared: "Against this adversary, there is only one effective response: We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory."
This is what one expects of a commander in chief in wartime, speaking to the patriotic young midshipmen, who roared approval.
To which Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean instantly retorted, "The idea that we're going to win this war ... is just plain wrong."
How's that for a Churchillian, "we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches ... we-shall-never-surrender" moment?
Sunday on "Face the Nation," John Kerry said to Bob Schieffer: "There is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking ... the historical customs, religious customs. ... Iraqis should be doing that."
After the laughter died, Democratic spin-doctors were out in force explaining that Kerry was not calling U.S. troops terrorists.
After Bush went before the Council of Foreign Relations to report some progress in the war, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi headed for the cameras to sneer: "Just because he says things are improving doesn't make it so. ... The president says the security situation on the ground is better. It is not."
How's that for a morale booster?
Rep. Jack Murtha added, "Bush's plan is to stay the course and hope."
But, surely, hope is superior to this remorseless despair and defeatism oozing out of the Democratic Party. One wonders what Jack Murtha's old Marine buddies think when they hear him -- day in, day out -- wail that all is lost and the U.S. Army is "broken, worn out" and "living hand to mouth."
"They have a right to criticize who have a heart to help," said Lincoln. Listening to Democrats, it is hard to discern any of the latter, outside of Sen. Joe Lieberman. Whatever one thinks of the war, the party is revealing itself to be so steeped in pessimism that it is unfit to lead the nation. Who could vote for such a party?
Democrats are again courting a perception that they are not really a loyal opposition at all, but a party of defeat and retreat, whose worst nightmare would be to see George Bush emerge as a victorious president in a war they said we could not win. This is precisely the perception Democrats created in the last days of Vietnam -- and they paid a hellish price for it.
Half the nation now believes the war was a mistake and wants U.S. troop withdrawals to begin. But no patriot wants to see Iraq collapse into chaos and civil war, and everything for which 2,100 Americans died and 16,000 suffered washed down a sewer.
But if President Bush is doing his duty in rallying the nation not to cut and run, there appears to be a disconnect between his policy and reality. If, after 30 months and 150,000 troops in Iraq, the insurgency is not defeated, how will we achieve victory when we withdraw 20,000 after this week's elections and another 40,000 next year, bringing U.S. troop levels to 100,000 by Election Day 2006?
While undeniably true that the U.S. military presence is a primary cause of the Sunni insurgency, it is also true that the U.S. military presence alone stands between the insurgency and victory in the Sunni provinces of the west.
As U.S. forces are drawn down and Iraqi forces "stand up," in Bush's phrase, we are going to face a moment when our Iraqis are going to have to engage and defeat an insurgency we have been unable to beat with 150,000 of the best-trained anti-insurgency troops in the world. What leads us to believe they can hack it, if, after three years, we couldn't?
Murtha's depiction of the Army as "broken, worn out ... living hand to mouth" sounds like the Army of Northern Virginia after the fall of Petersburg. It is surely an exaggeration. But the Army is stretched -- including Reserves, Guard and combat units, some of which are headed back for second and third tours. This cannot continue.
As our moment of truth in Vietnam came in the Tet Offensive of 1968 that broke Lyndon Johnson, Bush's "Tet moment" is coming in Iraq, almost surely in 2006, when the insurgency appears to be growing in strength and confidence, and the new government appears shaky.
If his generals come to him, then, and say: Mr. President, we have to stop the withdrawals and may need more troops to stave off a collapse -- what does Bush do? Almost certainly, we shall find out in the new year.
Meanwhile, Bush should keep praying Voltaire's prayer.
Copyright 2005 Creators Syndicate
Those who have no faith in their cause whether they like it or not are nothing but pretenders to the crown.
They neither deserve to wear it or be listened to when they criticize it.
He will give them more troops. Pull them out of Germany, out of Korea, out of Bosnia.
There is nothing more important than making a successful stand in Iraq.
Tet was an unequivocal US military victory. It was described as a US defeat by US politicians and the MSM. I'd say that's exactly where we are today vis a vis Iraq. No need to wait until 2006. Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean have already declared it.
Waiting for the Buchanan bashers. When I'm at my grouchiest, I always think of Pat.
Things are not as bad in Iraq as many hope.
Bashing Pat Buchanan is no fun anymore. He has taken all of the sport out of it.
It appears that the Democrats care nothing for any of that. They're intent on grabbing back the reins of power, without any regard for the health of the horse they'd be riding if they succeeded.
I'm surprised PAt left out his usual culprit: Those evil Jooooos
Ok.. who gives a damn what Pat thinks?
And you've been pretty happy lately, so the grapevine goes :)
Iraq becomes a fully sovereign nation when they ratify their constitution on the 15th of December.
They are not a member of the U.N. nor are they a signatory to the Geneva Convention. With 200,000 troops, not all fully trained, they can still engage the enemy the Arab way. With vengenance, violence and torture.
As a sage once remarked, "be careful of what you ask, for you may receive it!" Our pull down, their independence, marks a turning point the enemies fear and their enemies include the MSM.
Pat .. you are no different then the Democrats that you criticize
Pat should know better than this. If there were truly a Tet moment in Iraq, that would me a massive defeat of the terrorists, crippling their organization. The only thing that made Tet a problem in Vietnam was Walter Cronkite declaring that a huge victory was in fact a smashing defeat. Of course the old media would try to say that about a similar event in Iraq. But today, we have media outlets to counter such lies. We didn't in 1968.
The reason Pat should know better is that he was in the Nixon administration. He was politically active in 1968 and surely he knows that he is lying thru his teeth in this characterization. He has gone over the edge--any lie is now justified to bring down the President and to undermine the war effort.
The difference is that we handed them the consitutions, saying "This is the form of government you will live by." There was no nonsense of allowing them to come up with their "own form of government." IIRC, McArthur pretty much wronte the Japanese constitution himself.
I'm thinking that allowing Iraq to come up with their own form of government, as an islamic state is going to wind up biting us.
Mark
The 'grapevine' is right...I'm VERY happy these days. ;OD
TET was not "our moment of truth" it was our "moment of lies". The MSM broke Johnson, not the defeated enemy. But, to paraphrase: 'I knew Lyndon Johnson, Lyndon Johnson was a Commander-in-Chief of mine. And George Bush is no Lyndon Johnson.'
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