Posted on 07/19/2008 8:27:52 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
This is the week that the Democratic party ran up the white flag when it comes to the surge in Iraq. Leading the surrender was none other than Barack Obama, the Democratic party's presumptive nominee for president and among the most vocal critics of the counterinsurgency plan that has transformed the Iraq war from a potentially catastrophic loss to what may turn out to be a historically significant victory.
On Monday, Obama wrote a New York Times op-ed in which he acknowledged the success of the surge. "In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge," Obama wrote, "our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda--greatly weakening its effectiveness." A day later, Obama gave a speech in which he declared for the first time that "true success" and "victory in Iraq" were possible. In addition, the Obama campaign scrubbed its presidential website to remove criticism of the surge.
The debate, then, is over, and the (landslide) verdict is in: The surge has been a tremendous success.
Obama, in typical fashion, is trying to use the success of the surge he opposed to justify his long-held commitment to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq as quickly as possible. But turning Iraq into a winning political issue won't be nearly as easy as Obama once thought. He has stepped into a trap of his own making.
The trap was set when Obama repeatedly insisted that his superior "judgment" on Iraq is more important than experience in national security affairs. Judgment, according to Obama, is what qualifies him to be commander in chief. So what can we discern about Obama's judgment on the surge, easily the most important national security decision since the...
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
The "fix" is in?
A big frustration is the polling that asked if people were satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Dubya and Rumsfeld were conducting the war. It kept hitting in the 70% range and DBM concluded America wanted to surrender and come home.
I always felt that a lot of the “dissatisfied” were conservatives who disliked with the flaccid way we pursued the war effort. We wanted more shock and awe. Get OBL, Mullah Omar, Dr. El-Zawahiri, Mocktar al-Sadr and all the other baddies and then come home. The war has gone on too long. Too much frittering as in Viet Nam.
Of course the largest drawback was politicizing the war from the get go. Dubya and Cheney did not factor in that Reid, Kerry, Clintons et al would hammer them daily with anti-war rhetoric.
They know that, that’s why they ask those stupid ambiguous questions, like “Are you satisfied with the direction of the nation?” As a conservative, I would say no, but without being able to explain why ( education, abortion, immigration, etc), they can take my answer and spin it to their own agenda. They know that.
And Obama’s people are going to run out of Brillo pads as much as they keep scrubbing his website.
I’m sure that McCain’s early support for the “surge” will be brought up by the many panelists in upcoming Presidential debates! (sarc)!
In July, after evidence was amassing that the surge was working, Obama said, "My assessment is that the surge has not worked."
Obama and the Democrats are just bitter clingers. Clinging to their hopes for a bad outcome in Iraq. Clinging to their visions of another Vietnam. Clinging to their hatred of anything that would make Bush look good.
Perhaps, he has finally come to the realization that George Bush is not running for a third term. Being against crediting our troops with a victory wouldn't look good for a man who wants to be their commander.
We can't let the American people forget that this man, and his party, would have insured defeat in Iraq had they won the Presidency in 2004. We don't need the party of defeat leading this country.
Something along that same line was going through my head the other day.
I voted against it before I was for it.
What a dope.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
But Not one of them will utter the MAGIC words ,BUSH WAS RIGHT AND WE WERE WRONG. They will now all try to glom onto the success of the MISSION that none of them supported ,they just supported the troops not the MISSION,but as with all REPROBATES they weasel in at the end to tell everyone how much they had to do with the success. Of Course this would not happen if the Press were the adversarial institution it is supposed to be . They would be pointing out that DOPEY prefaced his entire campaign not on Experience but JUDGEMENT. We can see now what that is worth in DOPEYS case ,we can deduce that EAR size is not in this case proportional to Said JUDGEMENT ,even with 300 retread hacks such as Madeline Halfbright providing DOPEY with Questions and answers every morning and he still cant and wont utter the MAGIC words,I guess they have gone down into that BLACK HOLE along with the N word.
If only we had a Candidate who could get out of his own way we might have a Chance but the coverage I witnessed on CNN of the annoited DOPEY this morning in Iraq makes me shudder ,I did notice while watching DOPEY shoot baskets in front of the adoring contingent in the stands were 99% black ? What is that about?
Excellent.
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