&
Posted on 12/09/2005 7:47:00 AM PST by .cnI redruM
The idea that we are going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong. — Howard Dean
And there is no reason… 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 sort of the customs of the — of — the historical customs, religious customs. — John Kerry
The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home. — John Murtha
Howard Dean, the head of the Democratic party, assures us that we cannot win the struggle for democracy in Iraq. He predicts, as proved true in Vietnam, that the United States will inevitably fail. So it makes better sense to flee now, admit defeat, and thus lessen our inevitable losses.
To Dean, the constitutional evolution in Iraq and the growth of its democratic security forces follow the doomed model of Vietnamization — another sham transition bound to implode.
In this regard, irony is lost on Dean: After terrible sacrifices, mistakes, and government dissimulation, Vietnamization between 1971 and 1975 finally was working. The American military had largely rid the south of the Viet Cong; a peace treaty had established two sovereign nations; and American ground troops were withdrawn.
Yet the war was later lost mostly because a partisan antiwar Senate, emboldened by Watergate and in hatred of a duplicitous Nixon, cut off most material and military aid to the south Vietnamese. That precluded as well American air support to deter an opportunistic conventional invasion from a calculating northern army that had quickly sized up the politics of the U.S. Congress.
Dean seems to evoke Vietnam without any inkling how close the United States was, after a decade of ordeal, to achieving many of the goals originally envisioned — something like a viable South Korean government that, unlike its Communist counterpart, might have a chance to evolve into a truly consensual society. Much less does he cite the millions who perished, were incarcerated, or sent into exile following the establishment of a cruel Stalinist regime, or the effect of that defeat on the security of the U.S. and its allies, as later demonstrated in Cambodia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Central America.
Not long ago, John Kerry was on a Sunday talk show. Without much of a warm-up, he was soon alleging that Americans were terrorizing Iraqis in their homes. Apparently such unproven criticism was meant as a critique of U.S. policy by a former (and future) candidate for president — but it unfortunately came just days before a critical election that may at last smooth the way for democracy in Iraq. One can imagine Sunni rejectionists hoping to derail the elections by proclaiming that even a former American presidential candidate admits that the infidels are “terrorizing our women and children.”
Like Dean, Kerry appears insensitive about the irony: He just lost an election in part because too many Americans recalled his Vietnam-era record of trying to score cheap political points by trashing brave American troops in the field, thanks to his own constant evocation of Vietnam on the campaign trail.
Kerry also called breezily for the resignation of secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the midst of the war. Unfortunately, Kerry’s subsequent exegesis of why the secretary should be sacked only proved why we are lucky to have Rumsfeld and not Kerry or Howard Dean in a position of administrative responsibility.
Despite the stentorian intonation, Kerry’s new suggestions for what to do in Iraq simply outlined what the United States is in fact already doing: training Iraqis, providing protection for the ongoing constitutional process, talking to regional neighbors, trying to get the Europeans involved in the Middle East, and hunting down terrorists on the Afghan borders. Kerry then admitted — though he did not during the election of 2004 when the war polls were more iffy — that he now regrets his vote authorizing the war against Saddam. All that was missing was a George Romney moment in which Kerry might have revealed that he had been brainwashed — and that almost came when he blamed the administration for giving him misleading intelligence briefings.
Sadder still for Kerry, not long after his embarrassing call for Rumsfeld’s resignation, the secretary of Defense offered a review of Iraq and answered questions at a televised news conference at the School for Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins. Where Kerry blamed others for his apparently now-embarrassing vote, Rumsfeld took responsibility for going to war. He pulled no punches in explaining its ongoing difficulty, and answered tough questions by explaining why and how we are winning.
Contrast the Democratic reactions to respective advice offered by Congressman Murtha and Senator Joe Lieberman. The former is a respected but not nationally known Democratic figure; the latter ran for the vice presidency of the United States. The Democrats gushed over Murtha’s bleak Dean-like assessment that the war is essentially lost and that we must leave as soon as possible. But then when a vote was called on the issue, they voted overwhelmingly not to follow the congressman’s prescription.
In contrast, when Lieberman returned from Iraq and gave a cautiously optimistically appraisal that our plan of encouraging elections, training Iraqis, and improving the Iraqi economy is working both inside Iraq and in the wider neighboring region, he was shunned by Democrats — who nevertheless by their inaction essentially agreed with Lieberman and so made no move to demand an immediate withdrawal. How odd to be effusive over the Democrat whose advice you reject while ignoring the spokesman whose advice you actually follow.
Howard Dean, John Kerry, and Congressman Murtha represent the Democratic mainstream. And that’s the problem. None of them can be characterized as embracing the Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan fringe, and none are even prone to the wacky grandstanding of Jimmy Carter or Barbara Boxer.
Yet what we get from the national chairman, the former presidential candidate, and the new popular icon — on the verge of the third and final election in Iraq — is a de facto admission that we are losing and must leave.
In the background, old Vietnam-era themes provide the chorus for the growing antiwar sentiment: apparent disdain for the Iraqis, mirroring the way that liberals pooh-poohed anti-Communist Eastern Europeans, Cubans, and Vietnamese; endemic pessimism that does not match the rapidly evolving events on the ground; and political opportunity that an American embarrassment abroad might reverse a long-term and ongoing unfavorable political realignment at home.
When Saddam was removed in a brilliant three-week campaign, few anticipated that the subsequent effort to craft democracy in his wake would evolve into a conflict for the very heart of the Middle East. Most feared that postbellum Afghanistan would be the harder task — given the wealthier and more secular nature of Iraqi society.
Instead the war, as wars almost always do, has morphed into something quite different than expected — a regional referendum on Lebanon, the future of Syria, reform movements in the Gulf and Egypt, about-faces in Pakistan and Libya, and continued pressure on a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. And despite the heartbreak of 2,100 deaths, we are not just winning in Iraq, but on the verge of something far larger, and more permanent: not a return to the ancient caliphate or another dictatorship, but the real chance for the birth of a new Middle East that takes its place at last among responsible nations.
All that was impossible to envision without the prior American removal of Saddam Hussein — now reduced to a pathetic deposed tyrant, railing against his victims and in his misery calling those “terrorists” who did not give him clean underwear. He plays the role of the dying thug right out the pages of Plutarch; all that is missing are Sulla’s worms.
Dean, Kerry, and Murtha are bright and good men who rightly worry that more Americans will die in a far-off place for a cause that they think is now hopeless. But to follow their apparently popular advice would lead to an abject national disaster as well as calamity for their own party. In short, they have become metaphors of why even Democrats are uneasy about voting for Democrats.
More importantly, the Democrats spent the last quarter century, following Vietnam and Jimmy Carter, trying to reestablish their lost fides on national defense (which were once unquestionable in the age of FDR, Truman, JFK, and senator Henry Jackson). If Joe Lieberman cannot save mainstream Democrats from themselves, perhaps the Iraqis who vote on December 15 can.
I dont' want them to be saved. Let them continue the madness, we need more Republicans in the govt.
Yet the war was later lost mostly because a partisan antiwar Senate, emboldened by Watergate and in hatred of a duplicitous Nixon, cut off most material and military aid to the south Vietnamese. That precluded as well American air support to deter an opportunistic conventional invasion from a calculating northern army that had quickly sized up the politics of the U.S. Congress.History is written by the winners. The Left (at home and abroad) won the Vietnam War. The truth of how close they came to losing will never by publicly known.
&
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN KERRY
RE: COMMENCEMENT OF MILITARY STRIKES IN IRAQ
Thursday, March 20, 2003
WASHINGTON, DC – Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in response to the commencement of military strikes in Iraq:
“It appears that with the deadline for exile come and gone, Saddam Hussein has chosen to make military force the ultimate weapons inspections enforcement mechanism. If so, the only exit strategy is victory, this is our common mission and the world’s cause. We're in this together. We want to complete the mission while safeguarding our troops, avoiding innocent civilian casualties, disarming Saddam Hussein and engaging the community of nations to rebuild Iraq.”
http://kerry.senate.gov/high/record.cfm?id=191582
It has always been, and remains, "the party of those who want to rule the people" and their useful fools.
ping for later read
IMHO, that is precisely the problem. Pacifism is at best a balancing force in the world. It isn't supposed to actually ever win because it isn't functional...sissies never really rule the playground.
Unfortunately, when Washington decided to pull-out of Vietnam, the pacifists interpreted that as VICTORY and they have been waiting until now to use the delusional political capital they believe they accumulated at that time.
Truly, the patients are now running the asylum.
Unfortunately, when Washington decided to pull-out of Vietnam, the pacifists interpreted that as VICTORY and they have been waiting until now to use the delusional political capital they believe they accumulated at that time.I have to correct you here, Dark Skies.
This was not a victory for pacifism. These people were not pacifists. This was a victory for communism. These people were traitors, aiding and abetting the communist victory.
You are of course correct. It wasn't a victory for the pacifists...but don't tell them. I don't think Dean is a communist (yet) because he isn't sure what the word means. I think many idiots start out as useful and idealistic pacifists and get sucked into the commie world view.
I agree that the dem's are leaning awfully far to the left but I think (as I said) the guys at the helm of the party are loooonies (not that purebred commies aren't).
Surely the writer jests! How are they bright and good? Bright: intelligent, clever, quick, alert. Good: honorable, virtuous, ethical, devout, kind, truthful. I see very few signs of these attributes in the RATs mentioned in the article. Truth is, these guys are the very antithesis of those attributes. Gag!
It's a complicated subject. When you have a huge chunk of the American electorate who are willing to allow the enemy to win, and even aid and abet the enemy, without realizing it, it's hard to define who they are and what they are doing. Are many simply idiots? Of course. Are many others actual traitors? Absolutely.
There's a whole specture of stupid-evil leftists in America, and we always have to be careful who we are talking about and in what context.
this is my pick for the best toon of '05
Ping!!
While this may be true for Murtha, Dean and Kerry are simply policital opportunists of the worst kind who only worry about wresting power back from Republicans.
Excellent article. Thanks.
Agreed!
But there you have the very essence of liberalism. Since they are "liberated" from all absolutes, saying one thing and doing another is easy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.