Pelosi: The War In Iraq Is Not The War On Terror

"The war in Iraq is the wrong war. No matter how many times the president wants to say it, the war in Iraq is not the war on terror. The war in Afghanistan was."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made that comment Wednesday in a speech on the House floor. She was blasting a Republican resolution marking the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Pelosi says Republicans have introduced a partisan and "congratulatory" resolution: "It praises Congress for some reason," Pelosi complained.

"Instead of having the focus on the innocent victims of 9/11, it talks about the accomplishments of this Congress. I can't even imagine why they (Republican leaders) thought that was a good idea. Since they have opened the door to what they have done, they have also opened the door to what they have not done," she said.

Pelosi said the Senate's 9/11 anniversary resolution -- with its mix of mourning for the victims, consolation for the families, praise for the troops, and resolve to find the culprits -- strikes the right note.

Pelosi says the nation has "lost focus on terrorism since the invasion of Iraq." (President Bush has described the war in Iraq as a key element in the global fight against terrorism.)

"Our focus should have continued to be on Afghanistan," Pelosi said. "We had the opportunity to destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan and we missed the opportunity because we lost our focus."

In her speech, Pelosi listed what's gone wrong in Afghanistan -- the news is all bad, she suggests -- and then she mentions a number of security flaws at home, including a lack of screening at the nation's ports, etc. "The list goes on of shortcomings," she said.

But at the end of her speech, Pelosi says that "of course" Democrats will vote for the "flawed" resolution.

"It could be better. Just because the Republicans decided they wanted to praise themselves instead of focusing on the business at hand doesn't mean we won't support it."

Pelosi urged Congress to pass the recommendations of the 9/11 commission to "truly" honor the memory of those who died on Sept. 11, 2001.

Aside from passing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, Pelosi -- in Wednesday's floor speech -- offered no solutions to the problems she enumerates.

The failure to come up with an alternative plan is a problem for Democrats. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that many voters don't think the Democrats have a plan to deal with the problems they continually mention.

According to the poll, 42 percent of registered voters said they are more concerned about Democrats having no plan to deal with the nation's problems than they are about Republicans offering no changes in dealing with those problems. Thirty-seven percent said they were more concerned about Republicans refusing to change course. (The poll of 1,009 registered voters, conducted Sept. 8-11, has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.1 points.)

Even the "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council, a group embraced by Bill and Hillary Clinton, is urging Democrats "to outline exactly what [they] would do to correct the nation's course and actually make life in a dangerous world safer for all Americans."

In an email "dispatch" to supporters, the DLC urged Democrats to adopt a "progressive alternative" to the "failed" GOP strategy. (The DLC says Democrats should use the Progressive Policy Institute's book "With All Our Might" as a starting point.)

The Bush administration has made it clear it will not "change course or accept responsibility for its mistakes," the DLC said.

"The next few weeks will show if Democrats are willing to rise to the occasion to offer the country a very different and successful path forward in the perilous journey that began on 9/11."

I think they 'get it', it's just that what they get is an alternative reality.

To understand the libs' POV, one has to start at a simple basic assumption: the US is somehow at fault, whether it is our heritage of Western Civ, Christianity, domination of the New World (ie 'native peoples'), imperialism, capitalism, exploitation of women/minorities, ME foreign policy, etc, etc.

Once you believe that, then it's the US that needs to change, not our attackers. After all, they are merely acting out in reaction to what we and our ancestors have done for millenia. That's why we need to address 'root causes'. This philosophy is no different than their approach to domestic crime, which is why they coincidentaly associate terrorism with crime.

However, while libs agree we are to blame, egregious acts must be addressed, even though they are a distraction from the root causes approach. That's why they will sometimes support a temporary "get tough on crime" campaign and why they sort of went along with the Afghanistan war.

Once you see their POV, then it's easy to see why they think Iraq is a distraction. In their minds, Afghan had to be done for public opinion, but then we should have resorted to appeasing/rationalizing with our enemies via public policy initiatives.

Using this type of framework for WWII, one can easily see how Nazi Germany/Imp Japan had legitimate gripes about the West/US and why we should have accomodated them, rather than instill their wrath which led to Poland/Pearl Harbor.

It's taken me quite awhile to finally figure out how libs do it. It's also becoming quite alarming that almost 50% of the US seem to agree with this POV. Our real fight isn't against Islamofascists - they're primitive camel jocks that aren't really that much of a threat.

No, our real threat is the left that has somehow completely lost out on the benefits of competitive capitalism and the associated gov't forms that support this mode of commerce. They're truly the only ones that really threaten our freedoms in the long run.

The Liberals start with a concept of Progress in a Darwinian sense. Always Progress. If it's Progress it's good. Oddly, the Republicans have been Progressives sometimes, as under Teddy Roosevelt. America is the most Progressive country on earth ever. Now and always. This is where the Liberals have a blind spot. Whatever degree of Progress America has it could always have more, and that is where the Liberals fault the Republicans: the Democrats would be more Progressive. The Republicans could capture most of the Democrat votes and keep the Republican votes if they would simply talk Progress like Teddy Roosevelt. The Republicans can never capture the Liberal votes, but that is a small fraction of the voting public and may safely be ignored. Go for the Conservative Progressives or the Progressive Conservatives, that's the American Way.

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