[kellynla]

I didn't see this posted already. So here it is.

[knews_hound]

bttt

[expatpat]

"These Colors Don't Run" is a fine T-shirt slogan, but in reality these colors have spent 40 years running from the jungles of Southeast Asia, the helicopters in the Persian desert, the streets of Mogadishu.

Ouch! That hurts....

[maryz]

Steyn ping!

[sarasota]

Of Iraq he says: "We think we can just call off the game early, and go back home and watch TV." We have, and this election proves it, lost our nerve.

[Steel Wolf]

Whether or not Rumsfeld should have been tossed overboard long ago, he certainly shouldn't have been tossed on Wednesday morning. For one thing, it's a startlingly brazen confirmation of the politicization of the war, and a particularly unworthy one: ... The president's firing of Rumsfeld was small and graceless.

Again, Steyn nails it. Firing Rumsfeld was probably the right thing to do, and should have happened a long time ago. Even thought I think he should have been removed earlier, doing it immediately after a lost election was an unworthy act. Were I still in uniform, and still in Iraq, I'd have not taken that well. If for no other reason, the troops deserved better than seeing their boss deposed in a brazenly political retreat.

[George W. Bush]

Something of a replay of the same rhetoric from the Vietnam era (can we prove we can take it?). Not convincing then or now.

article: "It's difficult to conceive of any more public diminution of a noble cause than to make its leadership contingent on Lincoln Chafee's Senate seat. The president's firing of Rumsfeld was small and graceless."

Dead on.

[Chena]

I wonder if Mark Steyn would be willing to run for President. Thanks for posting his latest nail hitter, kellynla.

BTTT

[kellynla]

The Viet Nam war was lost in America not Viet Nam and the same will apply in Iraq if the "Cut & Run" Leftists have their way...again!

[kellynla]

ping

[Red Boots]

As it is, we're in a very dark place right now. It has been a long time since America unambiguously won a war, and to choose to lose Iraq would be an act of such parochial self-indulgence that the American moment would not endure, and would not deserve to. Europe is becoming semi-Muslim, Third World basket-case states are going nuclear, and, for all that 40 percent of planetary military spending, America can't muster the will to take on pipsqueak enemies. We think we can just call off the game early, and go back home and watch TV.

[syriacus]

Can't we learn our lessons from the Korean Police action?

Millions of South Koreans are free because Truman sent our troops over there.

30,000 US troops died in Korea
in 3 years under Democratic President Truman

10 times as many men died under Truman (30,000) as have died under Bush (3,000) in approximately the same length of time (3 years)

[EDINVA]

"With another mound of corpses piled sky-high, the electorate would have stampeded into the Republican column..."

as, ironically, even New Yorkers did after 9/11. Poor ole perennial loser Mark Green was all set to win the Democrat primary in NYC on 9/11/01 .... which would have guaranteed him Gracie Mansion .. instead they went for Bloomberg as Giuliani's successor. If you think Bloomberg is bad, you don't know Mark Green.

[steve-b]

"enough!" of the government of Prime Minister Aznar

And properly so, when the government of Prime Minister Aznar fed the electorate a bunch of BS about ETA rather than declare the obvious truth of the matter.

[FreedomNeocon]

For the rest of the world, the Iraq war isn't about Iraq; it's about America, and American will. I'm told that deep in the bowels of the Pentagon there are strategists wargaming for the big showdown with China circa 2030/2040. Well, it's steady work, I guess. But, as things stand, by the time China's powerful enough to challenge the United States it won't need to. Meanwhile, the guys who are challenging us right now -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and elsewhere -- are regarded by the American electorate like a reality show we're bored with. Sorry, we don't want to stick around to see if we win; we'd rather vote ourselves off the island.

Bullseye... Election losses are secondary to the loss in confidence I HAD in the American voter.