IT MUST BE HARD IN IRAQ

boblonsberry.com ^ | 12/07/06 | Bob Lonsberry

[shortstop]

It must be hard in Iraq.

To be in uniform, or working for an agency, carrying guns in the badlands, showing the flag.

It must be hard.

While a bunch of idiots in Washington run around like chickens with their heads cut off, reading reports and making speeches and posing for the cameras. A bunch of idiots, charged by the Constitution to lead, quantifying and debating a failure.

A failure secured in the halls of the Pentagon and the offices at the White House. The spirits of Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara come back to spill more American blood in a war without a purpose and a vision, a war won by heroes on the battlefield and lost by castrati in the Capitol.

It must be hard to roll out each morning for missions that the suits say aren’t working, for missions that will take lives, for missions that the civilian command can’t quite seem to figure out a purpose for.

After this many months and this many years to have the deciders in chief throw up their hands and ask for suggestions must be a hard thing to take. To have been faithful to orders and to have done your duty and to have the people you follow ask for a map and announce that they’re lost.

It’s not supposed to work that way.

It’s supposed to be Washington at Trenton and Lincoln at Gettysburg. Teddy at San Juan Hill and Ike at Normandy Beach. When the crap hits the fan and good guys are down on points the commander is supposed to call the play and inspire the troops and lead on, lead on, lead on.

He’s supposed to have the vision and know the way and be unflinching in purpose and view.

This isn’t the Oprah show. This is war. You don’t get points for admitting your mistakes and sending your problems out to a committee. You don’t treat it like it’s an eating disorder you can cry your way through and bounce back from with therapy.

It’s a damn war and right now while the Washington gasbags are poking each other in the rear there are American GIs running convoys and bagging Osamas and risking their lives.

And official Washington isn’t exactly sure why or how. Official Washington orders men to secure a place and then debates abandoning it. Hurry up and die, so we can pull out. Those are the marching orders.

It must be hard in Iraq.

Hard when the leader of the United Nations gets up and in his imbecilic way declares that people were better off under Saddam Hussein. When Europe curses you and NATO won’t help you and Britain says it’s time to come home. When the people who won congressional elections speak of your war in spiteful and gleeful terms. When the traitors in anchor chairs puff up over a “civil war” and daily deride your sacrifices.

It must be hard in Iraq.

Hard when the civilian leadership of your country is so dense and clueless as to not even consider the damage its waffling and sniping do to your spirits and morale. While men stand in front of mess hall TVs on a break between missions the idiots they watch debate their fate in nothing more than the context of opinion polls and the ’08 elections.

It must be hard in Iraq.

Hard to have the rug pulled out from under you. To stand there in front of the boots and the rifle and a buddy’s helmet and wonder what in the hell it’s all for, to see 19-year-olds with Purple Hearts who know more about this war than generals in the Pentagon and stuffed shirts in the Congress.

It must be hard in Iraq.

Hard to know where the country stands when its leaders are so confused and contentious.

It’s hard to die for nothing. It’s hard to lose your heart to a cause the new speaker says is a crime. In Vietnam it was the hippies who spat on the troops, now it’s the Congress doing the spitting.

And the administration doing the waffling. It’s a cluster (expletive deleted) and a circle jerk and anything else you can think to call a bunch of buck passing, finger pointing incompetents. It’s almost as if they forgot they’ve got an army in the field and an enemy with satellite TV. It’s almost as if every stinking one of them is incapable of realizing what it does to a man in uniform to have his legs cut out from under him, to have his own country debating his failure, to have his own government cursing his mission.

It must be hard in Iraq.

Hard to keep faith with a cause the suits want to abandon. Hard to stay the course when the suits have already cut and run.

It must be hard in Iraq, to be abandoned like this.

[shortstop]

As usual, Lonsberry says it as plain as day, and says what we all are thinking.

[Thrusher]

I wish I could have this entire article as my tagline.

[frankenMonkey]

A great read...

[Thrusher]

This isn’t the Oprah show. This is war. You don’t get points for admitting your mistakes and sending your problems out to a committee. You don’t treat it like it’s an eating disorder you can cry your way through and bounce back from with therapy.

Could not have said it better myself.

[roses of sharon]

It must be hard in Iraq when DC and Americans take on the pathologies of the enemy, (Mark Steyn today).

[corlorde]

Bingo

While a bunch of idiots in Washington run around like chickens with their heads cut off, reading reports and making speeches and posing for the cameras. A bunch of idiots, charged by the Constitution to lead, quantifying and debating a failure.

[2banana]

Why they fight...

Dear Editor:

For several years now, American service members (all volunteers) have been fighting in combat in the war against terrorism in far away lands.

I was "over there" also, serving with the US Army in Afghanistan.

So why do they do it? Why do people voluntarily risk their necks for a year at a time while we sleep safely in our beds?

After many, many conservations with the "grunts on the ground," I can report the following informal conclusions on reasons that do not motivate them to fight:

1. No one is fighting so that a mother can abort her child up to the day before delivery for any reason.
2. No one is eating MREs for 6 months straight so that they can pay higher taxes.
3. No one is risking their life on a daily basis so that "Daddy and His Boyfriend" can be taught to our children in public school.
4. No one is dodging mortar rounds so that trial lawyers can sue companies and doctors into oblivion.
5. Not one grunt is sleeping in the mud so that one day he can register and/or turn-in his personal guns when he gets back home.


Regards,

2banana

[liberty_lvr]

Outstanding. This is going out for mass distribution to my contact list.

[Rutles4Ever]

This is an amazing piece. Thanks for posting.

[USMCWife6869]

This is so true that it actually makes me want to cry.

[Thrusher]

It’s almost as if they forgot they’ve got an army in the field and an enemy with satellite TV. It’s almost as if every stinking one of them is incapable of realizing what it does to a man in uniform to have his legs cut out from under him, to have his own country debating his failure, to have his own government cursing his mission.

I've been accused by other FReepers of not having the proper "perspective" on Iraq such that I am allowed to make any commentary on our policy there. Apparently, this means that, because I am not actually in Baghdad, I'm not supposed to comment on the war.

But perhaps I am allowed to post the comments of a good friend of mine who does have the required "perspective" because he does have his "boots on the ground."

He emailed me about the cut-and-run crowd, and the implications of our "changing Iraq policy." He looks at the Iraqis over there working with them, trying to build a democracy hand-and-hand with the American troops, risking their lives every day, too.

Those Iraqis are in deep sh!t if the pols decide to gather up their blue-ribbon skirts and run away, pulling the real men (the U.S. soldiers) with them. We made those Iraqis promises. We told them we would stand by their side and see the mission through. They trusted us. And if we desert them, they are dead meat. Literally.

The family, friends, and neighbors of those Iraqis who get cut down after we cut-and-run will remember. They won't put a "We Remember" bumper sticker on their car and then immediately begin to forget. Their media won't hide the pictures of the aftermath because it is too painful for them to watch. They will remember. There children will remember.

And someday, they may decide to show us just how p!ssed off they are about it. They may decide to do something we can't help but take notice of, like perhaps driving some planes into some buildings in a major American city.

Or worse.

[prov1813man]

Right now, as always, the only correct policy regarding our people in harms way, is massive support and a free hand to do what is necessary to WIN, which means KILLING AS MANY ENEMY COMBATANTS AS POSSIBLE.

Or, bring every single one home, right now, today. If I had a kid over there, in sniper sights while these morons equivocate, I would be very angry. I am angry anyway.

No, either earn "respect" the only way that works over there by beating the crap out of the enemy. Or, pull back, nuke up, and dare these bastards to give us any crap at all.

They are laughing and snickering at us now. Thanks to all who stayed home to "teach pubs a lesson".

[Defiant]

We told them we would stand by their side and see the mission through. They trusted us. And if we desert them, they are dead meat. Literally.

The new rule of thumb will be "America, no softer foe or more treacherous ally." Vietnam was not an aberration; it will become the norm.

I blame the Dems, but I also believe that if Bush had fought this as a war, he would have had support, and could have finished the job long ago. I think it is entirely possible to construct a set of policies, beginning in the run up to this war, that would have us with a new Iraq, a new Iran and a new Syria today, in 2006, and that should have been the goal from the beginning. If it was the goal, it wasn't pursued. Michael Ledeen has been begging since 2002 for actions that would start the mullahcracy in Iran to crumble. Assad was practically wetting his pants when the army was in Western Iraq near Syria, and Rumsfeld was considering taking a "left turn" into Syria (where we would have found those WMD's).

A great opportunity has been squandered, the opportunity of a still angry US, remembering a still-smoldering WTC, to go in and remake, by force of arms, will and example, the middle east. Now, forget about it. We are not doing anything anytime soon in the middle east, and it will take a calamity and overreaching by the Arabs or Iran to rouse us to do what we could have done in these past 4 years. The cost will be exponentially higher. I hope to God Israel does not pay for our mistakes.

There is a clique of foreign policy experts who are Arab lovers. Many of them come from the oil fields of Texas, and gained their attitudes in the post-WW2 era, where Saudis were great helpers in the anti-Soviet struggle. Bush I, Baker, Scowcroft and their ilk are the primary examples. Bush II showed this tendency, when he let the Saudis fly out of the US after 9/11--without even being questioned by the FBI.All his ROP crap goes back to those day. It was inculcated in him by his father in the 50s. That group is now trying to fight back against those who wanted war against radical Islam. They don't believe there is a threat from radical Islam.

[observer5]

"KILLING AS MANY ENEMY COMBATANTS AS POSSIBLE"

That is very short-sighted!!!!!

You need to fight and concquer the forces that SUPPLY AND COMMAND your enemy combatants!

IRAN AND SYRIA! But then who wnats to listen! The IDIOTS IN WASHINGTON WILL NOT!

[prov1813man]

Actually, they were included in the "enemy combatants" part.

[RightWhale]

In hard numbers the 172nd Stryker Brigade is 90% back in the State, less the 26 who were killed in Iraq, including the 7 who were killed during their four month tour extension. I haven't asked any of them if we should just throw in the towel on Iraq at this point, but I expect it would be difficult for most of them to maintain their equanimity at such a question.

[Volunteer]

"When the people who won congressional elections speak of your war in spiteful and gleeful terms. When the traitors in anchor chairs puff up over a “civil war” and daily deride your sacrifices."

This is the truth.

I know it is the truth because I am sitting at my desk feeling how angry and sick I am about these traitors and blame-America-first law makers.

[MEGoody]

A failure secured in the halls of the Pentagon and the offices at the White House.

I haven't agreed with everything the Pentagon and White House have decided to do in this war, but I'm no military expert, and this is certainly a different type of enemy than we've fought before, so I give them more than the benefit of the doubt.

There are many leftists, however, with even less qualification than I to criticize the war who can't seem to stop yapping.

[ryan71]

The best thing America has going for it, our people in uniform, and we have failed them miserably.

[hosepipe]

Good rant...