Posted on 05/10/2007 3:11:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
This war is lost," Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid recently proclaimed.
That pessimism about Iraq is now widely shared by his Democratic colleagues. But many of these converted doves aren't being quite honest about why they've radically changed their views of the war. Most of the serious Democratic presidential candidates -- Sens. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd, and former Sen. Jonathan Edwards -- once voted, along with Reid, to authorize the war. Sen. Barack Obama didn't. But, then, he wasn't in the Senate at the time.
Now these former supporters of Iraq find themselves under assault by a Democratic base that demands apologies. Only Edwards has said he is sorry for his vote of support.
But if the Democratic Party is now almost uniformly anti-war, it is also understandable why it can't field a single major presidential candidate who was in Congress when it counted and tried to stop the invasion.
After all, responsible Democrats in national office had been convinced by Bill Clinton for eight years and then George W. Bush for two that Saddam's Iraq was both a conventional and terrorist threat to the United States and its regional allies.
Most in Congress accepted that Saddam was a genocidal mass murderer. They knew he used his petrodollars to acquire dangerous weapons. And they felt his savagery was intolerable in a post-9/11 world. There was no debate that Saddam gave money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers or offered sanctuary to terrorists like Abu Abbas and Abu Nidal. And few Democrats questioned whether the al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group Ansar al-Islam was in Kurdistan.
In other words, Democrats, like most others, wanted Saddam taken out for a variety of reasons beyond fears of WMD. Moreover, it was the Clinton-appointed CIA director George Tenet who supplied both Democrats and Republicans in Congress with much of the intelligence they would later cite in deciding to attack Saddam.
When both congressional Democrats and Republicans cast their votes to go along with President Bush, they even crafted 23 formal causes for war. So far only the writ concerning the fear of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction has in hindsight proven false.
But we no longer hear much about these various reasons why the Democrats understandably supported the removal of Saddam Hussein. Instead, they now most often plead they were hoodwinked by sneaky warmongering neocons or sexed-up partisan intelligence reports.
There is nothing wrong with changing your mind, especially in matters as serious as war -- but the public at least deserves a sincere explanation for this radical about-face.
o why not come clean about their changes of heart?
Many Democrats apparently think that claiming they were victimized by Bush and the neocons is more palatable than confessing to their own demoralization with the news from the front.
Others may fear that admitting publicly that a disheartened America should not or cannot finish a conflict would send a dangerous message to our enemies. So while these Democrats accuse President Bush of being hardheaded and unwavering on Iraq, they are still afraid that their own mea culpas would send an equally dangerous message of inconsistency abroad.
Democrats need to admit the truth: that removing a dangerous Saddam Hussein and promoting democracy in his place seemed a good idea to them in 2003-4 when the cost appeared tolerable. Now, in 2007, with over 3,000 American lives lost in Iraq, they feel differently.
In other words, Democrats could argue that somewhere along the line -- whether it was after Fallujah or the start of sectarian Sunni-Shiite violence -- they either lost confidence in the United States' very ability to stabilize Iraq, or felt that even if we could, it was no longer worth the tab in American blood and treasure.
That confession could, of course, be nuanced with exculpatory arguments about the mistakes made by those in the Bush administration, such as: "Our necessary war that I voted for to remove Saddam worked; your optional one to stay on to promote democracy didn't."
Such an explanation of turnabout would be transparent and invite a public discussion. And it would certainly be more legitimate that the current protestations of "the neo-cons made me do it."
With America still engaged in a tough war, that kind of excuse-making just doesn't cut it.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."
Hmmmm and these leftwing lunatics also wish to disarm us....a contradiction or surrender?
Exactly. These "people" are, more than anything, cowards. Most of them know full well the bloodbaths that will ensue if we leave before we finish the job--both in Iraq, and at home. They don't care.
It's not even about the war in Iraq. It's about an opportunity to bash the President. They don't care who dies (unless it's them) or how many (unless it's them) as long as it gives them political leverage.
But if it follows us home to our own ground, and they find themselves and their families threatened, they'll howl for protection, like the shameless, whining, disloyal cowards that they are. Remember Kerry cringing in fear on 9/11? No bravery to be found in THAT quarter.
100% agreed.
Now why in the heck isn’t it happening?
12. Start drilling in my back yard, where we know there’s a pretty good oil field—but it’s still cheaper for them to get it from our enemies.
“Stop fighting terrorists in Iraq and we’ll be fighting them in the streets of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.”
IMHO, we already are, covertly. Wildfires, the taking out a link of San Francisco’s major highway system, and the plot at Fort Dix are just a tip of the iceberg.
You can call me crazy, ‘cause maybe I am, but I feel we are
fighting the war here, too. If the general public new what was really going on, there could be panic.
Uh, if someone came in to destroy your people and end your way of life, what would you do?
"When you get to New York, ask me. There are some parts of Brooklyn that ....." Rick in Casablanca
The idea of war seems heroic and historic before and after a war, but during the war it is horrific. Many people of weak character were for the war before then against the war.
I can be trusted with the “evil, black rifle.”
I’m putting my faith, hope, and trust in Jack Bauer.
Better idea.
If they’re enemies, destroy them and TAKE the oil...
LOL
By contrast, 639,000 Americans died during the Civil War (Union - 359,000 dead ; The Confederacy - 280,000 dead) out of a total population of 31,443,790 in 1860.
rev9iew
What kind of "way of life" is that?
Seems reasonable on the surface, but in the long run oil is an utterly fungible commodity. It doesn't ultimately matter who buys which barrel from whom. The barrels will be sold and the sellers will get the money.
It might make us feel a little better if the Saudis are getting rich off of somebody else, but they won't be any poorer for it. It doesn't actually change anything.
As far as drilling for our own reserves, sure, but there's an argument that saving our domestic reserves for the future while burning up *their* oil first is actually a better long-term plan. :-)
Drilling to increase supply and conservation to reduce demand will lower the price of oil. I am fully aware of the nature of a commodity thank you very much. It is not only reasonable on the surface, it would function in practice.
But wo to the politician who tells Americans they might have to pay a little more for gas. What a bunch of wimps (the politicians).
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