The surge against the surge is failing, or not

Carl Levin and Dick Durbin concede that the surge has had spectacular results against al Qaeda – as if they could even begin to believe their lyin’ eyes. But they add the proviso that the Iraqi government is failing the progress our troops are making for them. The Washington Post, in the meantime, chooses to follow the leader of Congress’ “Out of Iraq Caucus” Jan Schakowsky; adament, unbendable intentionally ignorant of the realities of the world;

…the outspoken antiwar liberal resolved to keep her opinions to herself. “I would listen and learn,” she decided.

At times that proved a challenge, as when Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih told her congressional delegation, “There’s not going to be political reconciliation by this September; there’s not going to be political reconciliation by next September.” Schakowsky gulped — wasn’t that the whole idea of President Bush’s troop increase, to buy time for that political progress?
 
But the real test came over a lunch with Gen. David H. Petraeus, who used charts and a laser pointer to show how security conditions were gradually improving — evidence, he argued, that the troop increase is doing some good.

Still, the U.S. commander cautioned, it could take another decade before real stability is at hand. Schakowsky gasped. “I come from an environment where people talk nine to 10 months,” she said, referring to the time frame for withdrawal that many Democrats are advocating. “And there he was, talking nine to 10 years.”

Imagine that! A part of the world that has been steeped in turmoil for more than five decades won’t be tamed in the next few months – it may take another decade to make 6th Century throwbacks stop bombing schools and marketplaces. Of course, this realization only reinforces Schakowsky’s knee-jerk, emotive calls to pull the troops out of Iraq and condemn the region to another several decades of horror and injustice.

The lack of political progress among Iraq’s rival factions and Petraeus’s estimate of the time needed to stabilize the nation left Schakowsky all the more convinced that Democrats must force Bush to begin bringing troops home.

Insuring that in another 15 years we’ll be forced to go back and finish the job AGAIN. The Democrats and the media forced us to abandon the attack on Hussein in 1991 – before there was al Qaeda, before the cowardly actions over Mogadishu made the world less fearful of American resolve. Before our response to agression became a few cruise missiles fired at empty tents, empty buildings and asprin factories – before we merely put terrorists in jail for their attacks on the World Trade Center.

But Democrats aren’t happy to undermine our own security, they especially enjoy deriding the Iraqis – causing our allies to lash out;

Nouri al-Maliki, who is fighting to hold his government together, issued a series of stinging ripostes against a variety of foreign officials who recently have spoken negatively about his leadership. But those directed at Democrats Clinton, of New York, and Levin, of Michigan, were the most strident.

“There are American officials who consider Iraq as if it were one of their villages, for example Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin. They should come to their senses,” al-Maliki said at a news conference.

The New York Times decides that what the Vietnamese went through wasn’t so bad, so maybe we should let the Iraqis suffer for a few decades under the boot of radical Islamism;

Vietnam today is a unified and stable nation whose Communist government poses little threat to its neighbors and is developing healthy ties with the United States. Mr. Bush visited Vietnam last November; a return visit to the White House this summer by Nguyen Minh Triet was the first visit by a Vietnamese head of state since the war.

“The Vietnam comparison should invite us to think harder about how to minimize the consequences of our military failure,” Mr. Bacevich added. “If one is really concerned about the Iraqi people, and the fate that may be awaiting them as this war winds down, then we ought to get serious about opening our doors, and to welcoming to the United States those Iraqis who have supported us and have put themselves and their families in danger.”

I love how the Left likes to point out the “military failures” in Vietnam, yet they can’t point to a single military defeat. The only failure in Vietnam was the anti-war crowd’s failure to admit that we should have shut down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia in the early years – that would have cut the time we fought the war in half and South Vietnam would be a democracy today. Just like we should seal off Syria and Iran from Iraq today – but like Nixon’s actions in Cambodia, the Left would call it an “expansion of the war” – instead of an attempt to actually win the war.

On August 5th the Washington Post started a series on Congressmembers in their districts during their summer recess and explained the dilema facing them;

With Congress beginning its summer recess, supporters of the war are expecting attacks and protests from war opponents, and many lawmakers are looking for bipartisan consensus on a new war strategy that has so far eluded them.

Maybe they’re having such trouble because instead of finding a “bipartisan consensus” they should be looking for a working military solution – or they should sit down and stfu.

I wonder why Tzun Tsu and vonClauswitz never mentioned that wars should be fought by committees and consensus? Maybe because it doesn’t work – have the Democrats never heard of “unity of command”?

Of course, in a last desparate attempt to save the surge against the surge, the Left turns to Huffington Post to undermine the good order and discipline of the military  (hat tip to COBDanny) and urges General Pace to fire President Bush. Ya know, like the militaries in third world countries do all of the time. And HuffPo commenters heartily agree;

Unfortunately, the fact remains that there are serious reasons to consider any and all scenarios, or remedies because of GWB, the worst President ever. Why should anyone else care about the rule of law when he hasn’t concerned himself with it for the 6 long years while he has crapped all over the Constitution and ignored law after law?

I think that the creative thinking by Mr. Lewis should be commended and that if General Pace is the patriot he claims to be, he should consider the suggestion. My God, our nation as we know it is at stake. 

 I’d like to know, just for my own reference, what laws the President has ignored and when he “crapped on the Constitution”. Fortunately for me, I won’t be waiting with bated breath.

But the anti-war Left loves this country and the Constitution, don’t they?

I BELIEVE IT IS NOW TIME TO DEMAND AND SCHEDULE THE SECOND CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.

We have GOT to get this little problem of hubris and ‘reinterpretation’ by the Whiggy ones settled once and for all, so U.S. can move forward.

They love the Constitution so much, they want to rewrite it – as if I’d just stand aside and let them. Maybe they should put it to a national referendum – but they couldn’t do that, actually. Then they’d find out how many Americans oppose them in an undeniable actual vote count instead of one of those vacuous polls to which they cling so dearly. Or a lopsided Electoral College vote that favors the people who drain the country’s coffers over those who fill it. I doubt it’d even be close.

CoBDanny reads my mind, and even pirates my legal research into the Smith Act to explain to the little worm why his idea just won’t work and why he should probably do some jail time for good measure.

The death throes of the surge against the surge will be played out on September 15th in Washington – and I’ll be there to chronicle the last desparate gasp. So, too, will the Gathering of Eagles. Anyone else going?

Category: Antiwar crowd, Foreign Policy, Gathering of Eagles, Historical, Media, Politics, Support the troops, Terror War