While the Domestic Insurgent Democrats continue to thwart every effort for military victory in Iraq by settng retreat dates, engaging in “slow bleed” strategies, and claiming that we have already lost, the Generals who are actually fighting the war remain bullish.
From today’s article in the Wall St Journal entitled “The Democrats’ Surge” by our friend Daniel Henninger (subs req)
A report filed last week by retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey gets the political-military dynamic just right. He notes that we are “in a position of strategic peril there. But he then describes in detail how since early February the situation on the ground has “measurably improved.” Thus the conclusion: “We now need a last powerful effort to provide to U.S. leaders on the ground the political support . . . and military strength it requires to succeed.”
Did you hear that Dems. The military who you say you support “needs your support.” I wonder how Nancy Pelosi would justfiy her retreat legislation and calls to cut funding to the troops by other Dems to the General? Perhaps somebody from the press corp will ask her. I won’t hold my breath.
Fred Kagen had this analysis:
Testifying last Wednesday to a House Armed Services subcommittee, military historian Fred Kagan, who has criticized administration policies, noted that the Iraqi army is “now larger than the standing armies of France and Great Britain.” The nine Iraqi army battalions called for in the surge have arrived, at over 90% of programmed strength. “They are taking casualties, inflicting casualties on the enemy and helping to maintain and establish peace for the people of Baghdad.”
Democrats should applaud this progress (after all they call themselves “progressives” now that liberal has become a mostly pejorative term), especially the War’s most vocal critics such as Dick Durbin, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry who have said that the Iraqis need to take on more military/security responsibility. I have not heard much in the way of praise for the Iraqi Army’s steady progress Mr. Kagen describes here, but perhpas such plaudits will be forthcoming. Not!
If the Democrats really “support the troops” then they will also support the commanders on the ground and their actual mission. But it is obvious that the Democrats, as we have said all along, are invested in our defeat in Iraq. Any success for our troops and the mission in the “central front on the war on terror” (Iraq) means vindication for the Bush administration and GOP war supporters and bad news for the Dems in 08′. We will soon see if success in the war on Islamo Facism- specifically in the Iraqi theater is more important to Democrats than their maniacal quest for pure polical power.