The Discerning Texan

In 1864 President Abraham Lincoln's chances for reelection appeared to be "slim and none" for much of the year--and this with only the Union states voting in the election. For one thing, no president had won a second term since Andrew Jackson more than 30 years prior. Lincoln's biggest problem with the electorate was that he was weakened by widespread criticism of his handling of the war. The Union had suffered a long string of disappointments and many faulted the president's strategy. Many Democrats in the North were outraged by the Emancipation Proclamation and feared its impact on the future of society. It had gotten so bad for the President's chances that many members of his own (Republican) party bolted to put forth another candidate. The "single issue" antislavery forces in the party nominated John C. Fremont, a bitter foe of Lincoln. The president had twice dismissed Fremont from military commands and had reversed his order to free the slaves in Missouri in 1861. These antislavery forces held an early convention in Cleveland and nominated Fremont. Meanwhile the remainder Republican Party met in nominated Lincoln and the platform promised to prosecute the war effort until the Confederacy's "unconditional surrender."

In the meantime the Democrats nominated another man that Lincoln had relieved of command, General George McClellan. The campaigviciousscious: Lincoln was called a "liar, despot, braggart and worse by the Democrats of his day. The Democrats adopted a platform that called for a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement with the South. (does any of this ring familiar).

In August, during the darkest days of his Presidency, Lincoln invited some Ohio regiments to the White House on their way home, and among the remarks that Lincoln had to say to the troops was the following:

I am greatly obliged to you, and to all who have come forward at the call of their country. I wish it might be more generally and universally understood what the country is now engaged in. We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed. I say this in order to impress upon you, if you are not already so impressed, that no small matter should divert us from our great purpose.

There may be some irregularities in the practical application of our system. It is fair that each man shall pay taxes in exact proportion to the value of his property; but if we should wait before collecting a tax to adjust the taxes upon each man in exact proportion with every other man, we should never collect any tax at all. There may be mistakes made sometimes; things may be done wrong while the officers of the Government do all they can to prevent mistakes. But I beg of you, as citizens of this great Republic, not to let your minds to carried off from the great work we have before us. This struggle is too large for you to be diverted from it by any small matter. When you return to your homes rise up to the height of a generation of men worthy of a free Government, and we will carry out the great work we have commenced.

The similarities are striking between the political situation of President Lincoln in 1864 and the strident and shrill criticism President Bush today, ancacophonyaphony of "attacks on the President's strategy..." Indeed, the words of another Republican President at a similar crossroads, spoken a mere two weeks ago, are brought to mind by Lincoln's stirring words when his days seemed to the elites to also be numbered:

If the peoples of that region are permitted to choose their own destiny, and advance by their own energy and participation as free men and free women, then the extremists will be marginalized, and the flow of violent radicalism to the rest of the world will slow and eventually end.

History has proven that free nations are peaceful nations, and that democracies do not fight their neighbors. By advancing the hope of freedom and democracy for others, we make our own freedom more secure.

The work ahead involves great risk. A time of war is a time of sacrifice, and the greatest burden falls on our military families. We've lost some of our nation's finest men and women in the war on terror. Each of these men and women left grieving families and loved ones back home. Each loss is heartbreaking. And the best way to honor the sacrifices of our fallen troops is to complete the mission and lay the foundation of peace for generations to come.

It is an inspiring thing when men of principle stand up for principle just when the winds seem to be blowing in another direction. Which is why I have taken a long-winded path to stand up and recognize another patriot who is swimming upstream against his own party: Joe Lieberman.

Having just returned from his fourth recent trip to Iraq, Lieberman stood up today and added his name to the pantheon of American patriots who defied the naysayers and went against the grain of the expedient for what is right. For in today's Wall Street Journal and in a press conference, Lieberman did a very courageous thing: he stood up and told the truth, to the chagrin of the delusionists of his own party, and at a critical crossroads of our war against those who would murder us all. As in 1864, when Democrats called for Lincoln to "bring the troops home", so are today's Democrats guilty of attempting to snag defeat from the jaws of an American victory. But not Senator Lieberman.

You talk about courage. I have nothing but admiration for Mr. Lieberman, who no doubt has infuriated a majority of member of his own party's caucus and certainly all of the partisan anti-war moonbats on the lunatic fringe. For Lieberman's words and deeds could not have come at a more opportune time for President Bush, who is at a critical mass crossroads in convincing a spoiled-rotten American public of the just cause our men and women are giving their lives for abroad. And while in so doing the Senator may be removing himself permanently as a serious Presidential contender (at least in that party of losers), he nevertheless will go down in history as a great statesman when one was sorely needed. Here are some highlights from Lieberman's WSJ opus:

Our Troops Must Stay
America can't abandon 27 million Iraqis to 10,000 terrorists.

I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.

[...]

It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority.

[...]

In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence, eight million Iraqis voted for their interim national government in January, almost 10 million participated in the referendum on their new constitution in October, and even more than that are expected to vote in the elections for a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27 million Iraqis have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000 terrorists offer them. Most encouraging has been the behavior of the Sunni community, which, when disappointed by the proposed constitution, registered to vote and went to the polls instead of taking up arms and going to the streets. Last week, I was thrilled to see a vigorous political campaign, and a large number of independent television stations and newspapers covering it.

None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.

The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is whether the American people and enough of their representatives in Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.

Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.

The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in Iraq, Gen. George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and compelling vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in which Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the Iraqis themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000 terrorists who would take it from them.

Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to the American people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that; but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build" accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last week.

We are now embedding a core of coalition forces in every Iraqi fighting unit, which makes each unit more effective and acts as a multiplier of our forces. Progress in "clearing" and "holding" is being made. The Sixth Infantry Division of the Iraqi Security Forces now controls and polices more than one-third of Baghdad on its own. Coalition and Iraqi forces have together cleared the previously terrorist-controlled cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Tal Afar, and most of the border with Syria. Those areas are now being "held" secure by the Iraqi military themselves. Iraqi and coalition forces are jointly carrying out a mission to clear Ramadi, now the most dangerous city in Al-Anbar province at the west end of the Sunni Triangle.

Nationwide, American military leaders estimate that about one-third of the approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are able to "lead the fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S., and that that number should double by next year. If that happens, American military forces could begin a drawdown in numbers proportional to the increasing self-sufficiency of the Iraqi forces in 2006. If all goes well, I believe we can have a much smaller American military presence there by the end of 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our presence will need to be significant in Iraq or nearby for years to come.

The economic reconstruction of Iraq has gone slower than it should have, and too much money has been wasted or stolen. Ambassador Khalilzad is now implementing reform that has worked in Afghanistan--Provincial Reconstruction Teams, composed of American economic and political experts, working in partnership in each of Iraq's 18 provinces with its elected leadership, civil service and the private sector. That is the "build" part of the "clear, hold and build" strategy, and so is the work American and international teams are doing to professionalize national and provincial governmental agencies in Iraq.

These are new ideas that are working and changing the reality on the ground, which is undoubtedly why the Iraqi people are optimistic about their future--and why the American people should be, too.

I cannot say enough about the U.S. Army and Marines who are carrying most of the fight for us in Iraq. They are courageous, smart, effective, innovative, very honorable and very proud. After a Thanksgiving meal with a great group of Marines at Camp Fallujah in western Iraq, I asked their commander whether the morale of his troops had been hurt by the growing public dissent in America over the war in Iraq. His answer was insightful, instructive and inspirational: "I would guess that if the opposition and division at home go on a lot longer and get a lot deeper it might have some effect, but, Senator, my Marines are motivated by their devotion to each other and the cause, not by political debates."

Thank you, General. That is a powerful, needed message for the rest of America and its political leadership at this critical moment in our nation's history. Semper Fi.

It is not often that these pages will take an entire column to praise a member of the Democratic party. Today Joe Lieberman deserves the thanks and respect of all patriotic Americans. He certainly has mine.