The Discerning Texan

Labels: Chuck Schumer, Defeatocrats, Iraq, Military, Surrender Caucus, War Successes

... Mr. Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention:

Many argued that if we pulled out there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people... A columnist for The New York Times wrote in a similar vein in 1975, just as Cambodia and Vietnam were falling to the communists: "It's difficult to imagine," he said, "how their lives could be anything but better with the Americans gone." A headline on that story, date Phnom Penh, summed up the argument: "Indochina Without Americans: For Most a Better Life." The world would learn just how costly these misimpressions would be.

I don't know about "the world," but apparently a big chunk of America still believes in these "misimpressions." As The New York Times put it, "In urging Americans to stay the course in Iraq, Mr. Bush is challenging the historical memory that the pullout from Vietnam had few negative repercussions for the United States and its allies."

Well, it had a "few negative repercussions" for America's allies in South Vietnam, who were promptly overrun by the north. And it had a "negative repercussion" for the former Cambodian Prime Minister, Sirik Matak, to whom the U.S. Ambassador sportingly offered asylum. "I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion," he told him. "I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty ... I have committed this mistake of believing in you, the Americans." So Sirik Matak stayed in Phnom Penh and a month later was killed by the Khmer Rouge, along with the best part of two million other people. If it's hard for individual names to linger in The New York Times' "historical memory," you'd think the general mound of corpses would resonate.

But perhaps these distant people of exotic hue are not what the panjandrums of The New York Times regard as real "allies." In the wake of Vietnam, the Communists gobbled up chunks of real estate all over the map, and ever closer to America's back yard. In Grenada, Maurice Bishop toppled the Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy: It was the first ever coup in the British West Indies, and in a faintly surreal touch led to Queen Elizabeth presiding over a People's Revolutionary Government. There were Cuban "advisors" all over the island, just as there were Cuban troops all over Africa. Because what was lost in Vietnam was not just a war but American credibility. Do the British qualify as real "allies" to the Times? The Argentine seizure of the Falkland Islands occurred because General Galtieri had figured if the Commies were getting away with all this land-grabbing, why shouldn't he get a piece of the action? After all, if the supposed Yank superpower had no stomach to resist routine provocations from its sworn enemy, the toothless British lion certainly wouldn't muster the will for some no-account islands in the South Atlantic. "The west" as a whole was infected by America's loss of credibility. Thanks to Mrs. Thatcher, Galtieri lost his gamble, but it must have looked a surer thing in the spring of 1982, in the wake of Vietnam, and Soviet expansionism, and the humiliation of Jimmy Carter's botched rescue mission in Iran -- the helicopters in the desert, and the ayatollahs poking and prodding the corpses of American servicemen on TV.

American victory in the Cold War looks inevitable in hindsight. It didn't seem that way in the Seventies. And, as Iran reminds us, the enduring legacy of the retreat from Vietnam was the emboldening of other enemies. The forces loosed in the Middle East bedevil to this day, in Iran, and in Lebanon, which Syria invaded shortly after the fall of Saigon and after its dictator had sneeringly told Henry Kissinger, "You've betrayed Vietnam. Someday you're going to sell out Taiwan. And we're going to be around when you get tired of Israel."

President Assad understood something that too many Americans didn't. Then as now, the anti-war debate is conducted as if it's only about the place you're fighting in: Vietnam is a quagmire, Iraq is a quagmire, so get out of the quagmire. Wrong. The " Vietnam war" was about Vietnam if you had the misfortune to live in Saigon. But if you lived in Damascus and Moscow and Havana, the Vietnam war was about America: American credibility, American purpose, American will. For our enemies today, it still is. Osama bin Laden made a bet -- that, pace the T-shirt slogan, "These Colors Do Run": They ran from Vietnam, and they ran from the helicopters in the desert, and from Lebanon and Somalia -- and they will run from Iraq and Afghanistan, because that is the nature of a soft plump ersatz-superpower that coils up in the fetal position if you prick its toe. Even Republicans like Senator John Warner seem peculiarly anxious to confirm the bin Laden characterization.

Labels: America War Support, Defeatocrats, Iraq, Mark Steyn, Surrender Caucus

Of the two simultaneous missions under way - maturing a responsible government and advancing our own strategic interests - the latter is far more important. In fact, it's vital. And on that track, we're making stunning progress. [...]

Out here in Anbar Province - long the most troubled in Iraq - the change has come so swiftly and thoroughly that it's dazzling. Marines who were under fire routinely just months ago are now directing their former enemies in battle.

Although this trend has been reported, our battlefield leaders here agree that the magnitude of the shift hasn't registered back home: Al Qaeda is on the verge of a humiliating, devastating strategic defeat - rejected by their fellow Sunni Muslims.

If we don't quit, this will not only be a huge practical win - it'll be the information victory we've been aching for.

No matter what the Middle Eastern media might say, everyone in the Arab and greater Sunni Muslim world will know that al Qaeda was driven out of Iraq by a combination of Muslims and Americans.

Think that would help al Qaeda's recruitment efforts? Even now, the terrorists have to resort to lies about their prospective missions to gain recruits.

With the sixth anniversary of 9/11 approaching, how dare we throw away so great a potential victory over those who attacked our country?

Forget the anti-war nonsense you hear. The truth is that our troops want to continue this struggle. I know. I'm here. And I'm listening to what they have to say. They're confident as never before that we're on the right path.

Should we rob them of their victory now and enhance al Qaeda by giving them a free win? How can we even contemplate quitting now?

I've been sitting down with Iraqis, too - including former enemies. They don't want us to leave. They finally cracked the code. They need us. And although they've got a range of their own goals (not all of them tending toward Jeffersonian democracy), they're unified in their hatred of al Qaeda.

Yesterday I listened as an American officer sought to restrain Iraqi security forces from attacking one of al Qaeda's last strongholds prematurely - the local rage toward al Qaeda goes deeper than any column could communicate.

If our former enemies are willing to kill our enduring enemies, why abandon them?

And it isn't just about al Qaeda, either. This conflict's now about keeping Iran from achieving hegemony over the Persian Gulf and its oil reserves - and preventing Tehran's extremist policy from tearing the Middle East apart. The Maliki government sucks, but, brother, it's still better than an Iranian proxy in Baghdad would be for our security.

Sen. Warner cares about our country and our troops. But the security of our country and the progress of our troops would both be compromised fatefully were we to announce that we're pulling out of Iraq.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Al Qaeda, America War Support, Hearts and Minds, Iran, Surrender Caucus, The Long War

Labels: Cambodia, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Genocide, Iraq, Surrender Caucus, Vietnam

In his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars yesterday, President Bush reminded us of the agony and genocide that followed the American retreat in Vietnam:

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge began a murderous rule in which hundreds of thousands of Cambodians died by starvation and torture and execution. In Vietnam, former allies of the United States and government workers and intellectuals and businessmen were sent off to prison camps, where tens of thousands perished. Hundreds of thousands more fled the country on rickety boats, many of them going to their graves in the South China Sea. Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left. . . . Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like “boat people,” “re-education camps,” and “killing fields.”

These words summon to mind a powerful passage from the third volume of Henry Kissinger’s memoirs, Years of Renewal, about the horror that befell Cambodia in the wake of Congress’s decision to cut off funding to the governments of Cambodia and South Vietnam.

Kissinger writes that messages were sent to top-level Cambodians offering to evacuate them, but to the astonishment and shame of Americans, the vast majority refused. Responding to one such offer, the former Prime Minister Sirik Matak sent a handwritten note to John Gunther Dean, the U.S. Ambassador, while the evacuation was in progress:

Dear Excellency and Friend:

I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it.

You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we all are born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans].

Please accept, Excellency and dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments.

S/Sirik Matak

Kissinger continues:

On April 13th, the New York Times correspondent [Sydney Schanberg] reported the American departure under the headline, “Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life.” The Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh on April 17th . . . . The 2 million citizens of Phnom Penh were ordered to evacuate the city for the countryside ravaged by war and incapable of supporting urban dwellers unused to fending for themselves. Between 1 and 2 million Khmer were murdered by the Khmer Rouge until Hanoi occupied the country at the end of 1978, after which a civil war raged for another decade. Sirik Matak was shot in the stomach and left without medical help. It took him three days to die.

This is a sober reminder that there are enormous human, as well as geopolitical, consequences when nations that fight for human rights and liberty grow weary and give way to barbaric and bloodthirsty enemies.

Labels: Cambodia, Defeatocrats, Genocide, Iraq, Surrender Caucus, Vietnam

Labels: Appeasement, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Surrender Caucus

Labels: Appeasement, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Surrender Caucus

STFU both of you clowns with a grand total of zero relevant experience. I don't play chickenhawk, but there comes a time when the mendacious drivel spouted by these two completely political animals disgusts me beyond reprieve. OK now their story changes from we have lost the war, to Well the war may be going well but the political situation is screwed. The most grotesque irony is that both are criticizing the Iraqi Parliament for not being in session 24/7 while our two members of the Senate and our entire Parliament of Hoors are on vacation as well.

They hurt me they really do. They know that security was the first step and political rapprochement the second, but they are hell bent on defeat and by God they will get those troops out of there before they stumble their way to victory.

I just loosed a tremendous stream of F-bombs out loud rather than burden you with them here, but I can barely stomach the behavior of far too many of these losers. It is one thing to disagree with policies it is another to purposefully undermine our military while afield fighting a war. There is no lie or misrepresentation they are not willing to use. Well they will not go unopposed. and whether they know or care I will be one of an Army of Davids taking them down. Americans do not cotton to losers and that is exactly what the leadership of the Democratic Party represents. The public has begun to hear about progress and the polls are actually switching, the problem for the Dems is they can't retreat from their calls for defeat. Most of them are to personally invested in derailing the neo-con express, but even if they could see through that blood mist, their own lefty would eat them alive. The Nutroots now rule and they will deal with that hateful bunch who will not abide anything short of W's abject surrender.

You go ahead and preach defeat as our troops secure more and more neighborhoods, and trust me the Iraqi politicians are just as finger in the wind as ours, they have been home and heard about the successes. Now they have been charged to go back to Baghdad and make some deals. There is no constituency that can support an insurgency when there is an alternative with security and prosperity, not in Iraq and damn sure not here at home.

I know a lot of folks think that we Republicans lose ground when people actually speak up bluntly like this, but I beg to differ: I think far too many Republicans have just laid down and licked their wounds while the Democrats have been saying things like "Bush is a Nazi" and comparing our troops--who are laying their lives on the line for us--to Stalin and Pol Pot, out of nothing more than pure venom and hatred for Conservatism and anyone daring to speak up against the so-called PC "prevailing wisdom." These non-stop red meat partisan attacks have been a staple of our evening news for over 6 years now (thanks to lap dogs like Reid and Pelosi)--and for most part these attacks have not been responded to in kind--at least not enough so to my liking. Enough is enough; politics is a contact sport, and frankly it is about damn time a people stood up and spoke up with more than syrupy sweet niceties about these hypocrites. Personally I hope we see a lot more fighting fire with fire. The time for kid gloves in the battle for hearts and minds is long gone.

Labels: 2008 Presidential Race, Barack Obama, Defeatocrats, Hillary, Hypocrisy, Iraq, Islamic Fascism, Surrender Caucus

Labels: America War Support, Appeasement, Democrat Sabotage, Iraq, Surrender Caucus

The victims were ethnic Kurd Yazidis, members of a minor sect with pre-Islamic roots. Muslim extremists condemn them (wrongly) as devil worshippers. The Yazidis live on the fringes of society.

That's one of the two reasons al Qaeda targeted those settlements: The terrorist leaders realize now that the carnage they wrought on fellow Muslims backfired, turning once-sympathetic Sunni Arabs against them. The fanatics calculated that Iraqis wouldn't care much about the Yazidis.

As far as the Thieves of Baghdad (also known as Iraq's government) go, the terrorists were right. Iraqi minorities, including Christians, have been classified as fair game by Muslim butchers. Mainstream Iraqis simply look away.

But the second reason for those dramatic bombings was that al Qaeda needs to portray Iraq as a continuing failure of U.S. policy. Those dead and maimed Yazidis were just props: The intended audience was Congress.

Al Qaeda has been badly battered. It's lost top leaders and thousands of cadres. Even more painful for the Islamists, they've lost ground among the people of Iraq, including former allies. Iraqis got a good taste of al Qaeda. Now they're spitting it out.

The foreign terrorists slaughtering the innocent recognize that their only remaining hope of pulling off a come-from-way-behind win is to convince your senator and your congressman or -woman that it's politically expedient to hand a default victory to a defeated al Qaeda.

THE media missed a big one yesterday.

They ran with the story that the Bush administration will soon designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - a major troublemaker in Iraq - as a terrorist organization. But they didn't look past the public-consumption explanation that the move lets our government go after the Revolutionary Guards' finances and the international companies that cut deals with Tehran's thugs.

The real reason for the move is to set up a legal basis for airstrikes or special operations raids on the Guard's bases in Iran.

Our policy is that we reserve the right to whack terrorists anywhere in the world. Now we have newly designated terrorists. And we know exactly where they are.

This doesn't mean we won't go after their money, too. The Revolutionary Guards have built up a financial empire - they're religious fanatics, but, in their version of Islam, "greed is good." Hurting Iran's assassins in the pocketbook reduces their ability to export terror.

Labels: Congress, Defeatocrats, Iraq, Media Bias, Media War, Surrender Caucus, The Left, War Successes

Labels: Congress, Defeatocrats, Iraq, Petreaus, Surrender Caucus, The Long War, War Successes

Labels: Congress, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Surrender Caucus, US Senate

Murtha, the defense industry’s darling, has been known throughout his tenure on the defense panel to shell out a large number of earmarks. His biggest earmark in the bill is $23 million for the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), a move that sparked a fierce fight with Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), who earlier this year voted in a private meeting to strip Murtha’s earmark.

The Bush administration requested $16 million to shut down the center, which is in Murtha’s district, because it replicated the work of a similar center.

Murtha’s second highest earmark is for $15 million for a military molecular medicine initiative.

Labels: Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Earmarks, John Murtha, Pork, Surrender Caucus

Most Democrats seem so invested in defeat in Iraq that they apparently have no "Plan B," which would be success.

Like the character Billy Bigelow in the musical "Carousel," who is dumbstruck when he realizes he has not thought about the possibility that his pregnant wife might actually deliver a girl, instead of the son he wants, Democrats appear unable to conceive of victory, or at least stability in Iraq.

So cynical have our politics become that a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democratic leaders are "not willing to concede there are positive things to point to" in Iraq. And House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn said a favorable report from Gen. David Petraeus could lead 47 moderate-to-conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats to oppose a withdrawal timetable, making it virtually impossible for the liberal leadership to pass such legislation. "[It would be] a real problem for us," said Mr. Clyburn.

Is that what the Iraq war has become? Instead of viewing it as a generational war that will determine the future of civilization (because, if we lose, Iraq will become a launching pad for terrorist acts around the world and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would surely die), is it now just another tool in the Democrat's quest for the White House? Where are the statesmen who put their country and its interests before personal and political interests? Was Harry Truman right when he observed, "A statesman is a politician who has been dead for 10 or 15 years"? Aren't we Americans before we are Republicans or Democrats? And don't we all lose if one political "side" wins and it costs others their freedom and puts America in greater peril.

Much of Washington is buzzing over a recent New York Times column by two scholars from the Brookings Institution, Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack. In addition to their association with a left-of-center think tank, the two have credibility because they have been harsh critics of how President Bush has directed the war.

Their column, titled "A war we just might win," expresses something we haven't heard in several years: optimism. "We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms," they write. This surprised them and they saw "the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory,' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

Testifying last week before the House Armed Services Committee, U.S. Army Gen. John M. Keane said Gen. Petraeus' new offensive has turned the tide against al Qaeda and insurgents alike. "We are on the offensive and have the momentum," said Gen. Keane, citing improved security throughout Baghdad, reduced sectarian violence, and al Qaeda's loss of ground in Sunni areas.

This is bad news for Democrats; so invested are they in defeat. What would they do; what could they do should pacification, if not unification, set in? It would not be beyond them to ignore the positives and focus only on the negatives. Will the mainstream media support them in such a strategy? Some might, but the "alternative" media, including talk radio, cable TV and the Internet, won't let them get away with it. Democrats may be reduced to asking if the public is going to believe them or their "lying eyes."

Labels: Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Iraq, Surrender Caucus, War Successes

Labels: Defeatocrats, Iraq, Surrender Caucus, War Successes

Labels: Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Iraq, Surrender Caucus

The fear of exactly this result might explain Democrat Rep. James Clyburn--the House Majority Whip, told the Washington Post yesterday. I linked it earlier, but the "money line" of the quote bears repetition (also check out the video here; and get a load of Democrat Congresswoman Nancy Boyda's equally telling actions...the very suggestion of recent American success in Iraq was enough to send her scurrying out of a briefing with an American General in great distress...). Meanwhile Mr. Clyburn couldn't help himself either, it just sort of 'came out' this way (emphasis mine):

Clyburn noted that Petraeus carries significant weight among the 47 members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats. [...]

"I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us," Clyburn said. "We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report."

Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

Can you imagine if, one month after D-Day--after the American invasion of France finally began to show real progress--a member of Congress going to the press and being asked something like: "well it looks like the American troops have finally broken free in France, despite enormous loss of life, and that for the first time, Germans are in retreat." And then the Congressman coming back with: ...yeah, and if that continues it would be a real big problem for us"??? I mean obviously he is talking about the Party, not the country, He probably would have been impeached on the spot.

The heavy irony of this little slip of the tongue by Rep. Clyburn is that it is completely indicative of where the defeat-mongers of the Democrat Party find themselves. Any good news about the war has been habitually buried by Democrats and their allies in the press for over 4 years now--to the point where they have conditioned themselves to believe none of it; meanwhile the majority of Americans have been spoon fed only negative news about the War--both by Democrats and their allies in the media--leading to a false sense of hopelessness at home which is a far cry from what our fighting men and women (and other embeds) have been saying for over a year now: namely that the military situation on the ground has been improving dramatically. And now even regular Bush critics from the liberal Brookings Institution think tank have issues a shocking (to the Left) positive report after a recent trip to Iraq.

Morale is high with the troops. The Iraqi people are coming around--especially in their unity against Al Qaeda. And the fact that the Democrats have been engaged for months in this "early" Presidential campaign--trumpeting all the while the assumption that an American defeat is a foregone conclusion--has put the Dems even further behind the "8-ball." All of its major candidates have gone on the record ad infinitum about their opposition to the War and desire to pull us out in shame of a War that cannot be won. Harry Reid their leader in the Senate has pronounced the War already lost.

Now these Defeatocrats have a real dilemma: if the Dems pull funding now, just as the effort seems destined for success (and the public knows it...opinion polls regarding the war have already moved appreciably in the last 7 days), the resulting American shame and the genocide that would ensue could result in a Democrat defeat of epic proportions next year; something that no one even dreamed of at the beginning of the year. The American people will clearly see pulling the rug out from a rapidly improving situation in Iraq and handing 1/3 of the world's oil supply to our enemies as a great betrayal instead of an inevitability. Meanwhile the Republicans, who have all along been suggesting "just give the surge time to work" appear to have been borne out, even after 5+ years of persistent, non-stop Democrat derision and personal attacks.

Stay tuned: the events of the last month--and the months to come--may portend as a dramatic reversal of fortune that American politics has seen in a long, long time. Dems are painted into a corner on Iraq now--and any defeatist moves to satisfy the base could result in a landslide against the Dems in a general election. Has the President (and Gen. Petraeus) been "Misunderestimated" again? Time will tell...

In the meantime, to our troops I say: Take heart! And 'Just win, baby'!

Labels: 2008 Congressional Races, 2008 Presidential Race, Congress, Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Iraq, Surrender Caucus, US Senate, War Successes

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.

Clyburn, in an interview with the washingtonpost.com video program PostTalk, said Democrats might be wise to wait for the Petraeus report, scheduled to be delivered in September, before charting next steps in their year-long struggle with President Bush over the direction of U.S. strategy.

Clyburn noted that Petraeus carries significant weight among the 47 members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats. Without their support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.

"I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us," Clyburn said. "We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report."

Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

No doubt; I have said all along that the Democrats have gone "all in" on an American defeat, a very dangerous place for an American political party to be. When you put your party in a position of having to root for America's failure or defeat in a war (or for the worsening of the economy...) in order to increase your power base, you have effectively come to a place where you are no longer "preserving, protecting or defending the Constitution of the United States..."; the only thing our despicable excuse for a Congress is working to "preserve" at the moment is its precarious hold on power. And even that is not going well. It appears the Democrats may have bet on the wrong horse in this War.

When your only hope for political success is to try and engineer an American Defeat at home (because the tide is turning on the ground in Iraq) you are fast approaching a place where the public will drop you like a hot rock.

Labels: Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Iraq, Surrender Caucus

What are we to make of the fact that two of the Democratic party’s most knowledgeable critics of President Bush’s campaign to stabilize and democratize post-Saddam Iraq, Michael O’Hanlon and Robert Pollack, have publicly rejected the defeatists and called for a sustained U.S. effort there into 2008? The short answer is that they have the wit to recognize mistaken claims that all is lost in Iraq when they hear them — and the courage to say so.

This assessment is remarkable, of course, not only for the fact that its authors are breaking ranks with nearly all of the rest of the Democrats’ foreign-policy establishment. It is also noteworthy for being the latest and, arguably, most objective indicator that the situation on the ground in Iraq is, indeed, changing for the better.

As such, the O’Hanlon-Pollack report makes plain one other truth: Those who persist in denying that General David Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy is having the desired, salutary effect and who insist that our defeat is inevitable are promoting a self-fulfilling prophesy. They are so determined to score domestic political points by unilaterally ending the conflict in Iraq that they are prepared to surrender the country to al Qaeda and various Shiite militias and their respective Saudi, Iranian and Syrian enablers.

Public-opinion polling and anecdotal evidence suggests that Americans are beginning to appreciate the true nature — and potentially enormous costs — of the surrender in Iraq being advocated by many Democrats and a few Republicans. The O’Hanlon-Pollack op-ed may reflect that reality as much as shape it. Either way, its authors deserve our thanks.

There is no question that on the ground the war is being won. Baghdad is becoming more secure. Iraqi tribal leaders and even some insurgent groups are turning against al Qaeda in Iraq and other outsiders who are pursuing their own violent agenda and who care nothing for the people of Iraq. The activities of Iran, Syria, and other counties supporting the insurgency are coming under increasing scrutiny and public censure. Iraqi military and police forces are fielding thousands of new, trained recruits every month. The government of Iraq may not be addressing all of the legislative initiatives we would like them to, such as the energy law and sorting out power sharing in their federal structure; but it took our country 75 years to come to grips with the contradictions inherent in our Constitution, and with a great deal more violence. We can give them time.

The weak link in the war effort is in the U.S. Congress. Politically driven assessments that downplay the progress of the war, pandering to antiwar groups, and a public that has tuned out, add up to grave difficulties in sustaining the war effort. Given more time, the progress in Iraq will become so clear as to be undeniable, and the troop drawdown could commence on more favorable terms. There is a significant difference between withdrawal in the face of adversity and redeployment after meeting our stated objectives. It is the difference between defeat and victory.

Skipping past the blow-by-blow and getting to the bottom line: I sense there has been a fundamental shift in Iraq. One officer called it a “change in the seas,” and I believe his words were accurate. Something has changed. The change is fundamental, and for once seems positive. And so, back to the O’Hanlon-Pollack story in the New York Times, “A War We Just Might Win,” I agree.

Labels: Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Hearts and Minds, Iraq, Media War, Surrender Caucus, War Successes

Labels: Defeatocrats, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Surrender Caucus