President Bush chides Democrats for their unconditional surrender stance on the war in Iraq, comparing it to the appeasement of the Nazis. Obama strikes back, calling Bush’s comment the “politics of fear.”

How… trite.

George W. Bush is right

Speaking before the Knesset, Bush said that “some people” believe the United States “should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.”

“We have heard this foolish delusion before,” Bush said. “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Understandably, Barack Obama doesn’t like his policies being aptly compared to one of the largest strategic blunders in world history. But then, the truth often hurts. If Obama has a better description of his Iraq withdrawal plan, based in reality and not fueled by hopeful irrationality, I would sure like to hear it. The sadness is that there is no other accurate description of it. One certainly cannot say he strongly opposes the terrorist forces in Iraq while advocating that we cease confronting them. Instead, he wants to “talk” with those who are uninterested in reason. With Obama, it’s as if that “positive parenting” nonsense would become our foreign policy.

Anyhow, not to say Obama supports Hamas, but there are certainly good reasons Hamas supports him.

Technorati tags: barack obama, road to the white house, politics, Iraq, Del.icio.us tags: barack obama, road to the white house, politics, Iraq, LiveJournal tags: barack obama, road to the white house, politics, Iraq

UPDATE More Democrats act indignant

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Bush’s remarks were “beneath the dignity of the office of the president and unworthy of our representation” at the celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary.

…

As Pelosi was speaking, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued a statement in which he said: “The tradition has always been that when a U.S. president is overseas, partisan politics stops at the water’s edge. President Bush has now taken that principle and turned it on its head: for this White House, partisan politics now begins at the water’s edge, no matter the seriousness and gravity of the occasion. Does the president have no shame?”

Both are peculiar things to say, especially from leaders of the legislature, which remains significantly less popular than the president. If anyone knows what it means to be “beneath the dignity of the office”, it would be Nancy Pelosi, the most incompetent House speaker in recent memory, whose recent field trip to Syria makes her seem more than just a little bit ridiculous. Second to all that, I am sure that Congressman Emanuel realizes that the president is the commander-in-chief and chief diplomat. Encouraging one of our staunchest allies of his commitment to the region, and his hatred of appeasement, can only be a good thing. If that makes you feel bad, tough luck.

All the same, I find this amusing. When wimps are called out for being wimps, they get mad. Certainly they can find a way to channel that rage, and in the process, stop being wimps. These Democrats are rightly noted for their appeasement tendencies and they feign the most comical of outrage. You wanted to leave Iraq yesterday? That is called surrender. Or the redeployment of courage, or whatever euphemism you can concoct to hide the bitter tasting truth that today’s Democrats haven’t the stomach to fight for much of anything.

Related posts: Should We Kick West Virginia Out of the Union?, Taxing Crazy, Not-So-Great Expectations, Rosalind, Oh Rosalind, Obama, Testy - Hillary, Feisty

A new website has been launched that is chronicling events as they actually happen in Iraq, IraqStatusReport.com. This sort of effort dovetails well with Joe Lieberman’s lament this morning before General Petraeus’ testimony that no good news is deemed acceptable out of Iraq.

Not that all is good in Iraq - no serious minded individual believes that. But the seeming unwillingness by many to recognize any progress at all in a very difficult region and context demonstrates, in my view, an exceptional lack of seriousness. The media can’t take off the Vietnam-era glasses long enough to care to get it right. This web effort is a move in the right direction.

Iraqi patriotism

Three Iraqi soldiers threw themselves on a suicide attacker wearing an explosives vest at an Army Day celebration Sunday - an act of heroism the U.S. said likely prevented many more deaths. Iraqi police said at least 11 people were killed in the blast, the deadliest in a series of bombings in Baghdad.

…

These martyrs gave their lives so that others might live,” said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman.

If this is the quality of character of the individuals now signing up to join the Iraqi military, things will be getting much better a lot quicker.

Facts and statistics are pointless to look at in a vacuum. Numbers are facts. Truth can be found in trends. Someone needs to tell that to The New York Times, and maybe mention it to prospective Columbia doctoral students

MANY Americans and Iraqis feel that 2007 was the year the war in Iraq turned around: the “surge” strategy has pacified large sections of the country; previously hostile factions like those of the cleric Moktada al-Sadr and the sheiks in Anbar Province have dropped their opposition or even sided with American and government forces; and the number of insurgent attacks has dropped steadily. Still, numbers don’t lie: for those in uniform, 2007 was the deadliest year since the invasion.

First, there is a tell. We know we’re dealing with a liberal anti-war advocate because she starts her thought with the word “feel”. That needs to be edited.

Second, the aggregate number, no matter what the subject, is secondary to where the numbers are going. A true look at the data shows amazing improvement since May, 2007, when 126 American fatalities were reported. Following a monthly linear trend down, in December, 2007, 23 American soldiers lost their lives.

New York City averaged 41 murders a month in 2007. Los Angeles averaged 28. If the trend continues (and seven months of data is instructive that it will), there will be twenty-one states more dangerous to Americans than Iraq in 2008. That comparison sounds like a more compelling, truth telling factoid to me.

Yes, 2007 was a record year for American fatalities in Iraq, but both the Times and someone pursuing an advanced degree at an elite American university know that that’s not the story.

UPDATE Proof that The New York Times understands the concept of statistical trends, at least when blaming Republicans for economic troubles

On Friday, the Labor Department reported that employment in December had buckled as well. Over all, a meager 18,000 jobs were created. Even worse, hiring in the private sector contracted by 13,000 jobs, a harbinger of recession. The figures are subject to change, but job growth has been slowing since June, making a big upward correction unlikely. The unemployment rate, which is not subject to revision, also jumped in December, rising to 5 percent. As recently as last March, unemployment was only 4.4 percent. Such a big swing in such a short time also suggests a recession.

Take note of this instructive subject lesson on the distinctions between convenient truths and inconvenient truths.

A lesson has been learned. The lighter, faster response military model advocated by Donald Rumsfeld has it’s place, but not when dealing with a vicisously sectarian, force focused culture. In other words, Bush’s surge is showing consistent, trend-worthy results, not least in the area of record low American casualty figures

Of the 21 fatalities this month, 14 have been combat related. Since the surge, even Iraqi security force fatalities are signficantly down. al Qaeda is disbanding, and American, Iraqi and coalition losses are shrinking. Hopefully, with increasingly more breathing room, the Iraqi politicians can produce some statesmen, and establish a working federal government.

The most impressive part of the new information coming out of Iraq is the utter and nearly total defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq, and even more encouraging, that American officials are convinced that al Qaeda, not sectarian violence, is presently the main concern in the country. Iraq is not in the midst of a civil war. It is not Vietnam. In fact, the dissimilarities have been there since the beginning. Unless, of course, you were a bit slow on the uptake, and part of the Democrat leadership. Harry Reid, circa February, 2007

After months of heated rhetoric slamming President Bush’s Iraq policy, the Senate’s top Democrat moved into new terrain by declaring the Iraq war a worse blunder than Vietnam.

“This war is a serious situation. It involves the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country,” Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.”

“So we should take everything seriously. We find ourselves in a very deep hole and we need to find a way to dig out of it.”

Asked whether he considers it a worse blunder than Vietnam, Reid responded, “Yes.”

Comparisons to Vietnam are nothing new, but a “worse than” designation from a top lawmaker is.

Reid never supported the surge, by the way.

When Iraq’s government is stable and fully functioning, Joe Lieberman will be the only Democrat to thank. And for a time, even he was kicked to the curb.

As a side note to the topic of winning in Iraq, do you really want to vote for “abandon the world, now” Ron Paul? Or, for that matter, the apologizing Mike Huckabee, who wants to further destabilize Pakistan, and now fears a Pakistani immigrant invasion?

Foreign policy is too important in 2008 to not occupy billing number one on everyone’s political radar - well, it’s always too important, actually. It’s the lack of a foreign policy as the discussion de jour in the nineties that has exacerbated some problems in the 2000s.  Even with Paul and Huckabee, and Obama, it’s not the lack of foreign policy experience that bothers me about them, but more so an apparent lack of judgment.

Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) was the first liberal to attempt to sway the Iraq debate by proposing the reinstatement of the military draft. Many lefty leaning commentators have echoed similar sentiments, hoping to reignite their fondly recalled protests of the Vietnam era. Others claim that only a draft can make the war “fair”. As they see it, too many minorities and poor people are fighting in Iraq, ensuring the rest of the country does not feel it. All of course is propaganda of the worst quality.
There are many reasons the vast majority of the country does not feel sacrifice from the war in Iraq. Chief among them is that we are a civilian government with a voluntary army, small by historical standards. However, even those who are affected are not restricted to a particular socio-economic class or race as many draft manipulators advocate.

Today Tennessean columnist Saritha Prabhu takes another shot at advocating the draft to end the war.

Yes, I know we have a volunteer army, but there are a bunch of things people who hide behind that argument don’t want to talk about: how the armed forces is overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, made up of people who are from rural, opportunity-deprived areas, or who join for economic reasons.

The rural part is true, though I’ve never thought of rural as being a bad thing. The rest is, well, a stretch. Many studies have been done debunking the preconception that those who enlist in the military are “opportunity deprived”, i.e. poor and/or black. Using zip code data, Tim Kane makes a good case to the contrary

The plain fact is that the income distribution of recruits is nearly identical to the income distribu­tion of the general population ages 18?24. Because we lack individualized household income data, our approach does not indicate whether or not the recruits came from the poorer households in their neighborhoods. Nevertheless, Chart 3 shows that the difference between the 1999 recruit distribution of ZCTA income and the population distribution is below a single percentage point for 19 of the 20 income brackets. Yet even these slight differences show a sub­tle pattern: Proportionally, both poorer and richer areas provide slightly fewer recruits, and middle-income areas provide slightly more.

Individualized household data would be better, as Kane admits, but increases in enlistment among areas of all economic classes is certainly more compelling than the “poor military” model, which is parroted mercilessly absent any data. Prabhu continues

If there were a draft, you can bet there would be some collective growing up and more people asking some tough questions: about what exactly our “mission” in Iraq is, about those benchmarks, about a sanitized war, about the large-scale misuse of funds and much more.

There are millions of us who have “collectively grown up” and know the mission, and are educated regarding the geopolitical landscape sufficiently well to support continued involvement in Iraq, understanding not just the risk in Iraq, but the broader stakes of regional failure. Clarity in discussion is important, though. There is certainly a difference between debating the mission and the conduct of the mission, a distinction which Prabhu seems more than willing to blur to make her point.

There is this perverse movement afoot by some liberals to expand the feelers of this war in order to end, not win, it, thinking that if George W. Bush’s daughters were soldiers in Iraq, the war would instantly be over. Simplistic sure, and wrong as well.

The draft advocate position does not spring from some noble desire to better the debate. There is this hope for mass protests, and the march of otherwise insufficiently occupied college students to end a war they do not like and do not understand (the only thing that impresses me less than a Ph.D is a student protest). This truth bears out in a variety of ways, but primarily that draft advocates will never be caught recognizing publicly that an influx of draftees would reduce the effectiveness of the military, an opinion held throughout the Pentagon. More draftees involve more people who didn’t want to fight, refuse to train well, and are unreliable in combat, all causing more casualties than someone who has volunteered to be there. Of course a draft might help end the war in Iraq, but would do so at unacceptable longterm costs, and not for the noble reasons its advocates represent.

For anyone who doubts the leftist slant of the mainstream media, let us move past voting records, and issue polls of journalists, and move directly on to in-kind contributions, in the form of discounted ad rates

The Times acknowledged to The Post on Wednesday that the going rate for such an ad would be $181,692.

But a spokesman for MoveOn told The Post that the group paid just $65,000.

Amid a firestorm of criticism yesterday, the Times seemed confused about the proper ad rate.

Earlier in the day, the paper’s spokeswoman said MoveOn had received a discount and confirmed to Reuters the normal rate was “about $181,000.” But later, the same spokeswoman told The Associated Press that the proper rate for such an ad is about $65,000.

Saying he wanted to place an advocacy group ad similar to MoveOn’s, a Post re porter who contacted the Times without identifying himself was told earlier this week that the rate was about $167,000.

“We do not distinguish the advertising rates based on the political content of the ad,” spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said, confirming that the normal rate was “around $181,000.”

Of course you don’t. That’s why MoveOn.org received somewhere between a 61% and 64% discount on its “aid and comfort to the enemy” ad attacking the commanding general in Iraq for not adopting its fabricated version of complete disaster in the Middle East.

Of course, the Times, being the upstanding bellwether of responsible and fair journalism that it is, will certainly offer the same discount rate to Freedom’s Watch. Or not. We will certainly see. There is no debate that the price for the ad that was sold to MoveOn.org was $65,000.00. The real fun will be watching the debacle when the Times explains in its answer to a certain shareholders’ derivative suit why it has cut its ad rates by 60% at a time of self-described declining circulation.

The New York Times editorial staff has outdone themselves this time, call for the full and immediate withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, the consequences be damned - or, in this case, simply wished away absent any critical thought.

Much like our local Gannett affiliate, the Times opinioneers often live in a delightful world where fairies, gnomes and Teletubbies are each courted equally for their vote. Toon Town never had it so good.

Adding to the amusement, while the editors consider Iraq an unmitigated disaster, the front page of the Week in Review discusses how successful American and Iraqi forces have been in using both diplomacy and force to quell the unrest in Anbar Province, most specifically in the former deadliest city in Iraq, Ramadi

Until only a few months ago, the Central Street bazaar was enemy territory, watched over by American machine-gunners in sandbagged bunkers on the roof of the governor’s building across the road. Ramadi was Iraq’s most dangerous city, and the area around the building the most deadly place in Ramadi. Now, a pact between local tribal sheiks and American commanders has sent thousands of young Iraqis from Anbar Province into the fight against extremists linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The deal has all but ended the fighting in Ramadi and recast the city as a symbol of hope that the tide of the war may yet be reversed to favor the Americans and their Iraqi allies.

This is no small feat. And it was done by using ingenuous tactics combined with effective force. More interesting is a rather gloomy, and now incorrect, Marine assessment of Ramadi from just last year

Ramadi, which lies on the edge of a desert that reaches west from the city to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, had a population of 400,000 in Saddam Hussein’s time. That was before the insurgents — a patchwork of Al Qaeda-linked militants, die-hard loyalists of Saddam Hussein’s ruling Baath Party and other resistance groups fighting to oust American forces from Iraq — coalesced in a terror campaign that turned much of the city into a ghost town, and much of Anbar into a cauldron for American troops. Last year, a leaked Marine intelligence report conceded that the war in Anbar was effectively lost, and that it was on course to becoming the seat of the Islamic militants’ plans to establish a new caliphate in Iraq.

Now back to the call for withdrawal.

The Times’ editors want an ample dessert to accompany their din call for surrender. Broken down into easy-to-refute sections, the editorial blasts Bush for failure, yet sets up a roster of haughty goals unattainable without a significant troop presence in Iraq. For instance, the Times wants us out, yet still demands that the Turks stay out of Kurdistan, that Iran’s influence be checked among the Shiites in the south, that al Qaeda not be given refuge to train anywhere in the country, and that those who allied with the Americans be protected. How this is to be done without an effective military ground presence is apparently left up to the gnomes. Though in fairness one solution is presented - work closer with the United Nations.

That must come from the Teletubby wing of the ideological Left. They are of European origin, after all.

I daresay that the opinion leaders at the world’s paper of record are nothing short of naive. Tucked between the Hudson and the Atlantic, they toil away, devising a world recognizable only to them and the self-proclaimed elite who buy into such rank nonsense. And then in an effort toward self-validation, offer pronouncements as to how they would make their world work better. Of course, this is a completely useless exercise. A make-believe world where you concoct your own rules and offer your own pronouncements does no one anywhere much good, except those who buy into the hype, who receive the benefit of a feel-good ideological fix. Meanwhile, the real world demands real solutions. Whiny, thoughtless editorial pieces only work to make those solutions harder to find.

UPDATE More water to douse on the Times’ fire.

UPDATE UPDATE And of course, Turkey would never interfere with Kurdistan.

One of the distinctions between the Right and the Left regarding the ongoing war with Islamic fundamentalism is the cause the underlying the conflict. The Left seems to believe that our presence in Iraq and elsewhere is “breeding” terrorists - as if the primary reason for Islamic fundamentalism’s penchant for terrorism is a reactionary one. It’s a “blame the West” mentality. The Right, in marked contrast, believes that the actions of Islamist terrorists are at their very source religious, compelled into action by a belief structure absent any sort of real world prodding by free people.

Hassan Butt, a former member of the British Jihadi Network, validates the conservative interpretation. In an article in Britain’s Daily Mail, Butt explains

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this “Blair’s bombs” line did our propaganda work for us.

The West certainly is to blame for Islamic terrorism, simply by its existence. It this sort of insight from a former fanatic that helps frame the long term nature of this conflict, and the need for Western civilization’s persistence and patience, not self-flagellation and 1960s mired intellectualism. In the world of the Islamic fanatic, there is no grey

There isn’t enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel.

Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same.

For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief).

Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world.

Along with many of my former peers, I was taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief.

In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

So do with this anecdotal redemption what you will. The best way to defeat your enemy is to understand him. If American and Western leadership refuses to accept the truths about the showdown between our culture and the culture of the caliphate, the war will continue and more lives will be lost. An all-out press is still needed, and I am afraid that a significant portion of our Western populace prefers the instinct of the ostrich to the will of a Churchill.

UPDATE Further proof of my point.

The Tennessean runs a story today on Gore’s message, which follows on what I thought was a perceptive opinion piece by David Brooks in The New York Times a couple days prior (well, not everyone thought it perceptive).

Al Gore’s newest (s)creed comes in the form of a lament. Moving on from the gospel of environmental disaster, which causes the otherwise anti-religious among us to throw their hands to the heavens and shake with the spirit of Gaea, we are implored to now look to the American political tragedy

“There is a crack in the foundation of our democracy,” the former Tennessee senator said.

That crack, he said, is caused by the replacement of reasoned dialogue with manipulative appeals to emotion.

We have nothing to fear but Al Gore himself - and the Democrats say that Republicans peddle the emotion. Having read a number of excerpts from the book, I cannot help but flashback to college, where reading the tedious writing of overeducated academics was a daily requirement. Having moved beyond that phase of life, I see no reason to be so masochistic - especially since we’re talking only about a self proclaimed academic, who so gloriously flunked out of divinity school, couldn’t finish law school, and who (funny enough) received a “D” in natural sciences at Harvard with an overall “C” average.

But hey, he writes nearly as awkwardly as Bush speaks, and a Gore presidency would have required us all to wear solar panels on our backs by now, so I’m happy with the trade off.

Gore’s complaint seems to stem from the emotional “manipulation” of the public by the Bush administration over the Iraq war and the public’s reliance on broadcast media (as Brooks notes, doesn’t the Internet solve a lot of the problems Gore bemoans?). The former vice president’s inescapable conclusion is that no one rational could believe what conservatives believe. Because, as we now all know, the 9/11 attacks never actually happened, Saddam Hussein wasn’t responsible for a million deaths, and France and Russian didn’t maintain the same threat assessment the United States did. If only we would just skip away from the Middle East with a smile on our face. Without our interference the region would devolve back into the great and peaceful landscape it has always been. Perhaps even women will get the chance to vote by the next millennium. Or, if we’re lucky, men will, too.

Contrary to Gore’s assertion, the American public isn’t stupid. There’s a difference between dumb and busy. Yes, people get their information faster now - because they can, and because life has become more and more complex with each generation. Read Gore’s book in its entirety if you must - I’m going to stage a protest and watch some TV.

Today we honor those who have fought for us, and who have achieved the noblest calling in the form of the ultimate sacrifice, forever forgoing their own rights to enjoy life and liberty, and who have accepted a halt to their personal pursuit of happiness.

Or else, I suppose, those who today choose to stand upon the outer ramparts of civilization and stare down the worst of theocratic autocrats, who would create a caliphate which not only seek to imprison individuals through physical control, but to destroy the human spirit at its very core, have found in their dedication a more fulfilling and immediate happiness. That is something enviable.

For me and all those I call close, the tribute of the heart and mind to the American soldier is a very real one. It is real in that takes into account certain truths outside the colorful metaphors. What a soldier exists to do, it must be remembered, in fact his very dedication to the cause that will always be the United States of America, rests in the truth that he is to defeat and destroy the enemy wherever he is found. If he is not allowed to do that, his very existence is at most a depressing philosophical contradiction. That’s not even the real problem - the real problem is that there are pols who believe he is unable to do it - the perverse among us can with a straight face call that “supporting the troops”.

The public debate today is unfortunate, and the stakes of the 2008 election grow in importance every day. Even on the Republican side, there exists a sad candidate whose world is most compatible with a time where the world was still separated by the speed of a steamer or a headwind impaired zeppelin, and who has blamed this country for provoking 9/11. On the Democrat side, things are worse. If there is a candidate running for the Democrat nomination who believes that the American military’s might exceeds that of Upper Volta, I don’t know who it is. The most hawkish of the Democrats, Hillary Clinton, finally collapsed in a mass of capitulation to the MoveOn.org base of her party by voting to defund the troops this past week. How utterly contemptible.

Next year’s election decides more than the party in power - it will determine whether last century will in fact be the last American century. Supporting the troops always means winning the war. There are too many people who believe more in the hippy-mindset induced failure in Vietnam than in the American military that won two world wars. To the observant, the greater and unavoidable conflict between civilization and barbarism now set in the Middle East has not even been fought yet. If America’s Left held even a smidgen of the contempt for Islamist jihadists that they do for American Christians, the terms of the Democrats’ candidates’ debate would worry me much less. Unfortunately, those who would wish our military out of Iraq have no answer as to what to do when the region in its entirety collapses into the black hole of Islamic fundamentalism upon our exit.

Peace without victory is a mirage. What to do with the war is win it, at all costs. Making that commitment is the best thing we as a People can do this Memorial Day for our troops. Support the troops - win the war.

I’m holding my breath for the Fred Thompson announcement, but Rudy Giuliani’s views on the Islamist terrorist threat are right on

The former New York City mayor, currently leading in all national polls for the Republican nomination for president, said Tuesday night that America would ultimately defeat terrorism no matter which party gains the White House.

“But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have?” Giuliani said. “If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.”

“I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,” Giuliani continued. “We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”

He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”

No, they don’t. In fact, we learn that Speaker Pelosi, the white flag waver-in-chief (though Harry Reid might dispute that title), takes our national defense and foreign policy so seriously that she can’t make a Congressional briefing on troop escalation that she scheduled

WASHINGTON, Apr. 24, 2007— As the House and Senate prepare to vote this week on the final conference report on the $124 billion troop funding bill — which would also mandate that U.S. combat troops begin withdrawing from Iraq on Oct. 1 at the latest — Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to come to the Hill tomorrow to brief lawmakers on the progress of the recent troop escalation.

ABC News has learned, however, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will not attend the briefing.

“She can’t make the briefing tomorrow,” a Democratic aide told ABC News Tuesday evening. “But she spoke with the general via phone today at some length.”

But back to the mayor. He had some great things to say. I particularly like this

“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” Giuliani said in his speech. “Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”

Giuliani said terrorists “hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”

Giuliani continued: “The freedoms we have are in conflict with the perverted, maniacal interpretation of their religion.” He said Americans would fight for “freedom for women, the freedom of elections, freedom of religion and the freedom of our economy.”

Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”

I know 9/11 was SO long ago. I mean, almost six years is a long time, and clearly one major party seems to believe the threat has subsided (heard any serious plans out of the Democrats regarding Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the Sudan, lately? Me either). The party of Clinton and Carter has seemingly forgotten the size of the stakes and the scope of the conflict. Iraq is not just about Iraq. Iraq is a front in the larger war that cannot fall, and certainly cannot be handed over to al Qaeda on a limited edition specially numbered Pelosi/Reid engraved silver platter. Being kind in my assessment, the Democratic leadership possesses the foreign policy attention span of your average gold fish.

The Democrats have determined that 1) the war in Iraq is lost, and 2) we need to get out on a date certain. Forget for now what happens once we leave Iraq, or what message an outright surrender would send to those who prefer us all dead. Or how a chaotic Iraq empowers Iran, and places the world’s oil supply, and our economy and well-being, in great peril. The “get out now” crowd has clearly not thought more than one step ahead. Maybe if Harry Reid could stop focusing on how to lose a war to win an election, he would have the time to actually inform himself about the region we’ve been politically and militarily embroiled in for the last sixty years. The irresponsiblity of the Congressional leadership is sickening. The only answer is to win the war, and they ought to know it.

UPDATE The top two Democratic contenders take issue with Giuliani’s statements

“Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low and I believe Americans are ready to reject those kind of politics,” Obama said in a statement. “America’s mayor should know that when it comes to 9-11 and fighting terrorists, America is united. We know we can win this war based on shared purpose, not the same divisive politics that question your patriotism if you dare to question failed policies that have made us less secure.”

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, weighing in with a statement posted on her campaign Web site, said: “One of the great tragedies of this Administration is that the president failed to keep this country unified after 9/11. We have to protect our country from terrorism — it shouldn’t be a Democratic fight or a Republican fight.”

Hillary is right. It shouldn’t be a partisan fight, but thanks to the antics of Harry Reid, among others on her side of the aisle, it has become a Republican fight. The Democrats are more intent on packing up and coming home (which, inarguably, cannot be confused with a fighting stance).

Meanwhile, through impressively polished rhetoric, Obama says absolutely nothing, which is quite Clintonian of him (meaning Bill, not his wife).  Neither leading Democrat came out against the follies of their party, and neither has a real plan to execute the War on Terror. Rudy appears right.

Harry Reid, already well established as an embarrassment to his party and the United States Senate, continues on an ill-advised path

WASHINGTON (CNN) — After months of heated rhetoric slamming President Bush’s Iraq policy, the Senate’s top Democrat moved into new terrain by declaring the Iraq war a worse blunder than Vietnam.

“This war is a serious situation. It involves the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country,” Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.”

“So we should take everything seriously. We find ourselves in a very deep hole and we need to find a way to dig out of it.”

Asked whether he considers it a worse blunder than Vietnam, Reid responded, “Yes.”

Comparisons to Vietnam are nothing new, but a “worse than” designation from a top lawmaker is.

Worse than Vietnam? Vietnam was certainly bad, but only because we did not commit ourselves to win the war, which is precisely what the Democratic Party is attempting to accomplish (sic) domestically now in Iraq. Besides functioning as a demoralization to the troops in the field, which Democrats so laughingly claim to support, Reid’s blurb does do us the advantage of encapsulating the Democratic Party and White Flag Republicans’ views on Iraq in one refreshingly candid yet inane sound bite.

That’s all fine and well. Senator Reid has long been classless (see his voice mail to Betty Ford and subsequent junket to South America), but his senatorial silliness hasn’t quite been on as great display. If you look up statesman in the dictionary, Harry Reid would show up under the last entry, antonym.

Now, besides the obvious dissimilarities between Vietnam and Iraq that any marginally educated adult ought to be able to see, we are now saddled with the labor of observing more tripe stemming from the politics of hopelessness. One needs only look to the casualty count difference between Vietnam and Iraq to make Reid’s commentary absurd on its face (the difference is presently over 54,000). We Republicans have so frequently been labeled the party of fear (again, as if 3,000 Americans did not die in a multi-pronged terrorist attack a mere 5 years ago), that it is now time to return the favor.

Though in returning the favor, the obvious difference is that the facts are on our side. Iraq is not like Vietnam. The troop surge proposed by the president is done in an effort to win the war. One may not agree with the strategy, and that is a fair position to take, but I would like to hear from any Democrat what Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi have proposed in their short, albeit much-hyped tenure, that would result in anything other than American defeat. Now that the Democrats control both houses of congress, I now havea decent inkling what the “U.S.” stands for preceding the US House and Senate - Unconditional Surrender (my utmost apologies extended to General Grant).

Even more amusingly, Senator Reid’s statement comes on the heels of the Democrat sponsored surrender resolution passed by the House of Representatives the end of last week. The Democrats, so empowered by their convictions, choose to present a nonbinding muddling of meaninglessness to express their alleged discontent with the president’s current Iraqi policy. Further exposing their cowardice, the House controls the purse - if Iraq is so great a mistake, and the nation’s good is so imperiled by our continued involvement there, as good Americans the Democratic leadership must shut down funding for the war, and “redeploy” our forces stateside. As the Democrats seem content to dabble in everything nonbinding, it has become clear that they either are not truly discontented, in that we can be assured they are merely whiny, or else they truly lack the moral fortitude to enact the policies they so ardently advocate.

Pick your poison. No matter the answer, the Democratic Party and its Republican sycophants have shown their uninterest in governing responsibly. Let us be warned, and know that in 2008, immediate change is needed. No more Democrats, and no more Bush.

The qualifications for bravery among the modern Left leaves something to be desired. For instance, the Dixie Chicks are again in the news, apparently favored by their like-minded colleagues for some award or another tonight. One of the former members of the Grateful Dead had this to say

“I think people are paranoid,” former Grateful Dead member Mickey Hart told Reuters. “I think that if they speak out, they think they’re gonna get whacked by the government. It’s pretty oppressive now. Look at the Dixie Chicks. They got whacked.”

I assume that Hart meant oppressive like this

At least eight people have been shot dead by the security forces in the West African state of Guinea during protests against the newly-named prime minister.

Dozens more were seriously injured in the violence in the capital Conakry and several towns across the country.

I have been chided before for having too low a standard for the United States government, the definition of oppression, and so forth, but for anyone to think that the Dixie Chicks have been “whacked”, whether physically or metaphorically, rides along the border of the absolutely absurd.

The point has been made before, but speaking out against the United States government is among the least brave things one can do. At worst, it seems you get your feelings hurt when your fellow citizens mock you. You might lose some business in your industry, when the free market decides to ignore you. Nowadays, that doesn’t even happen. The Iraq war is so unpopular that spouting about like Natalie Maines makes you about as average as one can get.  If you want to be brave, go where there is no rule of law, and the local government is restrained only by the length of its bayonet. Speak there, about whatever your heart desires, and then perhaps if you survive, demand a medal for your bravery. I suggest Darfur as a good start. Or perhaps Guinea, as I noted above. Russia even looks promising again, now that ex-pats in Western nations are again being assassinated for their actions against the government.

I suppose my rant will fall on deaf ears. Those consumed with the status of their own bravado won’t want to hear it, and will continue to live vicariously through their own ether-like brand of heroism, so easy a standard that every warrior in history, from the earliest Assyrian to the modern American soldier, is defamed by the very nature of the new definition. Those who nod in agreement have already chuckled for sometime.

In short, speaking your mind in America in 2007 is not brave, but expected. Get on with the debate, but reserve the quality of true courage for those dying for the very cause you speak so bravely against.

I have managed thus far to avoid prognosticating on the electioneering of 2008. At present, the field is too wide for both parties - it seems that even the concession vendors are leaving their bleacher routes and offering to hop onto the field and play. And in that, the declared all-in candidates strike me as largely mediocre. On my side of the aisle, the right mix of political talent and the necessary credibility on issues that make me a Republican are not matching up. I like Mitt Romney’s communication style, but I am unsure of his conservative conversion. Newt Gingrich has the necessary vision, but lacks the political skills to effectuate it. By many accounts, John McCain is simply not stable, and ought not be running the executive branch, though he appears to be the most hawkish of the field.

Among the blue seats, we have the redeployment sweepstakes, led in part by the socialist and underqualified (Barack Obama), the old and the tired (Hillary Clinton), and the hopelessly clueless (Joseph Biden), among an occasional dwarf (Dennis Kucinich). The winner of the Democrats’ primary will likely be the candidate who best spins the illogical and mutually exclusive - (s)he who shrieks the loudest about how we can both retreat in Iraq and still win the war takes home the prize. The power of the left to control the Democratic Party has never been greater.

There is an old saw that those most qualified to govern choose other pursuits. Unfortunately, that routinely appears to be largely true. In most times, and in most circumstances, this is not necessarily a bad thing. I do believe that the we as a society are better served when our most talented individuals remain in the private sector. The only hope is that those who do win elected office end up being mostly harmless. That longstanding arrangment is no longer sufferable.

In times such as these, with real threats looming greater and growing daily, the costs of the wrong individual in the Oval Office would be greater than we as a people ought to be willing to bear. And though I’ve not been a fan of President Bush as of late, the growth of these threats pre-dated his presidency. Islamic fascism has existed for nearly three decades, overshadowed initially by the more signficant threat of communist expansionism. It was ignored throughout the 1990s as a serious national security concern, and once sufficiently allowed to fester, exploded onto the scene in 2001. Dealing with this new brand of nuclear fanatacism ought to be issue number one on both sides. Unfortunately, one side is willing to employ a frightening, twisted view of America’s foreign policy, declaring their collective plan of surrender as a formula for victory, and the other is hamstrung by its leader’s inability to communicate the greatness of our commitment in Iraq and elsewhere. We are at a turning point in the world’s history, and the American people are left choosing between those who must distance themselves from the right, necessary, and difficult path towards victory, and those who prefer to splice the genetics of Neville Chamberlain with that of an ostrich, electing their perfect candidate intent on declaring the blatantly false and doubly ignoring the obvious and ongoing threat.

The Democrats’ will attempt to assert that withdrawing from Iraq will strengthen our fight against terrorism, somehow missing the message that such a surrender will send to our determined enemies and ignoring the Islamist empowering chaos that will ensue upon our departure. Or that the ongoing battle in Iraq is already a proxy war with Iran (ed: a recent link here), that we cannot afford to lose. With all due respect owed John Kerry (which isn’t much), the decision to re-dedicate our resolve and commit more resources to the fight has become a political pariah. We are left with the decision to lose now, or lose later. Neither of these ought to be acceptable. Iraq is not Vietnam, but you would’t know it by looking at the politics of 2008.

I need a Reagan, or a Kennedy. Not a Clinton, or a Bush.

Nathan and I spent a few minutes watching Arianna Huffington on O’Reilly this evening.  Towards the end of the discussion, the two of them discussed the new freedoms the Kurds are experiencing since the removal of Saddam Hussein.  Huffington believes the happy Kurds who appear on TV ads are just being used as propaganda.  She said that, in reality, the Kurds are no better off now than before the Americans arrived in Iraq.  Then, the following exchange occurred:

O’Reilly: The Kurds were experiencing outright genocide under Hussein!

Huffington: So what?!

O’Reilly: Are you kidding?  You don’t care about the genocide?

Huffington: It’s not our job to go around and take care of other countries.

“So what?”  Really … that’s your response?  That’s nice.  Complete indifference to the attempted slaughter of an entire ethnic group.  I’ll remember that the next time there is a piece on your blog about how Bush supposedly doesn’t care enough about Darfur.

The Christian Science Monitor has a fascinating article by Jill Carroll about her 82 days in captivity.  The detailed account paints an amazing and terrifying picture of what life is like for hostages held by these terrorists when the cameras aren’t rolling to produce a demand video.  A woman was assigned to watch Carroll, and she spent countless hours reciting from the Koran and asking Carroll why she hadn’t converted to Islam yet.  While the kidnappers discussed where to go next, they handed the remote to Carroll and told her to watch anything she wanted.  She chose Oprah.  When Carroll thought the time of her death had arrived, she pleaded for the gun instead of the knife.  The article is worth a thorough read.

It requires registration, but it’s worth it. Go check out StratFor’s latest analysis on the geopolitically incestual connections among Lebanon, Hizbullah, Iraq and Iran.

If they were lesser people, those of the Balkans would be jealous.  If you care to know about the new and improved powder keg of Europe the world, then click through and read the piece.

The Ford blogs seem giddy that Harold Ford, Jr. has a plan to trifurcate Iraq, thinking this would somehow end the problems there, and make the Middle East a less volatile place. A bad idea is not better than no idea.

I question the Congressman’s sense of understanding of the region, and his knowledge of history. I could write an entire dissertation on why the establishment of Kurdistan, Sunniland, and Shiiteville is a bad idea. Here’s the quick version.

Though the Kurds have not been a problem in the Iraqi mess, they have been a problem to the Turks. Turkey has suffered Kurdish terrorism for some time, primarily because there is a substantial Kurdish separatist contingent just over the Iraqi border. Turkey would neither geopolitically nor militarily stand for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan. By giving the Kurds their own country, at least at this point in time, you’re simply rolling another barrel of gunpowder up to the fire.

An independent Shiite state would greatly enhance the capabilities of Iran in the region. The Iranians have already been interfering in domestic Iraqi politics through Shiite clerics. Separating the Shiites from the moderating effects of the Kurds and Sunnis would give Iran an instant client state. This is something we don’t need, especially in light of the recent hositilities between Iranian supported Hizbullah and Israel. Trifurcation, as Ford suggests, would empower Iran at a time when we’re trying to weaken the Islamist fascist regime.

Finally, the Sunnis would be the odd man out. The Sunnis in Iraq are a small contingent vis a vis the Shiites, and would be ripe for conquer by either the new more populous and fanatical Shiite state or Iran. The Shiites in Iraq are still smarting from decades of Sunni rule under Saddam Hussein. They would not hesitate to, in their eyes, even the score.

Dividing Iraq into three, as many would like to do, would be perfectly fine in a vaccuum. Iraq was an intentional and artificial state from the beginning, concocted by the British to ease imperial administration. But we’re not in a vaccuum, and the moving parts we do have to deal with aren’t going to sit idly by and help foster the growth of three new ethnic and sectarian based democracies.

This sort of uninformed thinking is exactly what we don’t need in Iraq. For this reason among many, Ford is not fit to be our next senator in Tennessee.