August 22, 2007

Democrats Miscalculate On Iraq

Democrats figured that the August recess would give them plenty of opportunity to raise the heat on Republicans to force a withdrawal date from Iraq. They could return to their home districts, stoke some demonstrations, and return with new momentum after Labor Day to push for retreat. Unfortunately, events have intervened, and now Democrats have to regroup to avoid looking like defeatists while the military effort has started producing successes:

Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq's diverse political factions.

And now the Democrats, along with wavering Republicans, will face an advertising blitz from Bush supporters determined to remain on offense. A new pressure group, Freedom's Watch, will unveil a month-long, $15 million television, radio and grass-roots campaign today designed to shore up support for Bush's policies before the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, lays out a White House assessment of the war's progress. The first installment of Petraeus's testimony is scheduled to be delivered before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a fact both the administration and congressional Democrats say is simply a scheduling coincidence.

The leading Democratic candidates for the White House have fallen into line with the campaign to praise military progress while excoriating Iraqi leaders for their unwillingness to reach political accommodations that could end the sectarian warfare.

The Democrats have been outmanuevered again on Iraq. Earlier this year, they took 108 days to come up with a funding formula that wouldn't get vetoed by the Bush administration, thinking that they could dictate terms to the White House. They found out, as the Republicans did in 1995, that Presidents are never irrelevant. He played "chicken" better than the Democrats, who swerved rather than allowing funds to run out on the troops, and gave Bush what he wanted in May.

It looks like September will bring more swerving. Even leading Democrats acknowledge that Petraeus has produced some stunning successes in Anbar and Diyala. Most people considered Anbar a lost cause, but Petraeus and his forces have freed the province of its terrorist oppressors and created a political movement of Iraqi unity called Anbar Awakening, which continues to spread. Barack Obama suggested yesterday that Baghdad could use another 30,000 troops.

Now that their predictions of military failure have have died, the Democrats want to focus on the lack of political reform as a reason to leave. In January, they talked about how futile it was to play "whack-a-mole" when terrorists would simply move back and forth, and that the American and Iraqi forces could not clear and hold territory. Since that's been proven wrong, they now claim that the current Iraqi government cannot possibly institute the reforms Congress demands, such as oil revenue sharing and the forgiveness of former Ba'athists. Unless Iraq succeeds in these reforms as a sign of unity, we should withdraw, the argument will go.

That case appears weaker and weaker, however. Nouri al-Maliki has used the National Assembly recess to bypass his Shi'ite allies and start negotiations with Sunni tribal chiefs in Tikrit, the heart of Sunni resistance to his government. He negotiated cooperative agreements between the Kurds and the Shi'ite Islamic Council, the opponent of Maliki's former ally, Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr's divisive influence has dramatically waned over the last few months -- and that started with the surge in February, when Sadr hotfooted it to Iran.

Will the Democrats demand on withdrawal and the catastrophic collapse that will follow, simply to defend the job rights of former Saddam Hussein apparatchiks and the divsion of oil profits?

Even those who still insist on firm timetables question the Democratic leadership's strategy. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) says that the inflexible and confrontational approach taken by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid has made it impossible to work with Republicans in Congress and the White House. Rather than asking the generals what they need, Congress has tried to dictate limits -- and lost. "I don't know what they're thinking," McNerney said to the Post about the leadership.

That's not true at all. Everyone knows what they're thinking. If they get outmanuevered again, the Democrats will catch hell from the activist base of their party and likely wind up losing the House to the Republicans in 2008. They can't afford to work cooperatively with the people Pelosi and Reid have successfully demonized with their voters, or they will look like complete hypocrites. That's the wages of demagoguery, and payday's coming in September.

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Comments (92)

Posted by edward cropper | August 22, 2007 7:30 AM

It will be interesting to see how the DemocRats craw-fish on the new developments occurring in Iraq. They were so dead certain their plan of attack on the President was a winner they may have left their rear unguarded. Of course the way this war has morphed from one disaster to another there is always the possibility that a let down is around the corner.
For the sake of our troops and the Iraqi people let's pray that does not happen.

Posted by docjim505 | August 22, 2007 7:31 AM

From the WaPo article: The leading Democratic candidates for the White House have fallen into line with the campaign to praise military progress while excoriating Iraqi leaders for their unwillingness to reach political accommodations that could end the sectarian warfare.

Can you say "shifting goalposts", anybody? When the Iraqi government gets its act together (as it inevitably must if it hopes to survive), what will be the next goalpost for the Benedict Arnolds to claim we CAN'T meet? Iraqi kids smoking? Trans-fats in Iraqi restaurants? Not enough money for school lunches? QUAGMIRE!

The dems have made themselves look at best like fools and at worst like a pack of traitors who actively work for US defeat. With the military doing what it has always done (i.e. winning), they've got to find SOMETHING to hang their defeatist hat on. They simply can't allow anything like US victory in Iraq because (1) it is their number one campaign issue and (2) they can't stand the possibility that George Bush might get some credit for accomplishing his goals.

I fear that the terrorists will launch a sort of Tet Offensive which, even if it is a spectacular failure for them, will be inflated by our desperate MSM into a huge defeat for us. Be ready for LOTS of bad news in September, folks, even if al-AP and al-Reuters have to make it up.

Posted by patrick neid | August 22, 2007 7:33 AM

Wonderful news. BUT........

Never underestimate the repubs ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Time and time again they are unable to articulate the soundness of any idea/program while the dems with the help of the major newspapers sell the emotional downside of said plans.

Who can forget the dire plights of the "welfare mothers" who were forced to get jobs etc. Today's version are the casualty counts on the Iraq war---a count that is miraculously low, especially by pre war estimates of ten's of thousands dead when headlines blared we were running the risk of a shortage of body bags.

Say what you will about the left they are much better at making silk purses out of sows ears. Just look at Hillary.

Posted by Cybrludite | August 22, 2007 7:37 AM

DocJim,

I believe that they already tried the Tet thing around the time those contractors were burned & hung on that bridge in Fallujah. Mookie Sadr and his boys started acting up at the same time. Our respose resulted in him hauling his ample butt to Iran. A process he repeated when we started the surge & Maliki pulled the rug out from under him by refusing to stand between us & him.

Posted by Scott Malensek | August 22, 2007 7:41 AM

"Everyone knows what they're thinking. If they get outmanuevered again, the Democrats will catch hell from the activist base of their party and likely wind up losing the House to the Republicans in 2008. They can't afford to work cooperatively with the people Pelosi and Reid have successfully demonized with their voters, or they will look like complete hypocrites. That's the wages of demagoguery, and payday's coming in September."

YEP

Democrats' Congress' approval rating is now at 18%-lower than any Congress since it started getting tracked in 1974.

Only 3% of Americans approval of the way the Democrats' Congress has been handling the Iraq War.

Fact is simple, Americans wanted a New Direction in 11/06, and in 1/07 the President changed Direction. Democrats have not. They continue to be focused on accepting defeat rather than seeking success, but the American people want success. Everyone wants out, but Americans and Republicans want out after success, and Democrats
1) don't care
2) aren't smart enough to figure a way to success
3) care more about polls and politics than the nation's interest.

Posted by Teresa | August 22, 2007 7:42 AM

Everyone seems to agree that the army can not maintain this surge much longer. What are we going to do then? Sure, throwing more troops into an area can calm things down, but we don't have an infinite number of troops to send. We can see Basra is falling back into chaos now that the Brits are leaving. I know the argument is that Iraq will fall into chaos once we leave, but how long can we stay? Really, how long is long enough? Do you support a draft to keep this debacle going?

All the military experts seem to agree that early spring is the latest that we can maintain this surge. What happens then? Do you really believe that Iraq's problems will be solved by then or are we merely staving off the inevitable bloodshed?

Posted by Razorbacker | August 22, 2007 7:56 AM

When I read that "Democrats want to focus on the lack of political reform as a reason to leave" I got really happy and excited. But then I reread the piece, and you may mean that Democrats aren't talking about them leaving the United States' Congress but talking about the US military leaving Iraq.

Oh. Never mind.

Posted by MarkJ | August 22, 2007 7:59 AM

docjim505,

I fear that the terrorists will launch a sort of Tet Offensive which, even if it is a spectacular failure for them, will be inflated by our desperate MSM into a huge defeat for us. Be ready for LOTS of bad news in September, folks, even if al-AP and al-Reuters have to make it up.

Well, let's see what happens. However, the jihadis face some daunting problems on this score. Namely, unlike in 1968, we are aggressively taking the fight to the enemy who, in turn, are a) getting whacked or captured on a daily basis and b) must now constantly seek new sanctuaries.

It's also kind of hard to mount a "Tet" when you're always looking over your shoulder, don't know who's going to rat you out, and know you could be administered a "Hellfire Enema" at any moment. Perhaps the biggest problem in mounting a Tet-style offensive is that AQI will have to come out in the open in droves. Needless to say, AQI collectively knows that if they do this, they'd better ensure their "Mutual of Mohammed" life insurance policies are paid up, because they'll be slaughtered.

We're not out of the woods by a long shot, but there's a world of difference between the situation we faced in Tet 1968 and today.

Posted by NoDonkey | August 22, 2007 8:04 AM

"I don't know what they're thinking," McNerney said to the Post about the leadership.

That's because the Democrat leadership doesn't think - they are being led by the nose by the nutroots, which consists of a bunch of worthless lunatics who couldn't run a garage sale, much less a legislative body.

If they Democrats were smart (and they are not), they would immediately ditch Pelosi and Reid and elect new leadership, ones that aren't beholden to the nutroots.

In September, the American people will see the dignified, competent Gen. Petraeus and contrast him with the broken, corrupt and incompetent "leadership" of the Clown Congress.

Reid and Pelosi have made a dog's breakfast out of their own jobs. They have no business telling the Commander in Chief how to do his.


Posted by bulbasaur | August 22, 2007 8:04 AM

It was charitable of you to refer to the democrat leaders catching hell from "the activist base of their party."

A lesser man might have inserted forensic psychiatric terminology in place of "activist base," but you Captain are a good Christian gentleman.

Posted by TomB | August 22, 2007 8:08 AM

Teresa,
The answer was AND is the Iraqi troops and security forces taking over. They had some successes in the past, but what is the real picture there is not clear. We also forget, that most of the infighting and mass murders is courtesy of Iran. Once Iran is out of the game things will fall in place in Iraq as well.
That is why I still think, that we should be using simple equation:
10 EFP in Iraq = 1 carefully aimed Cruise Missile send to Iran.

Posted by Jobe | August 22, 2007 8:10 AM

We should know by now that defeatists will always find a way to savage any success. Bush Derangement Syndrome has morphed into Iraq Derangement Syndrome. The Democratic Party (which left me in the 70s) has become a re-incarnation of another old American group, America First, or as this new version should be called, America Last.

Posted by vet66 | August 22, 2007 8:10 AM

When the locals begin referring to American soldiers as "al Ameriki" I suspect the tide of public opinion has turned significantly in our favor.

We should wear the sobriquet of Al Ameriki proudly as our military does what it does best. Namely, ignore the traitors Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, et al, who have worked from the beginning to sabotage our efforts in the war on terror.

AL AMERIKI! A new line of apparel.

Posted by AW1 Tim | August 22, 2007 8:13 AM


Well, the activist base for the left is certainly not backing down on this issue, and fully intends to remind congress that they should be listened to.

ANSWER, Code Pink, Cindy Sheehan, and various "Peace & Justice" groups, including, but not limited to, Muslims, Illegal Immigrant right's groups, etc are planning a rally and march on September 15th to coincuide with the good General's reports.

Personally, I am very happy for this situation, as it will provide plenty of evidence yet again for what kind of base the Democrats are building on. The Anarchists, the puppeteers, the mimes for peace, etc, will all be there. The last time, in march, they left piles of litter, discarded signs, leaflets, water bottles, food wrappers, etc not only in their assembly area, but along their route of march. A sort of "parting gift" for the taxpayers to clean-up.

Well, the Veterans of this nation are planning to also be there to answer these leftists, once agin lining their parade route and answering their shrill convulsive epithets with facts and a firm opposition to their plans.

A Gathering of Eagles will be in force on 15 September to remind the protesters that the sort of defeatist propaganda that led to the destruction of Sotuh East Asia and millions of deaths, coupled with the slanderous lies and portrayals of our veterans will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

These protesters have, in the past, vandalized our war memorials for their own political gain. they threatened to repeat those same cowardly acts in march, but were defeated by large gatherings of veterans protecting those monuments. Now, the leftists are again suggesting defacing our memorials, and so once more the veterans will rally to defend that which should be above the political fray.

It will be interesting to see how far the left is marginalised on the 15th, especially when so many news organisations will be reporting from there. they will not be able to ignore the veterans and their support groups as they did in march, and the world will have a pretty good idea of who stands for what.

The Democrats will be forced by this action to make some interesting choices. Choices which may well come back to haunt them in the coming election.

Respects,

Posted by NoDonkey | August 22, 2007 8:34 AM

AW1 Tim - Good to see that DC has finally fined ANSWER over $9,000 for vandalizing public property with their stupid posters (most of which that are immediately torn down - I'm proud to have saved taxpayer dollars, by tearing down a few myself).

Even the Democrats in DC are sick of these idiotic people and their incessant marches. They're sick of ANSWER's rich white college students littering the streets with their signs, their trash and their needles and crack pipes. They're sick of paying DC cops millions in overtime to protect these clowns during their clown parade, especially when ANSWER routinely assault the police.

ANSWER dredges up the sewage of society and puts them on parade.

Posted by Teresa | August 22, 2007 8:41 AM

Tom -- I'd highly recommend the NY Times editorial on Sunday written by seven non-coms in Iraq:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html?em&ex=1187928000&en=40612da90ba4337c&ei=5087%0A

Their editorial seems to have been largely ignored by the right blogosphere, but they talk about how infiltrated the Iraqi army is by militias -- including how that infiltration is directly leading to the deaths of US service men.

I'd love to hear the Captain's take on their piece. It is interesting how Pollack and O'Hanlon's editorial was siezed on by the Right, but a piece by enlisted men is ignored.

Posted by Bithead | August 22, 2007 8:44 AM

September? Personally, I'd rather see a payday for all of this, November next, wouldn't you?

Posted by Cowgirl | August 22, 2007 8:51 AM

Are the Democrats really as clueless about the significance of the Iraq portion of the GWOT? Or are they just self-absorbed traitors? I'm having a bit of trouble sorting it out.

This morning I posted on Cowgirl about the difference in PR approach between FDR during WWII and GWB since 2001 in the GWOT.

Posted by filistro | August 22, 2007 8:58 AM

Holy Cow (as Mitt Romney would say) but those Dems are clever!

Theyr'e going to make it look like they've been overridden and reluctantly forced to agree to an extension of the "surge". This will mean that into '08 they get to run against Republicans in local races while local kids are still dying every day in Iraq, Basra is on fire, suicide bombs are going off from Kirkuk to Najaf, the US is spending $2 billion a week and the Iraqi government is in ruins.

Now, let's think really hard for a minute. Which party is most likely to benefit from this situation?

I'm sure the plotters like Carville and Begala can hardly believe they're being handed such a gift. But I have no doubt they'll happily accept it.

Posted by NoDonkey | August 22, 2007 9:03 AM

Teresa,

So what? A few enlisted guys think the war is unwillable. Frankly, what they think is completely irrelevant. Even if it's published in the NY Times (think they'd publish an article by guys who think we can win? - and BTW - here they are http://patdollard.com/). And they know it better than anyone else.

Every difficult war we've ever won, you could have put together scores of enlisted guys who could write articles on why we shouldn't be fighting and why we can't win.

WWII? The Civil War? The Revolutionary War? All looked unwinnable. All had a great many reasons to look unwinnable.

But we won. And we will win in Iraq.

Posted by richard mcenroe | August 22, 2007 9:03 AM

"When the Iraqi government gets its act together (as it inevitably must if it hopes to survive), what will be the next goalpost for the Benedict Arnolds to claim we CAN'T meet?"

Hell, when Bremer was still in charge of the reconstruction effort, State was actually issuing contracts to the Iraqis with mandatory female and minority hiring quotas...

It will be interesting to see if the "blue dog" Democrats, already reviled by the party's 'base', will realize that their only hope of political survival lies in becoming "red, white and blue dogs' who can see beyond their party's needs for committeee chairmanships to their country's need victory in Iraq,,,

Posted by TomB | August 22, 2007 9:20 AM

Teresa,
I wouldn't trust NYT too much, since, first, they quite often don't have a clue and second, they've been involved in spreading the black propaganda before (or even creating some). But yes, infiltration over there may be some problem.

Posted by gaffo | August 22, 2007 9:22 AM

you bubble boys sure live in a fantasyland.

there is no military solution - it is irrelivant if the surge works because the Iraqis have failed to solve the political problems and the surge is NOT sustainable.

Dems getting no-where? fine. We'll be here this time next year and I can ASSURE you that Iraqnam will not be any better then than now and the surge will be exausted and the Republicans will be in the HOT seat!!

mark my words - August 2008 Republicans will be backed into a corner and find no relief from the American People - who will be past fedup with the quagmire Bush created and his lemings promoted.

Posted by richard mcenroe | August 22, 2007 9:26 AM

gaffo -- see you in September 08. When your base rests on the fringe, you're ready to topple...

Posted by Charles | August 22, 2007 9:30 AM

Teresa,

Don't worry. The current strategy of the US in Iraq is to arm the Sunni former insurgents and the Shiite militias through the heavily-infiltrated Iraqi Army and police, so that they can eliminate the local opposition, turning Iraq into a batch of heavily-armed conclaves, each dominated by one faction or another.

This will largely eliminate the ethnic cleansing by speeding it up -- anybody with the ability has by now realized they cannot safely live in a region not dominated by their own sect and has either been killed or moved.

Once they've eliminated the native opposition, they'll turn their weapons on their neighboring conclaves as each side tries to consolidate their control, but the US military can suppress those battles by the liberal use of air strikes.

The result will be a region of simmering resentment, with the rise of local warlords and regions of defacto sharia rule.

Yes, Teresa, the end result of the intervention, which was undertaken at the expense of putting the effort into making Afghanistan into something resembling a functional state, will be to turn Iraq into a copy of Afghanistan.

Posted by gaffo | August 22, 2007 9:32 AM

they pulled a "tet offensive" only LAST WEEK!! 400 or so died when several fuel tanker trucks blew apart hundreds of Iraqis (in Mosel?).

only you bubble boys seemed to miss this carnage (willfully?). i know the Captain here didn't see it worthy of posting as a topic.

no doubt it is all an MSM consiracy - not its all Klintoons fault right?

lol - time to burst your willfull bubbles people.

Posted by AW1 Tim | August 22, 2007 9:37 AM

Heh,

Here they come boys! Must have struck a nerve.....

Lookit here: The only "quagmire" that US Forces are involved in is over in Kosovo & the rest of the Balkans. That whole situation is exactly what you get when you form a coalition between the Democrats and the UN. Iraq has written a constitution, formed a government, had several elections, is bringing it's armed forces slwoly but steadily up to snuff, and is rebuilding and getting on with being a modern nation. What has happened in Kosovo? Nothing. Nada. Zip. It's been a quagmire all right, a bottomless money pit that sucks in treasure and spews out..... nothing. No elections, no constitution, no whatever. Just UN fat cats getting fatter and the US Military being stuck in a 3rd world nation doing the work Europeans refuse or are incapable of doing.

Those who chastise the slowness of progress in Iraq are blind to the many years of blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention treasure, that it took Americans to form a government, write a constitution, and create a new nation out of whole cloth.

America suffered more casualties in our revolution than we have in Iraq. It took us far longer to write a constitution and get it ratified than Iraq has taken, and we ended up with several serious conflicts BEFORE a four-year devastating civil war that nearly tore us apart.

You want to talk about sectional strife? How about 650,000 dead Americans in 4 years of civil war?

No, Iraq might not be progressing as fast as some folks want, but if they would take off their political blinders for a dew minutes, they might realise the many great things that HAVE happened in that new nation. Things that will, if properly nurtured and supported, yield a new land of promise and opportunity in the Middle East.

This isn't a quagmire, and it isn't Vietnam, no matter how many leftists want it to be. never forget that Vietnam was lost by our own Democrats in Congress, not by our military, and certainly not by the South Vietnamese.

Respects,

Posted by Teresa | August 22, 2007 9:45 AM

Tom -- You say not to trust the NY Times, but the basis for this discussion is an article in the Washington Post -- another so-called liberal rag. I actually think those enlisted guys had some good points to make and were not aiding either side. Iraq is a complicated situation and it appears clear that infiltration of the Iraqi military and police is a huge problem. As is Maliki's government.

And no one seems to be willing to answer the question of what we do when we run out of troops next spring. Pull some of of Korea? Daft? What? Because nothing I have seen convinces me that the situation in Iraq will have improved to such an extent in March that a pull-out won't lead to chaos. And if you think that will bode well for Republicans in the next election, well....

Posted by filistro | August 22, 2007 9:47 AM

America... your tax dollars at work!


Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, August 22, via the New York Sun:

"No one has the right to place timetables on the Iraq government. It was elected by its people," he said at a news conference in Damascus at the end of a three-day visit to Syria. "Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria. We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our constitution and we can find friends elsewhere," Mr. al-Maliki said.

(Emphasis mine)

Posted by Charles D. Quarles | August 22, 2007 9:51 AM

AW1 Tim,

Amen brother.

To the extent that Iraq is Vietnam, it is because the same group of copperhead, know-nothing Democrat politicians and micromanaging mandarins want to repeat their failures from that era.

Posted by docjim505 | August 22, 2007 9:58 AM

MarkJ,

Oh, I don't think we'll see hordes of terrorists fighting pitches battles in the streets of Baghdad or Tikrit... but, then again, the terrorists don't need to do anything like that. A "surge" in the number of car bombs, a suicide attack on a US base, a truck bombing of an Iraqi police station... Any of these would be siezed upon by the MSM and their filthy democrat masters as "conclusive evidence" of failure.

Let's remember that the VC and NVA were slaughered in droves during Tet, but the fact that they showed up in such strength after that idiot Westemoreland declared "light at the end of the tunnel" was enough for the antiwar people to turn the communist defeat into a resounding victory.

On another note, I read the NYT op-ed written by the junior enlisted men from the 82nd Airborne that Teresa posted (thank you for posting the link). It certainly presents a bleak picture of the situation in Iraq. Several things stand out:

OP-ED: The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

Yes, it's quite a mess. But has it improved in the past several months? Despite that fact that much more needs to be done, the answer appears to be that it has.

And who else should train and arm the Iraqi security forces? If we don't, who will? Iran?

OP-ED: However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

It is certainly a legitimate fear that the Sunnis and the Shiites will start slaughtering each other when we leave. Kind of a good argument for staying until we're confident that they WON'T do that, no?

OP-ED: In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear... While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

Juxtapose this paragraph with one that follows near the end of the article:

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

So, which is it? Go in with guns a-blazin' blasting anything that looks hostile with "overwhelming force"... or let the Iraqis - who are criticized as weak allies at best and terrorist sympathizers at worst - take "center stage"? How do you win hearts and minds with excessive firepower? And won't the Iraqis "resolve their differences as they see fit" through massive bloodshed as the authors assert earlier in the article?

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

A sensible statement, in my view.

I don't discount this op-ed despite its appearance in the NYT (after Jesse M-m-m-cBeth and Scott Beauchamp, I'm a little suspicious when "ordinary soldiers" criticize the war in the MSM). I would, however, like to see to what extent these views are shared by other GI's and Marines in Iraq. It would also be interesting to compare these views with those of soldiers in, oh, 1864 or 1944.

Posted by NoDonkey | August 22, 2007 9:59 AM

filistro,

Hey, at least they're working somewhere.

Rather than my absolutely worthless public school system (run by Democrats, thank you), where my tax dollars are apparently in a hot mud bath with cucumbers on their eyes.

$10,000 per year for 12 years is just not enough to teach the little darlings there to read. Send more. We have Democrats out there who need make-work jobs and lifetime pensions for doing nothing all day.

Or how about crime control in my city? Since the Iraq War began, we've seen 40,000 people murdered in our inner cities, and who exactly are our elected officials in our inner cities? That's correct, absolutely worthless Democrats.

So my tax dollars must be sunning themselves in downtown DC. My tax dollars at leisure.

Looking forward to the day when Democrats take over our health care system. Then, they can just recycle the execuses they use for our lousy public schools and for the shooting galleries in the inner city - "Funding too low", "the dog ate my homework", "ain't my job", "you'll wait 400 days for your urgent surgery and like it".

Posted by gaffo | August 22, 2007 10:03 AM

"America suffered more casualties in our revolution than we have in Iraq. It took us far longer to write a constitution and get it ratified than Iraq has taken"

read a history book!!
The Redcoats DID NOT COME TO THE COLONIES TO LIBERATE THE COLONIALISTS! Redcoats did not write our Constitution for us, nor remain occuping the former colonies in order to "liberate" us.

We kicked their arse off North America and earned out Liberty!

you got your sides flipped.

Iraqis have yet to earn thiers - when they kick the occupiers off their land is when they shall earn their Liberty. Liberty is never "given" from without - esp. by gunpoint from a Nation on the otherside of the Planet!

Posted by NoDonkey | August 22, 2007 10:06 AM

filistro,

Hey, at least they're working somewhere.

Rather than my absolutely worthless public school system (run by Democrats, thank you), where my tax dollars are apparently in a hot mud bath with cucumbers on their eyes.

$10,000 per year for 12 years is just not enough to teach the little darlings there to read. Send more. We have Democrats out there who need make-work jobs and lifetime pensions for doing nothing all day.

Or how about crime control in my city? Since the Iraq War began, we've seen 40,000 people murdered in our inner cities, and who exactly are our elected officials in our inner cities? That's correct, absolutely worthless Democrats.

So my tax dollars must be sunning themselves in downtown DC. My tax dollars at leisure.

Looking forward to the day when Democrats take over our health care system. Then, they can just recycle the execuses they use for our lousy public schools and for the shooting galleries in the inner city - "Funding too low", "the dog ate my homework", "ain't my job", "you'll wait 400 days for your urgent surgery and like it".

Posted by docjim505 | August 22, 2007 10:21 AM

RE: filistro's August 22, 2007 9:47 AM:

Yeah, DAMN that al-Maliki! A senior American senator, a leader in the party that controls the Congress and may well control the White House (dear God!) in another couple of years, has called for Maliki's ouster. This same party almost daily calls for us to pull our troops out and cut funding, leaving Maliki and the Iraqis in the lurch (just like Vietnam, eh?). And Maliki has the sheer NERVE to talk back! He has the unmitigated gall to act like the leader of an independent country! What can he be thinking??? Doesn't he know that EVERYBODY is supposed to kowtow to Washington? Lick America's boots even while we're kicking them?

/sarcasm

Posted by David M | August 22, 2007 10:22 AM

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 08/22/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

Posted by gaffo | August 22, 2007 10:25 AM

"America suffered more casualties in our revolution than we have in Iraq. It took us far longer to write a constitution and get it ratified than Iraq has taken"

read a history book!!
The Redcoats DID NOT COME TO THE COLONIES TO LIBERATE THE COLONIALISTS! Redcoats did not write our Constitution for us, nor remain occuping the former colonies in order to "liberate" us.

We kicked their arse off North America and earned out Liberty!

you got your sides flipped.

Iraqis have yet to earn thiers - when they kick the occupiers off their land is when they shall earn their Liberty. Liberty is never "given" from without - esp. by gunpoint from a Nation on the otherside of the Planet!


BTW nice historical revisionism AM1 - news flash, after 10 yrs of blood and little to show for it the American PEOPLE decided to cut our losses in Nam - but you can go ahead and blaime demmie Congress or even Klintoon like so many here love to do. The rest of us will just roll our eyes and chuckle.

Charles - good luck in promoting the virtues of the Vietnam war, I suspect that will be about as popular as singing the song of the South shall rise again song and go over like a Lead Balloon for the VAST majority of Americans.

The "left" (whatever that is) was against the folly of Iraqnam BEFORE we invaded illegally - see unlike some here, they did learn from history and understood that starting another Vietnam would be sear foolishness on an infinate scale.

Posted by ERNurse | August 22, 2007 10:26 AM

Hell, Cap'n. Democrat asshats have a long-standing tradition of miscalculating wars and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory ever since the Korean conflict. (See? Democrats are so chikensh*t they can't even summon the courage to call a war a war.)

Democrats! Here is your ass. There is a hole in the ground. Study.

Posted by TomB | August 22, 2007 10:32 AM

Teresa,
I am not trying to suggest, that everything is hanky-dory in Iraq. The main problem, being smaller part of their own society hating the bigger part to the extend, that they are willing to ally with ANYBODY to oppose the majority (a little bit like over here, minus the killings). But IMHO if Iran stopped to meddle, the Iraqis would quickly calm down and started to think about the future.

Posted by NoDonkey | August 22, 2007 10:37 AM

Gummo,

"they did learn from history and understood that starting another Vietnam would be sear (sic) foolishness on an infinate (sic) scale."

If there's anything you leftards know, it's foolishness.

So why did the same leftards whine after the Gulf War "but we left Saddam in place", in proclaiming why we lost that war?

Well, he's not "in place" anymore (in a hot place maybe).

The "No Fly" nonsense and what remained of the "oil for bribes" sham was about to collapse.

The President did the responsible thing. The disloyal opposition Democrats did what they always do, which is the irresponsible thing.

Now, with the Democrats having factored in a big loss into their electoral strategy, you want us to cut and run so you can leverage that into putting more absolutely worthless Democrats into office.

Not going to happen.

Posted by filistro | August 22, 2007 10:38 AM

doc...

Yesterday at Montebello Quebec, George Bush said essentially the same thing about/to Nouri al Maliki as Carl Levin did. In essence, "Shape up or (hopefully) your people will force you to ship out."

Not much mention of this in the American press, but pretty big news in Canada.

Posted by AW1 Tim | August 22, 2007 10:48 AM

Gaffo,

Nice strawman arguments you have going there. I do read books. I actually comprehend what's written in them, and pretty much use that to form the bsis for my opinions.

Hmmm... you said:

"Iraqis have yet to earn thiers - when they kick the occupiers off their land is when they shall earn their Liberty. Liberty is never "given" from without - esp. by gunpoint from a Nation on the otherside of the Planet!"

Well, it seems to me that we have helped the Iraqies throw off the yoke of despotic tyranny that held them down for so long. Americans as occupiers? Terrorists as freedom fighters? What's up with that? You go to a public school or something?

By your line of reasoning, we ought o have stayed the hell away from Europe in 1941. After all, the German people certainly didn't want us to knock off their government and stick around helping them redevelop their country for decades, eh? How's about Japan? Shou;d we have simply shrugged off Pearl Harbour and apologise to the Nipponese Diet for offending their sense of imperial might by stationing our fleet in international waters?

And Vietnam... talk about someone needing to read a book! You take the prize, my find! You must be one of Ward Churchill's students, right? C'mon now... you can admit it!

America beat the living snot out of the Communists time and time again, and set up South Vietnam in a position to defend itself easily without anything more than American material support until they could get their own factories up and running to supply thie logistical needs.

However, your buddies the Democrats were so full of Nixon Derangement Syndrom, that they cut off all funding to South Vietnam. It wasn't the American people who voted to get out, despite what the winter soldiers and their ivory-tower enablers claim. A Democrat-controlled congress cut off all aid to South Vietnam and set off the greatest genocide since the holocaust. All because they could. All because they so loathed Richard Nixon for winning what they percieved as an unwinnable war.

That's the truth, partner. That's what reading books and living through those times will provide you: facts. Facts and experiences. The sort of experiences and life-lessons that show clearly what the current crop of Democrats and leftists and psychopath Che Guevera worshippers have planned for anyone they don't care for, especially the Iraqi people.

Read a book? Yeah, I have. Perhaps you might want to take a break and visit a proctologist. Maybe he can locate your head.

Respects,

Posted by swabjockey05 | August 22, 2007 11:02 AM

AW1: LOL!

Posted by gaffo | August 22, 2007 11:08 AM

"So why did the same leftards whine after the Gulf War "but we left Saddam in place", in proclaiming why we lost that war?"


re-writing histroy again I see.

clue: the Right was against not going into Baghdad, the left had no problem with not going in. You sure know your history Bubba.


Bush Sr had the wisdom of deciding to not go in. His retarded Son however lacked such wisdom.

And yes of course we'd be better off now if we had never illegally invaded Iraq and allowed Saddam to rule Iraq. All with any ounce of common sense know this simple truth by now.

Posted by apetrelli | August 22, 2007 11:24 AM

Democrat criticism of the Iraq government's lack of cohesion and failed reconciliation rings hollow.

We are at war, just as the Iraqis are, and yet Democrats won't rally with their President.

Posted by Mwalimu Daudi | August 22, 2007 11:50 AM

Gaffo wrote:

"And yes of course we'd be better off now if we had never illegally invaded Iraq and allowed Saddam to rule Iraq. All with any ounce of common sense know this simple truth by now."

You mean anyone with an ounce of Kool-Aid in then would believe that, don't you? Here is the Far Left in a nutshell - ignorant of history, longing for genocidal thugs to be returned to power, and wild, irrational personal smears.

Gaffo hits bottom, starts blasting and digging.

Posted by docjim505 | August 22, 2007 11:56 AM

filistro,

This is from the al-AP's Ben Feller today (NOTE: I take no responsibility for possible ommissions, distortions or outright falsifications on the part of al-AP):

"Prime Minister Maliki's a good guy, good man with a difficult job and I support him," Bush said in a speech to military veterans.

"And it's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position," Bush said. "It is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy and not a dictatorship."

The president's comment was intended to dispel the impression he left on Tuesday that he was distancing himself from al-Maliki in advance of a new assessment of the war and political conditions in Iraq. (1)

It may be that the Iraqi people will eject al-Maliki in their next elections (something they were not allowed to do when Saddam was running the show). I made this point in an oblique manner myself in my August 22, 2007 7:31 AM
post. But the sarcastic point I made to you stands: how DARE Maliki not lick American boots??? How dare he act like the elected leader of an allied nation and not a lickspittle puppet???

----------

(1) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070822/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

Posted by filistro | August 22, 2007 12:06 PM

doc, I fully agree that Not-Boot-Licking is indeed a desirable quality in a leader.

But... suggesting in a not-so-oblique fashion that if you continue to be dissed and pissed, you might just go ahead and get cosy with the sworn enemies of your ally... at the very moment, mind you, that your ally is expending blood and treasure on your own soil...

Good leadership? Well, actually, not so much.

(Are you really defending al-Maliki, or am I misunderstanding you?)

Posted by Lokki | August 22, 2007 12:12 PM

Liberty is never "given" from without - esp. by gunpoint from a Nation on the other side of the Planet!"

Funny, Lafayette and the French would have been surprised to learn that they did not help with the American Revolution.

Here's the truth about Iraq. Any insurgency can easily last 10 years; more if it is externally supported (as Iran does). It will not be a short war. It was never promised to be a short war. However it is to our advantage as a nation to be there and it is not to our advantage to consider leaving.

What the Iraq war has done is to shift the focus of the fundamental Islamists away from attacking the West to internal fighting amongst themselves. Ultimately, that is to our (America's) advantage.

This internal fighting is the only way that the problem will ultimately be resolved. The battle against fundamental Islam must be fought and won in the Middle East, by the Middle Easterners. Our actions have triggered that process.

The Saudi's and Egyptians can no longer ignore the fundamentalists and assume that they will blow off their steam externally by blowing things up in the west. These countries cannot allow Iran (with its fundamentalists) to take over the region. Both countries are threatened by an Iran that is too strong. Although they may not do so publicly, they will support our efforts there.


By the way, the American Declaration of Independence was in 1776. George Washington didn't become President until 1789 - 13 years, if the math is too difficult for you.


Posted by dhunter | August 22, 2007 12:26 PM

"That's the wages of Demagoguery, and payday's coming in September". And payback is coming in November 2008. Now we have seen the real Dem party. The one they hid from the sheeple to get elected. Talk about do nothing congress Iraq is more successful than the dems Congress by any stretch of the imagination.

Posted by filistro | August 22, 2007 12:27 PM

I'm so amused by these folks who counsel endless patience in Iraq, and piously compare that situation with America's early struggles for independence.

It's like saying that the itching and mild infection you bravely endured with your latest tattoo is pretty much the same thing as your father's triumphant victory over lung cancer.

Posted by gaffo | August 22, 2007 12:38 PM

"So why did the same leftards whine after the Gulf War "but we left Saddam in place", in proclaiming why we lost that war?"


re-writing histroy again I see.

clue: the Right was against not going into Baghdad, the left had no problem with not going in. You sure know your history Bubba.


Bush Sr had the wisdom of deciding to not go in. His retarded Son however lacked such wisdom.

And yes of course we'd be better off now if we had never illegally invaded Iraq and allowed Saddam to rule Iraq. All with any ounce of common sense know this simple truth by now.


BTW about Japan/Germany - please enlighten us as to when Iraq attacked the US?

They did illegally invade Kuwait - for which we legally kicked their arses back to their legal borders.

So talk all the inane blathering about WW2/Japan and Germany. Comparing ww2 to Iragnam only makes you look silly.

When Iraq invades Jordan and Saudi Arabia and then threaten the United States proper - then you can make your ww2 comparisons.

Oh ya, you right its all Klintoon's fault that we "lost" nam. We had it in the bag before he caused all the problems in the world.

Posted by The Yell | August 22, 2007 1:03 PM

"The "left" (whatever that is)"

No surprise you can't recognize anything to the Left of you. From the South Pole everything is north.

"All with any ounce of common sense know this simple truth by now."

That's why your majority leadership can't crack 20% approval?

I will await your explanation of the imminent Democrat vote to continue this unwinnable, unwanted, insane war.

Posted by NoDonkey | August 22, 2007 1:13 PM

"clue: the Right was against not going into Baghdad, the left had no problem with not going in. You sure know your history Bubba."

Do you know who the Sect. of Defense was who counselled Pres. Bush not to go into Baghdad? Hint: He's the current VP.

The left didn't want to go into Baghdad, true. It was just a taunt they could use against us Gulf War Vets.

The left also was against any attempt to enforce the cease fire that ended the war. Remember "sanctions are starving the Iraqi people"?

"illegally invaded Iraq"

Illegal according to whom? Not by our Constitution. Just because some dictator-chambermaid institution claims it's illegal, so what? They have no juristiction over the American people.

After Saddam repeatedly violated the terms of the cease fire (remember, the first Gulf War never officially ended), President Bush went to the Democrat Congress and was able to get them to vote to approve actions against Iraq.

"allowed Saddam to rule Iraq."

So we get to the real nugget. How surprising, a lefty supporting a rape room, murdering thug tyrant, just like his Che, Stalin, Maoist heroes.

I just can't figure out why we don't let you and the political leaders you favor, rule our country, gaffo.


Posted by The Yell | August 22, 2007 1:25 PM

"The "left" (whatever that is)"

No surprise you can't recognize anything to the Left of you. From the South Pole everything is north.

"All with any ounce of common sense know this simple truth by now."

That's why your majority leadership can't crack 20% approval?

I will await your explanation of the imminent Democrat vote to continue this unwinnable, unwanted, insane war.

Posted by docjim505 | August 22, 2007 1:29 PM

filistro,

I recall reading that, during the Cold War, one of the problems we had with "unaligned" nations was that we treated them in a high-handed manner (you know: kind of like a cowboy?). The American attitude was often, "You'll play ball with us, boy, and like it." This didn't win us a lot of friends.

The libs seem bent on trying the same thing with al-Maliki and the Iraqis: "You OWE us, boy. Get me. YOU OWE US. And so you'll do what we say, when we say to do it, got it? When we say 'jump', you'll ask 'how high?' If you don't... Well, maybe we'll just find somebody else who will. Get it, boy?"

During the Cold War, our attitude tended to push non-aligned nations into the Soviet sphere. Is it any surprise that al-Maliki, fearful of being sold out by Washington, might look around for somebody else to cut a deal?

To my mind, there is massive illogic in the liberal position regarding al-Maliki and his government. On the one hand, they constantly wail that it's IMPOSSIBLE to make a nation out of the various ethnic and religious groups in Iraq, most of which have been making war on each other for centuries; we might as well give up now. On the other hand, they expect al-Maliki to bring these very same groups into a stable, western-style government according to a rapid and arbitrary timetable.

So, which is it? Is forming an effective government in a peaceful Iraq an impossible task that neither al-Maliki nor anybody else can possibly accomplish, or something that any competent prime minister would have accomplished last Tuesday before lunch? You can't have it both ways.

I would also like to point out (as others have done) that we are hardly in a position to throw stones at the Iraqis for having a divided and fractious government.

Posted by Michael McCullough | August 22, 2007 1:35 PM

WWII? The Civil War? The Revolutionary War? All looked unwinnable. All had a great many reasons to look unwinnable.

The Civil War? Hey, some of us on this thread did manage to lose that one! Besides, the war's name was a misnomer. Civil wars imply one group attempting to take over the entire government. The south didn't want to take over the United States but rather wanted to secede and form their own country. The Kurdish situation is more akin to what our "Civil War" was.

Good to see the Dems floundering. I figure that they'll take one of two options, or perhaps take them both: (1) Petraeus's September report ignored the real situation and was really written by Karl Rove, er, Dick Cheney; (2) Change the goalposts, which they appear to be already doing.

Posted by The Fop | August 22, 2007 1:37 PM

Lokki,

You're right on the money. I've been saying this all along. The Arab people need to be put in a position where they are not acting as innocent bystanders while Americans, Israelis, Europeans, and Australians are being blown up by terrorists. No, I'm not celebrating the fact that innocent Iraqis are being killed by terrorists. However, Islamic extremism should be dealt with by Muslims. We got rid of a hated, brutal dictator. The Iraqi people are glad he's gone. Now they must fight for something better or they'll end up with something even worse. We didn't hand the Iraqis freedom, just the opportunity to acheive freedom. They still have to fight for it, and they have to fight the nutcases from within their own culture. Of course the Bush administration could never come out and say this, but informed, intelligent people should be able to figure it out.

Posted by gaffo | August 22, 2007 1:43 PM

Donkey says:


"Do you know who the Sect. of Defense was who counselled Pres. Bush not to go into Baghdad? Hint: He's the current VP."


Sr was smart enough to be his own man. I counseled himself and told Cheney what to say in pulbic. Cheney was SR's subordinate. Besides Sr had two wiser men to rely upon - Schocroft and Eagleburger


"The left didn't want to go into Baghdad, true. It was just a taunt they could use against us Gulf War Vets.

The left also was against any attempt to enforce the cease fire that ended the war. Remember "sanctions are starving the Iraqi people"? "


this is true

"
"illegally invaded Iraq"

Illegal according to whom? "


United States Constitution of course! - what else is the Law of the Land?

Violation of Article 6 Paragraph 2 is treason in my book. Even/esp. when the President does it.


"Not by our Constitution."


- then try reading it.

"Just because some dictator-chambermaid institution claims it's illegal, so what? They have no juristiction over the American people. "

What "institution" are you rfering to? Is the United States a signatory to this "institution"? If it is your claim above is false. Oliver Wendel Holmes would tell you himself - in fact he has "Holland vs Missouri"

"After Saddam repeatedly violated the terms of the cease fire (remember, the first Gulf War never officially ended), President Bush went to the Democrat Congress and was able to get them to vote to approve actions against Iraq. "


The cease fire was a UN mandate - yes?

US Congress has no legal standing to demand that any UN resolutions be upheld. Only the UN Security council has such standing. Congressional authorization to use force was/is wholey unconstitutional and without any legal merit.

I await the SC ruling upon the possible punishment to Iraq on the matter of their violations of res. 1441/res. 678. Until then the "war" in Iraqnam remains an abomination of illegality.

More Americans need to read our Constituton and start demanding their leaders to be bound by the Rule of Law.


"
"allowed Saddam to rule Iraq."

So we get to the real nugget."


Yep - that ugly pregmatism/reality rearing its head again. Dammit why can't I just keep dreaming of rainbows and puppydogs like a good Neocon?

"How surprising, a lefty supporting a rape room, murdering thug tyrant, just like his Che, Stalin, Maoist heroes. "


yep. damn reality!

I want to play Ostich too!!! can I play huh huh? PPLLLEASEEEEEEEE!!

"I just can't figure out why we don't let you and the political leaders you favor, rule our country, gaffo."


I can - you are too scare to see pragmatism and brainwashed with the koolaid of gunboat neoconjobism and all that namby pamby transform the middle east non-sense. All to end in more death and more failure - and policy built upon fantasy and quicksand.

Hopelfully most americans now see it as unrealistic and will re-embrace reality.

policies like Containment, Balence of Power, Multilateralism - you know all that Old School boring pragmatic policy you neocons have so much distain for.

Posted by gaffo | August 22, 2007 1:58 PM

Donkey says:


"Do you know who the Sect. of Defense was who counselled Pres. Bush not to go into Baghdad? Hint: He's the current VP."


Sr was smart enough to be his own man. I counseled himself and told Cheney what to say in pulbic. Cheney was SR's subordinate. Besides Sr had two wiser men to rely upon - Schocroft and Eagleburger


"The left didn't want to go into Baghdad, true. It was just a taunt they could use against us Gulf War Vets.

The left also was against any attempt to enforce the cease fire that ended the war. Remember "sanctions are starving the Iraqi people"? "


this is true

"
"illegally invaded Iraq"

Illegal according to whom? "


United States Constitution of course! - what else is the Law of the Land?

Violation of Article 6 Paragraph 2 is treason in my book. Even/esp. when the President does it.


"Not by our Constitution."


- then try reading it.

"Just because some dictator-chambermaid institution claims it's illegal, so what? They have no juristiction over the American people. "

What "institution" are you rfering to? Is the United States a signatory to this "institution"? If it is your claim above is false. Oliver Wendel Holmes would tell you himself - in fact he has "Holland vs Missouri"

"After Saddam repeatedly violated the terms of the cease fire (remember, the first Gulf War never officially ended), President Bush went to the Democrat Congress and was able to get them to vote to approve actions against Iraq. "


The cease fire was a UN mandate - yes?

US Congress has no legal standing to demand that any UN resolutions be upheld. Only the UN Security council has such standing. Congressional authorization to use force was/is wholey unconstitutional and without any legal merit.

I await the SC ruling upon the possible punishment to Iraq on the matter of their violations of res. 1441/res. 678. Until then the "war" in Iraqnam remains an abomination of illegality.

More Americans need to read our Constituton and start demanding their leaders to be bound by the Rule of Law.


"
"allowed Saddam to rule Iraq."

So we get to the real nugget."


Yep - that ugly pregmatism/reality rearing its head again. Dammit why can't I just keep dreaming of rainbows and puppydogs like a good Neocon?

"How surprising, a lefty supporting a rape room, murdering thug tyrant, just like his Che, Stalin, Maoist heroes. "


yep. damn reality!

I want to play Ostich too!!! can I play huh huh? PPLLLEASEEEEEEEE!!

"I just can't figure out why we don't let you and the political leaders you favor, rule our country, gaffo."


I can - you are too scare to see pragmatism and brainwashed with the koolaid of gunboat neoconjobism and all that namby pamby transform the middle east non-sense. All to end in more death and more failure - and policy built upon fantasy and quicksand.

Hopelfully most americans now see it as unrealistic and will re-embrace reality.

policies like Containment, Balence of Power, Multilateralism - you know all that Old School boring pragmatic policy you neocons have so much distain for.

Posted by filistro | August 22, 2007 2:06 PM

doc,

I always enjoy your circumlocution, because you're such a gifted writer that it's fun to watch you tap-dance no matter how much it drives me crazy. (Have you considered applying for Tony Snow's job?) But I gotta warn you... if you keep torturing that logic so cruelly, you're going to have a bunch of indignant, unwashed, hairy lefties picketing your computer. (They're opposed to torture, you know ;-)

So, dialectic tap-dancing aside, here's the deal:

1.)The purpose of this costly, men-and-money intensive "surge" is to provide a secure breathing space for the Iraqi govt to achieve progress on benchmarks leading to national reconcilitaion.

2.)No benchmarks have been reached and none seem likely to be.

3.) When pressed on this lack of progress, the Iraqi leader huffily suggests if this is how he's going to be treated, he might as well pay a few more visits to Damascus.

It's all quite simple... and simply indefensible.

Posted by Del Dolemonte | August 22, 2007 2:28 PM

gabbo says:

"clue: the Right was against not going into Baghdad, the left had no problem with not going in. You sure know your history Bubba.


Bush Sr had the wisdom of deciding to not go in. His retarded Son however lacked such wisdom."

Actually, Pappy Bush had his hands tied. He couldn't go into Baghdad in 1991 even if he wanted to.

If you read your history books correctly, the Coalition he put together to eject Iraq from Kuwait included many countries from the Middle East like Qatar, etc. Many of those countries only joined the Coalition on the condition that we only do what we were supposed to do, and not continue into Baghdad. And that was the UN mandate also.

Posted by Lokki | August 22, 2007 2:29 PM

Flistro

I'm curious - could you explain your analogy please?

I'm so amused by these folks who counsel endless patience in Iraq, and piously compare that situation with America's early struggles for independence.

It's like saying that the itching and mild infection you bravely endured with your latest tattoo is pretty much the same thing as your father's triumphant victory over lung cancer.


Posted by NoDonkey | August 22, 2007 2:55 PM

Gaffo,

Your silly and ignorant view of Article VI is incorrect (as usual).

"[A]n Act of Congress... is on a full parity with a treaty, and that when a statute which is subsequent in time is inconsistent with a treaty, the statute to the extent of conflict renders the treaty null." Reid v. Covert 354 U.S. 1 (1957)

"By the constitution, a treaty is placed on the same footing, and made of like obligation, with an act of legislation... if the two are inconsistent, the one last in date will control the other" Whitney v. Robertson 124 U.S. 190 (1888)

"Containment"

Saddam wasn't "contained". The sanctions were about to collapse, he was shooting at our pilots, the "oil for bribes" program was going full bore and he was harboring terrorists. Only a dingbat like Albright would argue he was contained.

"Balence (sic) of Power" - with whom, exactly? ?

"Multilateralism" - see "oil for bribes, UN.

Posted by carol h | August 22, 2007 3:05 PM

My son is in the Army currently in month 13 of a 15 month deployment. He was supposed to be home August 1 but we all know what happened to that. He is currently serving in Ramadi and he tells me that it is much quieter and safer than it was when he arrived last August. He also says that it is quiet and safe where the Americans are, where the Americans aren't...well, not so much. He calls it a cat and mouse game, with US forces constantly moving around and the insurgents, too, always searching and moving. He says that last week a truck went just 100 yards out of the area where the US patrols and got hit. His unit works closely with the IA and IP and he says they know some of the them are insurgents, they just don't know which ones. In his opinion as soon as the US pulls out Ramadi will be chaos again. Of course, it is just the opinion of one enlisted man but what he says pretty much matches the NYT article. IMO, we can put a Humvee on every street corner in Baghdad and things will be calmer but we are no closer to any kind of stability.

Posted by Tom W. | August 22, 2007 3:26 PM

Al Maliki has given us the green light to destroy Syrian-supplied al Qaeda and Iranian-supplied Shi'ite militias. Those are his actions. His words are intended for regional consumption, to show that he isn't a puppet of the U.S.

I don't care what he says, as long as his actions demonstrate his commitment to victory against the terrorists.

As for the seven enlisted men who wrote the piece for the NYT: They advocate we sit back and let the Iraqis slaughter each other.

After we do that, how likely will the surviving Iraqis be to cooperate with us in the future?

Stupid advice, even if it came from serving soldiers.

Posted by Brett8210 | August 22, 2007 4:57 PM

Article VI paragraph 2 does nothing in making the Iraq war illegal. This is typical bull from this fool.

Under his rationale any action taken or not taken by the UN would therefore, necessitate US consent or abridge US action.

This is non-sence. No COURT has ever ruled this way. He is lieing and trying to give his "interpretation" (NO doubt his not an attorney or scholar of any sort) the force of law without foundation or precedent.

Posted by docjim505 | August 22, 2007 5:19 PM

filistro,

The surge has been in effect for less than a year. What the hell do you expect ANY government to do in that time? It took those morons in Congress how many weeks to get the Iraq supplemental passed, and they didn't have to worry about being shot at or blown up every day.

Now the Cap'n posts a news article - which I hope is true - that the "incompetent" al-Maliki might have persuaded one of the largest terrorist groups to, if not surrender, then at least to start working with the government. This could be very good news indeed. It might even qualify as a "benchmark".

But let me reiterate my point: the libs can't have it both ways. They can't claim that Iraq is a hopeless, unwinnable quagmire and at the same time criticize al-Maliki because he hasn't done enough to change that.

I note that you sneer at people who make comparisons to the founding of our own country. It must be a very inconvenient fact for the left that America took from 1776 to 1787 to form a stable national government. The Iraqis have had less than half that amount of time AND they're still dealing with a serious terrorist problem AND their government really has no idea if (or when) America will cut 'n' run, leaving them to die in the resulting chaos.

Now that I think about it, what exactly ARE the benchmarks that the Iraqis allegedly aren't meeting?

Posted by Michael D. | August 22, 2007 5:26 PM

This article is a fool's dream. The game of whack-a-mole is simply to complex for the right wing to understand.

There is an endless supply of the enemy among the hundreds of millions of Islamists and Poor Baby Bush has a very short leash on his infamous and ignorant stolen reign. So just wait gang. You have it coming. The destruction of the Republican party for many long years. LOL!!!!!

Posted by filistro | August 22, 2007 5:44 PM

Lokki... could you explain your analogy please?

No.

doc... what exactly ARE the benchmarks that the Iraqis allegedly aren't meeting?

Look it up. There are four (4) of them.

Posted by gaffo | August 22, 2007 5:49 PM

"gabbo says:

"clue: the Right was against not going into Baghdad, the left had no problem with not going in. You sure know your history Bubba.


Bush Sr had the wisdom of deciding to not go in. His retarded Son however lacked such wisdom."

Actually, Pappy Bush had his hands tied. He couldn't go into Baghdad in 1991 even if he wanted to.

If you read your history books correctly, the Coalition he put together to eject Iraq from Kuwait included many countries from the Middle East like Qatar, etc. Many of those countries only joined the Coalition on the condition that we only do what we were supposed to do, and not continue into Baghdad. And that was the UN mandate also."

Yep - obviously we all know these facts!!! Sr of course did it the right way - legally and to completion.

Thanks for making my point for me Delmonte.

Posted by gaffo | August 22, 2007 6:01 PM

"gabbo says:

"clue: the Right was against not going into Baghdad, the left had no problem with not going in. You sure know your history Bubba.


Bush Sr had the wisdom of deciding to not go in. His retarded Son however lacked such wisdom."

Actually, Pappy Bush had his hands tied. He couldn't go into Baghdad in 1991 even if he wanted to.

If you read your history books correctly, the Coalition he put together to eject Iraq from Kuwait included many countries from the Middle East like Qatar, etc. Many of those countries only joined the Coalition on the condition that we only do what we were supposed to do, and not continue into Baghdad. And that was the UN mandate also."

Yep - obviously we all know these facts!!! Sr of course did it the right way - legally and to completion.

Thanks for making my point for me Delmonte.


Saddam wasn't "contained". The sanctions were about to collapse, he was shooting at our pilots, the "oil for bribes" program was going full bore and he was harboring terrorists. Only a dingbat like Albright would argue he was contained.

"Balence (sic) of Power" - with whom, exactly? ?

"Multilateralism" - see "oil for bribes, UN.


Yep - note the Neocon's utter contempt for sound foreign policy. Policy that had kept the peace for over 60 yrs.

Contempt of Containment - and yes Saddam was contained enough to scrap his WMD program. - yet you only show contempt.

Contempt of Balance of Power - with whom? Iran you dolt! WTF have we been talking about all day!!?? - clue: Iraq! Yet all I see is utter contempt for such sound policy.

Contempt of Multilateralism - the policy that made the Gulf War legal and a success.

But Neocons are radicals of the Cult of Fantasyland of Puppydogs and baloons. They lost all connections to reality 5 years ago. Not only did 3000 Americans die on the 11th of September 2001 - millions of Americans hindbrains took over their forbrains.

- dont forget to Duck and Cover Donkey! works for the turtle, and the Ostrich.

Posted by Cru Jones | August 22, 2007 6:29 PM

I want to open today's speech with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans were murdered in a surprise attack -- and our nation was propelled into a conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe.

The enemy who attacked us despises freedom, and harbors resentment at the slights he believes America and Western nations have inflicted on his people. He fights to establish his rule over an entire region. And over time, he turns to a strategy of suicide attacks destined to create so much carnage that the American people will tire of the violence and give up the fight.

If this story sounds familiar, it is -- except for one thing. The enemy I have just described is not al Qaeda, and the attack is not 9/11, and the empire is not the radical caliphate envisioned by Osama bin Laden. Instead, what I've described is the war machine of Imperial Japan in the 1940s, its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and its attempt to impose its empire throughout East Asia.

Ultimately, the United States prevailed in World War II, and we have fought two more land wars in Asia. And many in this hall were veterans of those campaigns. Yet even the most optimistic among you probably would not have foreseen that the Japanese would transform themselves into one of America's strongest and most steadfast allies, or that the South Koreans would recover from enemy invasion to raise up one of the world's most powerful economies, or that Asia would pull itself out of poverty and hopelessness as it embraced markets and freedom.

The lesson from Asia's development is that the heart's desire for liberty will not be denied. Once people even get a small taste of liberty, they're not going to rest until they're free. Today's dynamic and hopeful Asia -- a region that brings us countless benefits -- would not have been possible without America's presence and perseverance. It would not have been possible without the veterans in this hall today. And I thank you for your service.

There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we're fighting today. But one important similarity is at their core they're ideological struggles. The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on others. Today, the names and places have changed, but the fundamental character of the struggle has not changed. Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own -- a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance, and dissent.

Like our enemies in the past, they kill Americans because we stand in their way of imposing this ideology across a vital region of the world. This enemy is dangerous; this enemy is determined; and this enemy will be defeated.

We're still in the early hours of the current ideological struggle, but we do know how the others ended -- and that knowledge helps guide our efforts today. The ideals and interests that led America to help the Japanese turn defeat into democracy are the same that lead us to remain engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The defense strategy that refused to hand the South Koreans over to a totalitarian neighbor helped raise up a Asian Tiger that is the model for developing countries across the world, including the Middle East. The result of American sacrifice and perseverance in Asia is a freer, more prosperous and stable continent whose people want to live in peace with America, not attack America.

At the outset of World War II there were only two democracies in the Far East -- Australia and New Zealand. Today most of the nations in Asia are free, and its democracies reflect the diversity of the region. Some of these nations have constitutional monarchies, some have parliaments, and some have presidents. Some are Christian, some are Muslim, some are Hindu, and some are Buddhist. Yet for all the differences, the free nations of Asia all share one thing in common: Their governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, and they desire to live in peace with their neighbors.

Along the way to this freer and more hopeful Asia, there were a lot of doubters. Many times in the decades that followed World War II, American policy in Asia was dismissed as hopeless and naive. And when we listen to criticism of the difficult work our generation is undertaking in the Middle East today, we can hear the echoes of the same arguments made about the Far East years ago.

In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then as now, the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom.

Some said Japanese culture was inherently incompatible with democracy. Joseph Grew, a former United States ambassador to Japan who served as Harry Truman's Under Secretary of State, told the President flatly that -- and I quote -- "democracy in Japan would never work." He wasn't alone in that belief. A lot of Americans believed that -- and so did the Japanese -- a lot of Japanese believed the same thing: democracy simply wouldn't work.

Others critics said that Americans were imposing their ideals on the Japanese. For example, Japan's Vice Prime Minister asserted that allowing Japanese women to vote would "retard the progress of Japanese politics."

It's interesting what General MacArthur wrote in his memoirs. He wrote, "There was much criticism of my support for the enfranchisement of women. Many Americans, as well as many other so-called experts, expressed the view that Japanese women were too steeped in the tradition of subservience to their husbands to act with any degree of political independence." That's what General MacArthur observed. In the end, Japanese women were given the vote; 39 women won parliamentary seats in Japan's first free election. Today, Japan's minister of defense is a woman, and just last month, a record number of women were elected to Japan's Upper House.

There are other critics, believe it or not, that argue that democracy could not succeed in Japan because the national religion -- Shinto -- was too fanatical and rooted in the Emperor. Senator Richard Russell denounced the Japanese faith, and said that if we did not put the Emperor on trial, "any steps we may take to create democracy are doomed to failure." The State Department's man in Tokyo put it bluntly: "The Emperor system must disappear if Japan is ever really to be democratic."

Those who said Shinto was incompatible with democracy were mistaken, and fortunately, Americans and Japanese leaders recognized it at the time, because instead of suppressing the Shinto faith, American authorities worked with the Japanese to institute religious freedom for all faiths. Instead of abolishing the imperial throne, Americans and Japanese worked together to find a place for the Emperor in the democratic political system.
And the result of all these steps was that every Japanese citizen gained freedom of religion, and the Emperor remained on his throne and Japanese democracy grew stronger because it embraced a cherished part of Japanese culture. And today, in defiance of the critics and the doubters and the skeptics, Japan retains its religions and cultural traditions, and stands as one of the world's great free societies.

You know, the experts sometimes get it wrong. An interesting observation, one historian put it -- he said, "Had these erstwhile experts" -- he was talking about people criticizing the efforts to help Japan realize the blessings of a free society -- he said, "Had these erstwhile experts had their way, the very notion of inducing a democratic revolution would have died of ridicule at an early stage."

Instead, I think it's important to look at what happened. A democratic Japan has brought peace and prosperity to its people. Its foreign trade and investment have helped jump-start the economies of others in the region. The alliance between our two nations is the lynchpin for freedom and stability throughout the Pacific. And I want you to listen carefully to this final point: Japan has transformed from America's enemy in the ideological struggle of the 20th century to one of America's strongest allies in the ideological struggle of the 21st century.

Critics also complained when America intervened to save South Korea from communist invasion. Then as now, the critics argued that the war was futile, that we should never have sent our troops in, or they argued that America's intervention was divisive here at home.

After the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel in 1950, President Harry Truman came to the defense of the South -- and found himself attacked from all sides. From the left, I.F. Stone wrote a book suggesting that the South Koreans were the real aggressors and that we had entered the war on a false pretext. From the right, Republicans vacillated. Initially, the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate endorsed Harry Truman's action, saying, "I welcome the indication of a more definite policy" -- he went on to say, "I strongly hope that having adopted it, the President may maintain it intact," then later said "it was a mistake originally to go into Korea because it meant a land war."

Throughout the war, the Republicans really never had a clear position. They never could decide whether they wanted the United States to withdraw from the war in Korea, or expand the war to the Chinese mainland. Others complained that our troops weren't getting the support from the government. One Republican senator said, the effort was just "bluff and bluster." He rejected calls to come together in a time of war, on the grounds that "we will not allow the cloak of national unity to be wrapped around horrible blunders."

Many in the press agreed. One columnist in The Washington Post said, "The fact is that the conduct of the Korean War has been shot through with errors great and small." A colleague wrote that "Korea is an open wound. It's bleeding and there's no cure for it in sight." He said that the American people could not understand "why Americans are doing about 95 percent of the fighting in Korea."

Many of these criticisms were offered as reasons for abandoning our commitments in Korea. And while it's true the Korean War had its share of challenges, the United States never broke its word.

Today, we see the result of a sacrifice of people in this room in the stark contrast of life on the Korean Peninsula. Without Americans' intervention during the war and our willingness to stick with the South Koreans after the war, millions of South Koreans would now be living under a brutal and repressive regime. The Soviets and Chinese communists would have learned the lesson that aggression pays. The world would be facing a more dangerous situation. The world would be less peaceful.

Instead, South Korea is a strong, democratic ally of the United States of America. South Korean troops are serving side-by-side with American forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And America can count on the free people of South Korea to be lasting partners in the ideological struggle we're facing in the beginning of the 21st century.

For those of you who served in Korea, thank you for your sacrifice, and thank you for your service.

Finally, there's Vietnam. This is a complex and painful subject for many Americans. The tragedy of Vietnam is too large to be contained in one speech. So I'm going to limit myself to one argument that has particular significance today. Then as now, people argued the real problem was America's presence and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end.

The argument that America's presence in Indochina was dangerous had a long pedigree. In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called, "The Quiet American." It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism -- and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."

After America entered the Vietnam War, the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. As a matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people.

In 1972, one antiwar senator put it this way: "What earthly difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos, whether they have a military dictator, a royal prince or a socialist commissar in some distant capital that they've never seen and may never heard of?" 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. 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. There's no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States of America. 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."

There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle -- those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that "the American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today."

His number two man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to al Qaeda's chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed to "the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents."

Zawahiri later returned to this theme, declaring that the Americans "know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet." Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility -- but the terrorists see it differently.

We must remember the words of the enemy. We must listen to what they say. Bin Laden has declared that "the war [in Iraq] is for you or us to win. If we win it, it means your disgrace and defeat forever." Iraq is one of several fronts in the war on terror -- but it's the central front -- it's the central front for the enemy that attacked us and wants to attack us again. And it's the central front for the United States and to withdraw without getting the job done would be devastating.

If we were to abandon the Iraqi people, the terrorists would be emboldened, and use their victory to gain new recruits. As we saw on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities. Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America.

Recently, two men who were on the opposite sides of the debate over the Vietnam War came together to write an article. One was a member of President Nixon's foreign policy team, and the other was a fierce critic of the Nixon administration's policies. Together they wrote that the consequences of an American defeat in Iraq would be disastrous.
Here's what they said: "Defeat would produce an explosion of euphoria among all the forces of Islamist extremism, throwing the entire Middle East into even greater upheaval. The likely human and strategic costs are appalling to contemplate. Perhaps that is why so much of the current debate seeks to ignore these consequences." I believe these men are right.

In Iraq, our moral obligations and our strategic interests are one. So we pursue the extremists wherever we find them and we stand with the Iraqis at this difficult hour -- because the shadow of terror will never be lifted from our world and the American people will never be safe until the people of the Middle East know the freedom that our Creator meant for all.

I recognize that history cannot predict the future with absolute certainty. I understand that. But history does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from history. In Asia, we saw freedom triumph over violent ideologies after the sacrifice of tens of thousands of American lives -- and that freedom has yielded peace for generations.

The American military graveyards across Europe attest to the terrible human cost in the fight against Nazism. They also attest to the triumph of a continent that today is whole, free, and at peace. The advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results we've seen in Asia and elsewhere -- if we show the same perseverance and the same sense of purpose.

In a world where the terrorists are willing to act on their twisted beliefs with sickening acts of barbarism, we must put faith in the timeless truths about human nature that have made us free.

Across the Middle East, millions of ordinary citizens are tired of war, they're tired of dictatorship and corruption, they're tired of despair. They want societies where they're treated with dignity and respect, where their children have the hope for a better life. They want nations where their faiths are honored and they can worship in freedom.

And that is why millions of Iraqis and Afghans turned out to the polls -- millions turned out to the polls. And that's why their leaders have stepped forward at the risk of assassination. And that's why tens of thousands are joining the security forces of their nations. These men and women are taking great risks to build a free and peaceful Middle East -- and for the sake of our own security, we must not abandon them.

There is one group of people who understand the stakes, understand as well as any expert, anybody in America -- those are the men and women in uniform. Through nearly six years of war, they have performed magnificently. Day after day, hour after hour, they keep the pressure on the enemy that would do our citizens harm. They've overthrown two of the most brutal tyrannies of the world, and liberated more than 50 million citizens.

In Iraq, our troops are taking the fight to the extremists and radicals and murderers all throughout the country. Our troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January of this year. We're in the fight. Today our troops are carrying out a surge that is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against the extremists and radicals, into the fight against al Qaeda, into the fight against the enemy that would do us harm. They're clearing out the terrorists out of population centers, they're giving families in liberated Iraqi cities a look at a decent and hopeful life.

Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq? Here's my answer is clear: We'll support our troops, we'll support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to succeed.

Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who want to attack us. It is critical work to lay the foundation for peace that veterans have done before you all.

A free Iraq is not going to be perfect. A free Iraq will not make decisions as quickly as the country did under the dictatorship. Many are frustrated by the pace of progress in Baghdad, and I can understand this. As I noted yesterday, the Iraqi government is distributing oil revenues across its provinces despite not having an oil revenue law on its books, that the parliament has passed about 60 pieces of legislation.

Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I support him. And it's not up to politicians in Washington, D.C. to say whether he will remain in his position -- that is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy, and not a dictatorship. A free Iraq is not going to transform the Middle East overnight. But a free Iraq will be a massive defeat for al Qaeda, it will be an example that provides hope for millions throughout the Middle East, it will be a friend of the United States, and it's going to be an important ally in the ideological struggle of the 21st century.

Prevailing in this struggle is essential to our future as a nation. And the question now that comes before us is this: Will today's generation of Americans resist the allure of retreat, and will we do in the Middle East what the veterans in this room did in Asia?

The journey is not going to be easy, as the veterans fully understand. At the outset of the war in the Pacific, there were those who argued that freedom had seen its day and that the future belonged to the hard men in Tokyo. A year and a half before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan's Foreign Minister gave a hint of things to come during an interview with a New York newspaper. He said, "In the battle between democracy and totalitarianism the latter adversary will without question win and will control the world. The era of democracy is finished, the democratic system bankrupt."

In fact, the war machines of Imperial Japan would be brought down -- brought down by good folks who only months before had been students and farmers and bank clerks and factory hands. Some are in the room today. Others here have been inspired by their fathers and grandfathers and uncles and cousins.

That generation of Americans taught the tyrants a telling lesson: There is no power like the power of freedom and no soldier as strong as a soldier who fights for a free future for his children. And when America's work on the battlefield was done, the victorious children of democracy would help our defeated enemies rebuild, and bring the taste of freedom to millions.

We can do the same for the Middle East. Today the violent Islamic extremists who fight us in Iraq are as certain of their cause as the Nazis, or the Imperial Japanese, or the Soviet communists were of theirs. They are destined for the same fate.

The greatest weapon in the arsenal of democracy is the desire for liberty written into the human heart by our Creator. So long as we remain true to our ideals, we will defeat the extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will help those countries' peoples stand up functioning democracies in the heart of the broader Middle East. And when that hard work is done and the critics of today recede from memory, the cause of freedom will be stronger, a vital region will be brighter, and the American people will be safer.

Thank you, and God bless.

President George W. Bush

Posted by Cru Jones | August 22, 2007 6:31 PM

I want to open today's speech with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans were murdered in a surprise attack -- and our nation was propelled into a conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe.

The enemy who attacked us despises freedom, and harbors resentment at the slights he believes America and Western nations have inflicted on his people. He fights to establish his rule over an entire region. And over time, he turns to a strategy of suicide attacks destined to create so much carnage that the American people will tire of the violence and give up the fight.

If this story sounds familiar, it is -- except for one thing. The enemy I have just described is not al Qaeda, and the attack is not 9/11, and the empire is not the radical caliphate envisioned by Osama bin Laden. Instead, what I've described is the war machine of Imperial Japan in the 1940s, its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and its attempt to impose its empire throughout East Asia.

Ultimately, the United States prevailed in World War II, and we have fought two more land wars in Asia. And many in this hall were veterans of those campaigns. Yet even the most optimistic among you probably would not have foreseen that the Japanese would transform themselves into one of America's strongest and most steadfast allies, or that the South Koreans would recover from enemy invasion to raise up one of the world's most powerful economies, or that Asia would pull itself out of poverty and hopelessness as it embraced markets and freedom.

The lesson from Asia's development is that the heart's desire for liberty will not be denied. Once people even get a small taste of liberty, they're not going to rest until they're free. Today's dynamic and hopeful Asia -- a region that brings us countless benefits -- would not have been possible without America's presence and perseverance. It would not have been possible without the veterans in this hall today. And I thank you for your service.

There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we're fighting today. But one important similarity is at their core they're ideological struggles. The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on others. Today, the names and places have changed, but the fundamental character of the struggle has not changed. Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own -- a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance, and dissent.

Like our enemies in the past, they kill Americans because we stand in their way of imposing this ideology across a vital region of the world. This enemy is dangerous; this enemy is determined; and this enemy will be defeated.

We're still in the early hours of the current ideological struggle, but we do know how the others ended -- and that knowledge helps guide our efforts today. The ideals and interests that led America to help the Japanese turn defeat into democracy are the same that lead us to remain engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The defense strategy that refused to hand the South Koreans over to a totalitarian neighbor helped raise up a Asian Tiger that is the model for developing countries across the world, including the Middle East. The result of American sacrifice and perseverance in Asia is a freer, more prosperous and stable continent whose people want to live in peace with America, not attack America.

At the outset of World War II there were only two democracies in the Far East -- Australia and New Zealand. Today most of the nations in Asia are free, and its democracies reflect the diversity of the region. Some of these nations have constitutional monarchies, some have parliaments, and some have presidents. Some are Christian, some are Muslim, some are Hindu, and some are Buddhist. Yet for all the differences, the free nations of Asia all share one thing in common: Their governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, and they desire to live in peace with their neighbors.

Along the way to this freer and more hopeful Asia, there were a lot of doubters. Many times in the decades that followed World War II, American policy in Asia was dismissed as hopeless and naive. And when we listen to criticism of the difficult work our generation is undertaking in the Middle East today, we can hear the echoes of the same arguments made about the Far East years ago.

In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then as now, the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom.

Some said Japanese culture was inherently incompatible with democracy. Joseph Grew, a former United States ambassador to Japan who served as Harry Truman's Under Secretary of State, told the President flatly that -- and I quote -- "democracy in Japan would never work." He wasn't alone in that belief. A lot of Americans believed that -- and so did the Japanese -- a lot of Japanese believed the same thing: democracy simply wouldn't work.

Others critics said that Americans were imposing their ideals on the Japanese. For example, Japan's Vice Prime Minister asserted that allowing Japanese women to vote would "retard the progress of Japanese politics."

It's interesting what General MacArthur wrote in his memoirs. He wrote, "There was much criticism of my support for the enfranchisement of women. Many Americans, as well as many other so-called experts, expressed the view that Japanese women were too steeped in the tradition of subservience to their husbands to act with any degree of political independence." That's what General MacArthur observed. In the end, Japanese women were given the vote; 39 women won parliamentary seats in Japan's first free election. Today, Japan's minister of defense is a woman, and just last month, a record number of women were elected to Japan's Upper House.

There are other critics, believe it or not, that argue that democracy could not succeed in Japan because the national religion -- Shinto -- was too fanatical and rooted in the Emperor. Senator Richard Russell denounced the Japanese faith, and said that if we did not put the Emperor on trial, "any steps we may take to create democracy are doomed to failure." The State Department's man in Tokyo put it bluntly: "The Emperor system must disappear if Japan is ever really to be democratic."

Those who said Shinto was incompatible with democracy were mistaken, and fortunately, Americans and Japanese leaders recognized it at the time, because instead of suppressing the Shinto faith, American authorities worked with the Japanese to institute religious freedom for all faiths. Instead of abolishing the imperial throne, Americans and Japanese worked together to find a place for the Emperor in the democratic political system.
And the result of all these steps was that every Japanese citizen gained freedom of religion, and the Emperor remained on his throne and Japanese democracy grew stronger because it embraced a cherished part of Japanese culture. And today, in defiance of the critics and the doubters and the skeptics, Japan retains its religions and cultural traditions, and stands as one of the world's great free societies.

You know, the experts sometimes get it wrong. An interesting observation, one historian put it -- he said, "Had these erstwhile experts" -- he was talking about people criticizing the efforts to help Japan realize the blessings of a free society -- he said, "Had these erstwhile experts had their way, the very notion of inducing a democratic revolution would have died of ridicule at an early stage."

Instead, I think it's important to look at what happened. A democratic Japan has brought peace and prosperity to its people. Its foreign trade and investment have helped jump-start the economies of others in the region. The alliance between our two nations is the lynchpin for freedom and stability throughout the Pacific. And I want you to listen carefully to this final point: Japan has transformed from America's enemy in the ideological struggle of the 20th century to one of America's strongest allies in the ideological struggle of the 21st century.

Critics also complained when America intervened to save South Korea from communist invasion. Then as now, the critics argued that the war was futile, that we should never have sent our troops in, or they argued that America's intervention was divisive here at home.

After the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel in 1950, President Harry Truman came to the defense of the South -- and found himself attacked from all sides. From the left, I.F. Stone wrote a book suggesting that the South Koreans were the real aggressors and that we had entered the war on a false pretext. From the right, Republicans vacillated. Initially, the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate endorsed Harry Truman's action, saying, "I welcome the indication of a more definite policy" -- he went on to say, "I strongly hope that having adopted it, the President may maintain it intact," then later said "it was a mistake originally to go into Korea because it meant a land war."

Throughout the war, the Republicans really never had a clear position. They never could decide whether they wanted the United States to withdraw from the war in Korea, or expand the war to the Chinese mainland. Others complained that our troops weren't getting the support from the government. One Republican senator said, the effort was just "bluff and bluster." He rejected calls to come together in a time of war, on the grounds that "we will not allow the cloak of national unity to be wrapped around horrible blunders."

Many in the press agreed. One columnist in The Washington Post said, "The fact is that the conduct of the Korean War has been shot through with errors great and small." A colleague wrote that "Korea is an open wound. It's bleeding and there's no cure for it in sight." He said that the American people could not understand "why Americans are doing about 95 percent of the fighting in Korea."

Many of these criticisms were offered as reasons for abandoning our commitments in Korea. And while it's true the Korean War had its share of challenges, the United States never broke its word.

Today, we see the result of a sacrifice of people in this room in the stark contrast of life on the Korean Peninsula. Without Americans' intervention during the war and our willingness to stick with the South Koreans after the war, millions of South Koreans would now be living under a brutal and repressive regime. The Soviets and Chinese communists would have learned the lesson that aggression pays. The world would be facing a more dangerous situation. The world would be less peaceful.

Instead, South Korea is a strong, democratic ally of the United States of America. South Korean troops are serving side-by-side with American forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And America can count on the free people of South Korea to be lasting partners in the ideological struggle we're facing in the beginning of the 21st century.

For those of you who served in Korea, thank you for your sacrifice, and thank you for your service.

Finally, there's Vietnam. This is a complex and painful subject for many Americans. The tragedy of Vietnam is too large to be contained in one speech. So I'm going to limit myself to one argument that has particular significance today. Then as now, people argued the real problem was America's presence and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end.

The argument that America's presence in Indochina was dangerous had a long pedigree. In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called, "The Quiet American." It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism -- and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."

After America entered the Vietnam War, the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. As a matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people.

In 1972, one antiwar senator put it this way: "What earthly difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos, whether they have a military dictator, a royal prince or a socialist commissar in some distant capital that they've never seen and may never heard of?" 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. 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. There's no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States of America. 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."

There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle -- those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that "the American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today."

His number two man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to al Qaeda's chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed to "the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents."

Zawahiri later returned to this theme, declaring that the Americans "know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet." Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility -- but the terrorists see it differently.

We must remember the words of the enemy. We must listen to what they say. Bin Laden has declared that "the war [in Iraq] is for you or us to win. If we win it, it means your disgrace and defeat forever." Iraq is one of several fronts in the war on terror -- but it's the central front -- it's the central front for the enemy that attacked us and wants to attack us again. And it's the central front for the United States and to withdraw without getting the job done would be devastating.

If we were to abandon the Iraqi people, the terrorists would be emboldened, and use their victory to gain new recruits. As we saw on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities. Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America.

Recently, two men who were on the opposite sides of the debate over the Vietnam War came together to write an article. One was a member of President Nixon's foreign policy team, and the other was a fierce critic of the Nixon administration's policies. Together they wrote that the consequences of an American defeat in Iraq would be disastrous.
Here's what they said: "Defeat would produce an explosion of euphoria among all the forces of Islamist extremism, throwing the entire Middle East into even greater upheaval. The likely human and strategic costs are appalling to contemplate. Perhaps that is why so much of the current debate seeks to ignore these consequences." I believe these men are right.

In Iraq, our moral obligations and our strategic interests are one. So we pursue the extremists wherever we find them and we stand with the Iraqis at this difficult hour -- because the shadow of terror will never be lifted from our world and the American people will never be safe until the people of the Middle East know the freedom that our Creator meant for all.

I recognize that history cannot predict the future with absolute certainty. I understand that. But history does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from history. In Asia, we saw freedom triumph over violent ideologies after the sacrifice of tens of thousands of American lives -- and that freedom has yielded peace for generations.

The American military graveyards across Europe attest to the terrible human cost in the fight against Nazism. They also attest to the triumph of a continent that today is whole, free, and at peace. The advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results we've seen in Asia and elsewhere -- if we show the same perseverance and the same sense of purpose.

In a world where the terrorists are willing to act on their twisted beliefs with sickening acts of barbarism, we must put faith in the timeless truths about human nature that have made us free.

Across the Middle East, millions of ordinary citizens are tired of war, they're tired of dictatorship and corruption, they're tired of despair. They want societies where they're treated with dignity and respect, where their children have the hope for a better life. They want nations where their faiths are honored and they can worship in freedom.

And that is why millions of Iraqis and Afghans turned out to the polls -- millions turned out to the polls. And that's why their leaders have stepped forward at the risk of assassination. And that's why tens of thousands are joining the security forces of their nations. These men and women are taking great risks to build a free and peaceful Middle East -- and for the sake of our own security, we must not abandon them.

There is one group of people who understand the stakes, understand as well as any expert, anybody in America -- those are the men and women in uniform. Through nearly six years of war, they have performed magnificently. Day after day, hour after hour, they keep the pressure on the enemy that would do our citizens harm. They've overthrown two of the most brutal tyrannies of the world, and liberated more than 50 million citizens.

In Iraq, our troops are taking the fight to the extremists and radicals and murderers all throughout the country. Our troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January of this year. We're in the fight. Today our troops are carrying out a surge that is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against the extremists and radicals, into the fight against al Qaeda, into the fight against the enemy that would do us harm. They're clearing out the terrorists out of population centers, they're giving families in liberated Iraqi cities a look at a decent and hopeful life.

Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq? Here's my answer is clear: We'll support our troops, we'll support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to succeed.

Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who want to attack us. It is critical work to lay the foundation for peace that veterans have done before you all.

A free Iraq is not going to be perfect. A free Iraq will not make decisions as quickly as the country did under the dictatorship. Many are frustrated by the pace of progress in Baghdad, and I can understand this. As I noted yesterday, the Iraqi government is distributing oil revenues across its provinces despite not having an oil revenue law on its books, that the parliament has passed about 60 pieces of legislation.

Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I support him. And it's not up to politicians in Washington, D.C. to say whether he will remain in his position -- that is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy, and not a dictatorship. A free Iraq is not going to transform the Middle East overnight. But a free Iraq will be a massive defeat for al Qaeda, it will be an example that provides hope for millions throughout the Middle East, it will be a friend of the United States, and it's going to be an important ally in the ideological struggle of the 21st century.

Prevailing in this struggle is essential to our future as a nation. And the question now that comes before us is this: Will today's generation of Americans resist the allure of retreat, and will we do in the Middle East what the veterans in this room did in Asia?

The journey is not going to be easy, as the veterans fully understand. At the outset of the war in the Pacific, there were those who argued that freedom had seen its day and that the future belonged to the hard men in Tokyo. A year and a half before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan's Foreign Minister gave a hint of things to come during an interview with a New York newspaper. He said, "In the battle between democracy and totalitarianism the latter adversary will without question win and will control the world. The era of democracy is finished, the democratic system bankrupt."

In fact, the war machines of Imperial Japan would be brought down -- brought down by good folks who only months before had been students and farmers and bank clerks and factory hands. Some are in the room today. Others here have been inspired by their fathers and grandfathers and uncles and cousins.

That generation of Americans taught the tyrants a telling lesson: There is no power like the power of freedom and no soldier as strong as a soldier who fights for a free future for his children. And when America's work on the battlefield was done, the victorious children of democracy would help our defeated enemies rebuild, and bring the taste of freedom to millions.

We can do the same for the Middle East. Today the violent Islamic extremists who fight us in Iraq are as certain of their cause as the Nazis, or the Imperial Japanese, or the Soviet communists were of theirs. They are destined for the same fate.

The greatest weapon in the arsenal of democracy is the desire for liberty written into the human heart by our Creator. So long as we remain true to our ideals, we will defeat the extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will help those countries' peoples stand up functioning democracies in the heart of the broader Middle East. And when that hard work is done and the critics of today recede from memory, the cause of freedom will be stronger, a vital region will be brighter, and the American people will be safer.

Thank you, and God bless.

President George W. Bush

Posted by Cru Jones | August 22, 2007 6:36 PM

I want to open today's speech with a story that begins on a sunny morning, when thousands of Americans were murdered in a surprise attack -- and our nation was propelled into a conflict that would take us to every corner of the globe.

The enemy who attacked us despises freedom, and harbors resentment at the slights he believes America and Western nations have inflicted on his people. He fights to establish his rule over an entire region. And over time, he turns to a strategy of suicide attacks destined to create so much carnage that the American people will tire of the violence and give up the fight.

If this story sounds familiar, it is -- except for one thing. The enemy I have just described is not al Qaeda, and the attack is not 9/11, and the empire is not the radical caliphate envisioned by Osama bin Laden. Instead, what I've described is the war machine of Imperial Japan in the 1940s, its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and its attempt to impose its empire throughout East Asia.

Ultimately, the United States prevailed in World War II, and we have fought two more land wars in Asia. And many in this hall were veterans of those campaigns. Yet even the most optimistic among you probably would not have foreseen that the Japanese would transform themselves into one of America's strongest and most steadfast allies, or that the South Koreans would recover from enemy invasion to raise up one of the world's most powerful economies, or that Asia would pull itself out of poverty and hopelessness as it embraced markets and freedom.

The lesson from Asia's development is that the heart's desire for liberty will not be denied. Once people even get a small taste of liberty, they're not going to rest until they're free. Today's dynamic and hopeful Asia -- a region that brings us countless benefits -- would not have been possible without America's presence and perseverance. It would not have been possible without the veterans in this hall today. And I thank you for your service.

There are many differences between the wars we fought in the Far East and the war on terror we're fighting today. But one important similarity is at their core they're ideological struggles. The militarists of Japan and the communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on others. Today, the names and places have changed, but the fundamental character of the struggle has not changed. Like our enemies in the past, the terrorists who wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places seek to spread a political vision of their own -- a harsh plan for life that crushes freedom, tolerance, and dissent.

Like our enemies in the past, they kill Americans because we stand in their way of imposing this ideology across a vital region of the world. This enemy is dangerous; this enemy is determined; and this enemy will be defeated.

We're still in the early hours of the current ideological struggle, but we do know how the others ended -- and that knowledge helps guide our efforts today. The ideals and interests that led America to help the Japanese turn defeat into democracy are the same that lead us to remain engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The defense strategy that refused to hand the South Koreans over to a totalitarian neighbor helped raise up a Asian Tiger that is the model for developing countries across the world, including the Middle East. The result of American sacrifice and perseverance in Asia is a freer, more prosperous and stable continent whose people want to live in peace with America, not attack America.

At the outset of World War II there were only two democracies in the Far East -- Australia and New Zealand. Today most of the nations in Asia are free, and its democracies reflect the diversity of the region. Some of these nations have constitutional monarchies, some have parliaments, and some have presidents. Some are Christian, some are Muslim, some are Hindu, and some are Buddhist. Yet for all the differences, the free nations of Asia all share one thing in common: Their governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, and they desire to live in peace with their neighbors.

Along the way to this freer and more hopeful Asia, there were a lot of doubters. Many times in the decades that followed World War II, American policy in Asia was dismissed as hopeless and naive. And when we listen to criticism of the difficult work our generation is undertaking in the Middle East today, we can hear the echoes of the same arguments made about the Far East years ago.

In the aftermath of Japan's surrender, many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy. Then as now, the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom.

Some said Japanese culture was inherently incompatible with democracy. Joseph Grew, a former United States ambassador to Japan who served as Harry Truman's Under Secretary of State, told the President flatly that -- and I quote -- "democracy in Japan would never work." He wasn't alone in that belief. A lot of Americans believed that -- and so did the Japanese -- a lot of Japanese believed the same thing: democracy simply wouldn't work.

Others critics said that Americans were imposing their ideals on the Japanese. For example, Japan's Vice Prime Minister asserted that allowing Japanese women to vote would "retard the progress of Japanese politics."

It's interesting what General MacArthur wrote in his memoirs. He wrote, "There was much criticism of my support for the enfranchisement of women. Many Americans, as well as many other so-called experts, expressed the view that Japanese women were too steeped in the tradition of subservience to their husbands to act with any degree of political independence." That's what General MacArthur observed. In the end, Japanese women were given the vote; 39 women won parliamentary seats in Japan's first free election. Today, Japan's minister of defense is a woman, and just last month, a record number of women were elected to Japan's Upper House.

There are other critics, believe it or not, that argue that democracy could not succeed in Japan because the national religion -- Shinto -- was too fanatical and rooted in the Emperor. Senator Richard Russell denounced the Japanese faith, and said that if we did not put the Emperor on trial, "any steps we may take to create democracy are doomed to failure." The State Department's man in Tokyo put it bluntly: "The Emperor system must disappear if Japan is ever really to be democratic."

Those who said Shinto was incompatible with democracy were mistaken, and fortunately, Americans and Japanese leaders recognized it at the time, because instead of suppressing the Shinto faith, American authorities worked with the Japanese to institute religious freedom for all faiths. Instead of abolishing the imperial throne, Americans and Japanese worked together to find a place for the Emperor in the democratic political system.
And the result of all these steps was that every Japanese citizen gained freedom of religion, and the Emperor remained on his throne and Japanese democracy grew stronger because it embraced a cherished part of Japanese culture. And today, in defiance of the critics and the doubters and the skeptics, Japan retains its religions and cultural traditions, and stands as one of the world's great free societies.

You know, the experts sometimes get it wrong. An interesting observation, one historian put it -- he said, "Had these erstwhile experts" -- he was talking about people criticizing the efforts to help Japan realize the blessings of a free society -- he said, "Had these erstwhile experts had their way, the very notion of inducing a democratic revolution would have died of ridicule at an early stage."

Instead, I think it's important to look at what happened. A democratic Japan has brought peace and prosperity to its people. Its foreign trade and investment have helped jump-start the economies of others in the region. The alliance between our two nations is the lynchpin for freedom and stability throughout the Pacific. And I want you to listen carefully to this final point: Japan has transformed from America's enemy in the ideological struggle of the 20th century to one of America's strongest allies in the ideological struggle of the 21st century.

Critics also complained when America intervened to save South Korea from communist invasion. Then as now, the critics argued that the war was futile, that we should never have sent our troops in, or they argued that America's intervention was divisive here at home.

After the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel in 1950, President Harry Truman came to the defense of the South -- and found himself attacked from all sides. From the left, I.F. Stone wrote a book suggesting that the South Koreans were the real aggressors and that we had entered the war on a false pretext. From the right, Republicans vacillated. Initially, the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate endorsed Harry Truman's action, saying, "I welcome the indication of a more definite policy" -- he went on to say, "I strongly hope that having adopted it, the President may maintain it intact," then later said "it was a mistake originally to go into Korea because it meant a land war."

Throughout the war, the Republicans really never had a clear position. They never could decide whether they wanted the United States to withdraw from the war in Korea, or expand the war to the Chinese mainland. Others complained that our troops weren't getting the support from the government. One Republican senator said, the effort was just "bluff and bluster." He rejected calls to come together in a time of war, on the grounds that "we will not allow the cloak of national unity to be wrapped around horrible blunders."

Many in the press agreed. One columnist in The Washington Post said, "The fact is that the conduct of the Korean War has been shot through with errors great and small." A colleague wrote that "Korea is an open wound. It's bleeding and there's no cure for it in sight." He said that the American people could not understand "why Americans are doing about 95 percent of the fighting in Korea."

Many of these criticisms were offered as reasons for abandoning our commitments in Korea. And while it's true the Korean War had its share of challenges, the United States never broke its word.

Today, we see the result of a sacrifice of people in this room in the stark contrast of life on the Korean Peninsula. Without Americans' intervention during the war and our willingness to stick with the South Koreans after the war, millions of South Koreans would now be living under a brutal and repressive regime. The Soviets and Chinese communists would have learned the lesson that aggression pays. The world would be facing a more dangerous situation. The world would be less peaceful.

Instead, South Korea is a strong, democratic ally of the United States of America. South Korean troops are serving side-by-side with American forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And America can count on the free people of South Korea to be lasting partners in the ideological struggle we're facing in the beginning of the 21st century.

For those of you who served in Korea, thank you for your sacrifice, and thank you for your service.

Finally, there's Vietnam. This is a complex and painful subject for many Americans. The tragedy of Vietnam is too large to be contained in one speech. So I'm going to limit myself to one argument that has particular significance today. Then as now, people argued the real problem was America's presence and that if we would just withdraw, the killing would end.

The argument that America's presence in Indochina was dangerous had a long pedigree. In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called, "The Quiet American." It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism -- and dangerous naivete. Another character describes Alden this way: "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."

After America entered the Vietnam War, the Graham Greene argument gathered some steam. As a matter of fact, many argued that if we pulled out there would be no consequences for the Vietnamese people.

In 1972, one antiwar senator put it this way: "What earthly difference does it make to nomadic tribes or uneducated subsistence farmers in Vietnam or Cambodia or Laos, whether they have a military dictator, a royal prince or a socialist commissar in some distant capital that they've never seen and may never heard of?" 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. 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. There's no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States of America. 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."

There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle -- those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that "the American people had risen against their government's war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today."

His number two man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to al Qaeda's chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed to "the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents."

Zawahiri later returned to this theme, declaring that the Americans "know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet." Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility -- but the terrorists see it differently.

We must remember the words of the enemy. We must listen to what they say. Bin Laden has declared that "the war [in Iraq] is for you or us to win. If we win it, it means your disgrace and defeat forever." Iraq is one of several fronts in the war on terror -- but it's the central front -- it's the central front for the enemy that attacked us and wants to attack us again. And it's the central front for the United States and to withdraw without getting the job done would be devastating.

If we were to abandon the Iraqi people, the terrorists would be emboldened, and use their victory to gain new recruits. As we saw on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities. Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America.

Recently, two men who were on the opposite sides of the debate over the Vietnam War came together to write an article. One was a member of President Nixon's foreign policy team, and the other was a fierce critic of the Nixon administration's policies. Together they wrote that the consequences of an American defeat in Iraq would be disastrous.
Here's what they said: "Defeat would produce an explosion of euphoria among all the forces of Islamist extremism, throwing the entire Middle East into even greater upheaval. The likely human and strategic costs are appalling to contemplate. Perhaps that is why so much of the current debate seeks to ignore these consequences." I believe these men are right.

In Iraq, our moral obligations and our strategic interests are one. So we pursue the extremists wherever we find them and we stand with the Iraqis at this difficult hour -- because the shadow of terror will never be lifted from our world and the American people will never be safe until the people of the Middle East know the freedom that our Creator meant for all.

I recognize that history cannot predict the future with absolute certainty. I understand that. But history does remind us that there are lessons applicable to our time. And we can learn something from history. In Asia, we saw freedom triumph over violent ideologies after the sacrifice of tens of thousands of American lives -- and that freedom has yielded peace for generations.

The American military graveyards across Europe attest to the terrible human cost in the fight against Nazism. They also attest to the triumph of a continent that today is whole, free, and at peace. The advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results we've seen in Asia and elsewhere -- if we show the same perseverance and the same sense of purpose.

In a world where the terrorists are willing to act on their twisted beliefs with sickening acts of barbarism, we must put faith in the timeless truths about human nature that have made us free.

Across the Middle East, millions of ordinary citizens are tired of war, they're tired of dictatorship and corruption, they're tired of despair. They want societies where they're treated with dignity and respect, where their children have the hope for a better life. They want nations where their faiths are honored and they can worship in freedom.

And that is why millions of Iraqis and Afghans turned out to the polls -- millions turned out to the polls. And that's why their leaders have stepped forward at the risk of assassination. And that's why tens of thousands are joining the security forces of their nations. These men and women are taking great risks to build a free and peaceful Middle East -- and for the sake of our own security, we must not abandon them.

There is one group of people who understand the stakes, understand as well as any expert, anybody in America -- those are the men and women in uniform. Through nearly six years of war, they have performed magnificently. Day after day, hour after hour, they keep the pressure on the enemy that would do our citizens harm. They've overthrown two of the most brutal tyrannies of the world, and liberated more than 50 million citizens.

In Iraq, our troops are taking the fight to the extremists and radicals and murderers all throughout the country. Our troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January of this year. We're in the fight. Today our troops are carrying out a surge that is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against the extremists and radicals, into the fight against al Qaeda, into the fight against the enemy that would do us harm. They're clearing out the terrorists out of population centers, they're giving families in liberated Iraqi cities a look at a decent and hopeful life.

Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq? Here's my answer is clear: We'll support our troops, we'll support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to succeed.

Despite the mistakes that have been made, despite the problems we have encountered, seeing the Iraqis through as they build their democracy is critical to keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who want to attack us. It is critical work to lay the foundation for peace that veterans have done before you all.

A free Iraq is not going to be perfect. A free Iraq will not make decisions as quickly as the country did under the dictatorship. Many are frustrated by the pace of progress in Baghdad, and I can understand this. As I noted yesterday, the Iraqi government is distributing oil revenues across its provinces despite not having an oil revenue law on its books, that the parliament has passed about 60 pieces of legislation.

Prime Minister Maliki is a good guy, a good man with a difficult job, and I support him. And it's not up to politicians in Washington, D.C. to say whether he will remain in his position -- that is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy, and not a dictatorship. A free Iraq is not going to transform the Middle East overnight. But a free Iraq will be a massive defeat for al Qaeda, it will be an example that provides hope for millions throughout the Middle East, it will be a friend of the United States, and it's going to be an important ally in the ideological struggle of the 21st century.

Prevailing in this struggle is essential to our future as a nation. And the question now that comes before us is this: Will today's generation of Americans resist the allure of retreat, and will we do in the Middle East what the veterans in this room did in Asia?

The journey is not going to be easy, as the veterans fully understand. At the outset of the war in the Pacific, there were those who argued that freedom had seen its day and that the future belonged to the hard men in Tokyo. A year and a half before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan's Foreign Minister gave a hint of things to come during an interview with a New York newspaper. He said, "In the battle between democracy and totalitarianism the latter adversary will without question win and will control the world. The era of democracy is finished, the democratic system bankrupt."

In fact, the war machines of Imperial Japan would be brought down -- brought down by good folks who only months before had been students and farmers and bank clerks and factory hands. Some are in the room today. Others here have been inspired by their fathers and grandfathers and uncles and cousins.

That generation of Americans taught the tyrants a telling lesson: There is no power like the power of freedom and no soldier as strong as a soldier who fights for a free future for his children. And when America's work on the battlefield was done, the victorious children of democracy would help our defeated enemies rebuild, and bring the taste of freedom to millions.

We can do the same for the Middle East. Today the violent Islamic extremists who fight us in Iraq are as certain of their cause as the Nazis, or the Imperial Japanese, or the Soviet communists were of theirs. They are destined for the same fate.

The greatest weapon in the arsenal of democracy is the desire for liberty written into the human heart by our Creator. So long as we remain true to our ideals, we will defeat the extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will help those countries' peoples stand up functioning democracies in the heart of the broader Middle East. And when that hard work is done and the critics of today recede from memory, the cause of freedom will be stronger, a vital region will be brighter, and the American people will be safer.

Thank you, and God bless.

President George W. Bush

Posted by exDemo | August 22, 2007 7:02 PM

The ex-candidate of the DEFEAT Amerika FIRST, alliance, has just endorsed the beneficial and therapeutic effects of a Concentration Camp/Re-education clinic, Brain Washing.

I suggest that we find a suitable place like Club Gitmo or Abu Ghraib, and provide a thorough Wash for 3000 Democrats "leaders" and their sycophant funders.

Like the therapeutic failures in Southeast Asia where the re-education didn't take; they can take a boat ride into the eye of Hurricane Dean or perhaps try having a Mountain fall on their their heads as Pol Pot favored. I know of an unstable mine in Utah that would suffice, in place of the Killing Fields.

Only a true Doofus like Kerry would be extolling the benefits of a vacation at Auschwitz or MagaYar!

This clown actually ran for President?

The situyation ion iraq is an Churchill once described el Alamein. "It is not the End; it is not the Beginning of the End; but it may be the End of the Beginning".

Posted by Bennett | August 22, 2007 7:53 PM

Betting on failure is always a risky strategy when it comes to Americans. If the Democrats want us to believe that they have the solutions to all our problems and that we should vote for them in 2008, maybe they need to start displaying a little more of a "can do" attitude when it comes to Iraq. Or are they just going to throw in the towel on every other tough problem we have when things get dicey?

Posted by K D | August 22, 2007 8:16 PM

Just found your blog, and it is a breath of fresh air. Living in NYC you start to thing the whole world has gone crazy liberal on you! Thank you so much!!

Posted by Mark F. | August 22, 2007 10:13 PM

The Democrats need to understand the value of getting things done in a timely manner. Conditions and events change. Time doesn't wait for feckless Democrats to get off the pot.

Posted by Tom | August 22, 2007 10:42 PM

Harry Reid and his buddy Nancy Pelosi seem to be missing. And they were so sure the war was lost. That's what this country needs. Leadership that will show courage and determination. If the war goes well I'm sure they were for the surge all along. HA HA

Posted by Tom | August 22, 2007 10:46 PM

Harry Reid and his buddy Nancy Pelosi seem to be missing. And they were so sure the war was lost. That's what this country needs. Leadership that will show courage and determination. If the war goes well I'm sure they were for the surge all along. HA HA

Posted by Rick Schwag | August 22, 2007 11:21 PM

You Bushits need to put down the Kool-Aid. Any success the surge shows will be short lived.

The surge can only last 6 more months at most. There are simply not enough troops to continue beyond that.

If you all haven't noticed, the Brits have been defeated in the south. They will soon withdraw, forcing the Yanquis to move troops to cover the supply lines from Kuwait.

This will further stretch US forces, having to cover more ground with fewer forces.

W's strategery his similar to one of his former snowstorms (cocaine binge). He's on a good high now but when he crashes it will be a bitch.

Posted by Joshua | August 22, 2007 11:59 PM

President Bush (via Cru Jones): "As we saw on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities. Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America."

While I generally agreed with most of Bush's speech, I really wish he'd give this meme a rest. Even if we win in Iraq and Afghanistan, that's no guarantee that we won't eventually be seeing attacks here. It's called a "global war on terror" for a reason - we have an enemy with a global reach and global ambitions. Indeed, I take it as a given that the war against Islamic supremacism will ultimately be won or lost not in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else in the historically Muslim world, but in Britain and Europe. A Muslim-majority UK/Europe by 2050 is all but inevitable, but when it happens, what kind of leadership will they put in power? If it's Islamic supremacists who end up inheriting Europe's military/industrial complex - and nuclear arsenal - we can count on the war coming to our shores on a scale that will make 9/11 look like a bad hair day.

Not to mention the numerous little political, cultural and legal offensives by the Islamic supremacist "fifth column" already in the West, and Western political fecklessness in the face of same - including, sadly, I might add, by Bush himself on many occasions. If there's anything worse than losing a war, it's winning a war only to let the victory go for naught. Sometimes it seems like Bush is hell-bent on doing precisely that.

Posted by Publius Hamilton | August 23, 2007 12:15 AM

It sure is amusing to watch the lefty trolls reply about the Captains latest post. You can see them getting all bugeyed as they descend into hysteria and name calling as they are confronted with facts to counter their bumper sticker arguments. It must drive them nuts to know that there are so many of us that refuse to drink their Koolaid and cower in fear and embrace defeat like they do...

There were lots of deserters and whining congressmen and editors during the Revolutionary War. Fortunately a determined group of patriots refused to drink the koolaid and stuck it out at Valley Forge behind their Commander in Chief (ironically a guy named George) while many in Congress and the media were calling for his head.

Some things never change.........

Posted by NoDonkey | August 23, 2007 7:13 AM

Publicus - We've also seen them shift from "the surge won't work/let's surrender/we know everything", to "the surge is working but it can't last/let's surrender/we know everything".

If these trolls were around during WWII, when the victory parade was rolling down Broadway, they'd be telling us the US really lost because the troll's Soviet heroes (who really defeated the Germans, of course), still held Berlin.

For the trolls, the goalpost is not in the end zone, it's not even in the stadium. It's in another galaxy.

Which explains their whole worldview and why they're all utter and complete losers, pining for the day some Democrat politician shows up at their doorstep with a sack of gold.

Posted by John | August 23, 2007 8:17 AM

No Donkey, you may have an aversion to historical fact but it's hard to deny that the Red Army broke the Wehrmacht. Any more than denying the American navy broke the Japanese navy. Your rants would have a speck more credibility if you stuck with the facts. Only a speck.

Posted by John | August 23, 2007 8:23 AM

No Donkey, you may have an aversion to historical fact but it's hard to deny that the Red Army broke the Wehrmacht. Any more than denying the American navy broke the Japanese navy. Your rants would have a speck more credibility if you stuck with the facts. Only a speck.

Posted by John | August 23, 2007 8:23 AM

No Donkey, you may have an aversion to historical fact but it's hard to deny that the Red Army broke the Wehrmacht. Any more than denying the American navy broke the Japanese navy. Your rants would have a speck more credibility if you stuck with the facts. Only a speck.

Posted by NoDonkey | August 23, 2007 10:24 AM

My point however, was that the left never allows a single positive moment to occur in this war without immediately sprinting to the ramparts to scream that we should ignore any/all good news and that the wise thing to do is to immediately declare the war, the soldiers and the country a failure.

Is this how people who want to win, act?

You people aren't positive about anything, even about your own so-called "leaders".

I haven't read a single positive thing from a troll on the site, about Democrats. Defense of their idiocy and treason, yes, but nothing about how Sen. X is going to lead us to a better country, etc.

Because that would take courage, at least, the courage to back up your beliefs by putting forth a candidate.

Instead, like 12 years olds sitting at the back of the class, the left throws erasers at the teacher and snickers. Pathetic.

And the media sprints to the cameras when some non-existent event like Hadditha occurs, yet somehow they never have time in between Paris Hilton updates to tell us about the brave soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen who are out there earning Medals of Honor, etc. and who are giving their lives to save Iraqis and Afghanis.

And as far as the Soviets, they would have been overrun without the opening of the western front and without western resupply. And I wish Patton could have taken a few of those German Divisions and swept up what was left of the Red Army and Stalin's gulags.

Posted by NoDonkey | August 23, 2007 10:27 AM

My point however, was that the left never allows a single positive moment to occur in this war without immediately sprinting to their keyboards to scream that we should ignore any/all good news and that the wise thing to do is to immediately declare the war, the soldiers and the country a failure.

Is this how people who want to win, act?

You trolls aren't positive about anything, even about your own so-called "leaders".

I haven't read a single positive thing from a troll on this site, about Democrats. Defense of their idiocy and treason, yes, but nothing about how Sen. X is going to lead us to a better country, etc.

Because that would take courage, at least, the courage to back up your beliefs by putting forth a candidate (of course, what you have to work with in Democrats, how positive could you even be?).

Instead, like 12 years olds sitting at the back of the class, the left throws erasers at the teacher and snickers. Pathetic.

And the media sprints to the cameras when some non-existent event like Haditha occurs, yet somehow they never have time in between Paris Hilton updates to tell us about the brave soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen who are out there earning Medals of Honor, etc. and who are giving their lives to save Iraqis and Afghanis.

And as far as the Soviets, they would have been defeated without the opening of the western front and without western supplies, which is exactly what Stalin repeatedly told Roosevelt. And I wish Patton could have taken a few of those German Divisions and swept up what was left of the Red Army and Stalin's gulags.

Posted by F3hDemon | August 23, 2007 10:41 AM

QuislingActivistPinkos:

You will be defeated. We will bury you! Stop torturing the worthless dems. Leave them alone. Form a third party now. The power of God commands thee!!

Posted by gaffo | August 23, 2007 6:28 PM

Alot of Donkey crap aroudn here:

"non-existent event like Hadditha"

what the fuck does this mean?

you a holocaust denier as well Donkey?

oh ya - you know nothing about history BTW:

"And as far as the Soviets, they would have been defeated without the opening of the western front and without western supplies,"


Hate to burst you bubble, but Germany was finished by 1944 - only a matter of time before the soviets had all of Germany and the rest of Europe with her. USSR didn't "need" us to invade France and relieve them. They were on their way to Berlin and westward from there and would have defeated Germany on their own had we not invaded Normany.
WTF do you think we invaded Normany? To prevent the Soviets from taking ALL of Germany and the rest of Western Europe by 1947 or 48. We all know the Germans were goners by summer of 44.
Germans had one yr to take the USSR - to 42. They failed and by 43 they were on parity with the Soviets - on the WAY DOWN, while Soviets were on the way up.
When an arrogant Nation invades you and kills 20-percent of your population you tend to get your hackles up. History has shown many times that only the suicidel invade Russia - they will win everytime. We ain't taking about the French/Italians here.


"which is exactly what Stalin repeatedly told Roosevelt. And I wish Patton could have taken a few of those German Divisions and swept up what was left of the Red Army and Stalin's gulags."


Soviets were our allies during ww2 - Patton was insane.

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