Dems Just Don’t Get It On Iraq
Wednesday - January 16, 2008
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Del.icio.usLast week’s pre-primary debate in New Hampshire between the Democratic candidates for the presidency was chillingly revealing - “chillingly,” that is, if you believe our next president should be able to grasp simple reality. As the Wall Street Journal noted editorially: “So what we take away from the four Democratic candidates’ stunning display of misinformation and false statements about the surge (in Iraq) is that they have simply stopped thinking about Iraq. They seem to have concluded that opposition to the war permits them to literally not know what the U.S. or the Iraqis are doing there.”
Barack Obama, seemingly stuck on the political sound bite that has worked OK from the beginning - “we have not made ourselves safer as a consequence” - reveals either his willing ignorance or his intellectual dishonesty.
By every objective measure, Iraq is a significantly safer place now than before the surge, not to mention that America has remained safe from attack during the six years since 9-11.
And for any who think that is irrelevant to our Iraq policy, then to what might it be attributed? “Senator Obama seems to be talking his way toward believing that eloquence and credibility are the same thing.”
Gov. Bill Richardson, “who touts his foreign policy credentials in the space of a minute,” is as far out of touch with the realities of Iraq as he is from the Democratic nomination and simply deserves no more ink.
Senator Edwards seems to think the decrease in violence in Iraq’s southern Basra province is the result of the withdrawal of British troops from that area last month. Yet UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said as the Brits handed over responsibility to the Iraqi forces, the turnover was due to a “massive decline in insurgent activity.” “Mr. Edwards’ view that a troop pull-out will then reduce violence is unique among public figures anywhere.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton stubbornly stuck to the same guns with which she tried to shoot down Gen. David Petraeus during her grilling Senate hearing comment, “that only ‘a willing suspension of disbelief’ could show that the surge had done any good.” (Am I the only one who thinks “suspension of disbelief” is a double negative meaning ‘belief’?)Clinton then added there was no reason our troops “should remain in Iraq, beyond, you know, today!”
As the WSJ editorial concluded, “For the past year, Democrats in the Senate and House have enforced rock-solid party opposition (to the Iraq war). They now have four candidates running for the U.S. presidency who seem to believe it is to their political advantage to deny manifest reality.”
Anyone who has not been in a four-year coma realizes that Iraq’s ongoing stability as it relates directly to America’s security will require our continued presence and commitment into the foreseeable future. And we have only reached this point with significant sacrifice of lives and treasure. Yet it would seem that if any of these Democratic contenders should be elected, they would, in effect, have us simply walk away, reality and consequences be damned.
For those of us who are not “yellow dog Democrats” (one who would vote for any yellow dog instead of a non-Democrat - and if there’s a Republican equivalent let me hear it), it matters greatly how we cast our vote come November.
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