Ralph Peters weighs in with a GREAT column:
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QUIT. It’s that simple . . .
Increasingly, quitting looks like the new American Way of War. No matter how great your team, you can’t win the game if you walk off the field at half-time. That’s precisely what the Democratic Party wants America to do in Iraq. Forget the fact that we’ve made remarkable progress under daunting conditions: The Dems are looking to throw the game just to embarrass the Bush administration.
Forget about the consequences. Disregard the immediate encouragement to the terrorists and insurgents to keep killing every American soldier they can. Ignore what would happen in Iraq — and the region — if we bail out. And don’t mention how a U.S. surrender would turn al Qaeda into an Islamic superpower, the champ who knocked out Uncle Sam in the third round. [After having knocked out the Soviet Union -Ed.]
This is precisely what worries me the most and what is ignored by the Democrats and the talking heads. Imagine the boost to Al Qaeda’s morale if they defeat both superpowers in less than 2o years. They could honestly claim to be the wave of the future. What a recruiting tool it would be! And if the US and USSR can be defeated, turning Europe into Eurabia would be trivial by comparison.
Forget about our dead soldiers, whose sacrifice is nothing but a political club for Democrats to wave in front of the media. After all, one way to create the kind of disaffection in the ranks that the Dems’ leaders yearn to see is to tell our troops on the battlefield that they’re risking their lives for nothing, we’re throwing the game.
What about our public diplomacy efforts? How can we persuade others that we’re good guys when the Democrats say we aren’t?
Forget that our combat veterans are re-enlisting at remarkable rates — knowing they’ll have to leave their families and go back to war again. Ignore the progress on the ground, the squeezing of the insurgency’s last strongholds into the badlands on the Syrian border. Blow off the successive Iraqi elections and the astonishing cooperation we’ve seen between age-old enemies as they struggle to form a decent government.
Just set a time-table for our troops to come home and show the world that America is an unreliable ally with no stomach for a fight, no matter the stakes involved. Tell the world that deserting the South Vietnamese and fleeing from Somalia weren’t anomalies — that’s what Americans do.
While we’re at it, let’s just print up recruiting posters for the terrorists, informing the youth of the Middle East that Americans are cowards who can be attacked with impunity.
Whatever you do, don’t talk about any possible consequences. Focus on the moment — and the next round of U.S. elections. Just make political points. After all, those dead American soldiers and Marines don’t matter — they didn’t go to Ivy League schools. (Besides, most would’ve voted Republican had they lived.)
America’s security? Hah! As long as the upcoming elections show Democratic gains, let the terrorist threat explode. So what if hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners might die in a regional war? So what if violent fundamentalism gets a shot of steroids? So what if we make Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the most successful Arab of the past 500 years?
For God’s sake, don’t talk about democracy in the Middle East. After all, democracy wasn’t much fun for the Dems in 2000 or 2004. Why support it overseas, when it’s been so disappointing at home?
Human rights? Oh, dear. Human rights are for rich white people who live in Malibu. Unless you can use the issue to whack Republicans. Otherwise, brown, black or yellow people can die by the millions. Dean, Reid & Pelosi, LLC, won’t say, “Boo!”
You’ve got to understand, my fellow citizens: None of this matters. And you don’t matter, either. All that matters is scoring political points. Let the world burn. Let the massacres run on. Let the terrorists acquire WMD. Just give the Bush administration a big black eye and we’ll call that a win.
The irresponsibility of the Democrats on Capitol Hill is breathtaking. (How can an honorable man such as Joe Lieberman stay in that party?) Not one of the critics of our efforts in Iraq — not one — has described his or her vision for Iraq and the Middle East in the wake of a troop withdrawal. Not one has offered any analysis of what the terrorists would gain and what they might do. Not one has shown respect for our war dead by arguing that we must put aside our partisan differences and win.
There’s plenty I don’t like about the Bush administration. Its domestic policies disgust me, and the Bushies got plenty wrong in Iraq. But at least they’ll fight. The Dems are ready to betray our troops, our allies and our country’s future security for a few House seats.
Surrender is never a winning strategy.
Yes, we’ve been told lies about Iraq — by Dems and their media groupies. About conditions on the ground. About our troops. About what’s at stake. About the consequences of running away from the great struggle of our time. About the continuing threat from terrorism. And about the consequences for you and your family.
What do the Democrats fear? An American success in Iraq. They need us to fail, and they’re going to make us fail, no matter the cost. They need to declare defeat before the 2006 mid-term elections and ensure a real debacle before 2008 — a bloo
Bloody mess they’ll blame on Bush, even though they made it themselves.
We won’t even talk about the effect quitting while we’re winning in Iraq might have on the go-to-war calculations of other powers that might want to challenge us in the future. Let’s just be good Democrats and prove that Osama bin Laden was right all along: Americans have no stomach for a fight.
As for the 2,000-plus dead American troops about whom the lefties are so awfully concerned? As soon as we abandon Iraq, they’ll forget about our casualties quicker than an amnesiac forgets how much small-change he had in his pocket.
If we run away from our enemies overseas, our enemies will make their way to us. Quit Iraq, and far more than 2,000 Americans are going to die.
And they won’t all be conservatives.
Excellent!! Wake up Democrats, your cutting your own throat too!!
Mr. Peters manages to convey most of my feelings regarding what passes for the current “debate” on the war. It is like we are stuck in a time warp where every conflict needs to be forced into a Vietnam mold, no matter how non-sensical the analogy is.
While mistakes have been made in Iraq, they have been far fewer than in any other major conflict the USA has undertaken. We are winning, with democracy taking firm root in a country with no living memory of anything other than tyranical despotism. Other countries in the Islmaic world are beginning to change: Lebanon, Pakistan, Lybia, Egypt…......even the Saudis are making half hearted efforts for forms sake. For the first time in two generations, meaningful progress appears to be underway.
The current dialogue by the left, MMM and spineless Republicans disgusts me.
As an independent, I want two parties (and more) to offer realistic, viable alternatives to the issues we face. However, the Democratic Party has veered so far into defeatism, pessimism and cynicism that they have become a greater obstacle to our success than alQaeda. Al Qaeda doesn’t need to wage a propaganda war, the Democrats are doing it for them. The reality is that there are Americans who are interested in defeating Islamic extremism and promoting democracy and then there are Americans who are interested in defeating Bush and promoting the Democratic Party. As our soldiers fight Islamic fundamentalists around the world, we have to fight a war of ideas here at home against the defeatists and cynics and political opportunists.
I share your concern. If the US leaves Iraq prematurly, all terrorists (not just Al Qaeda) will get a boost and the world will be more insecure.
“And don’t mention how a U.S. surrender would turn al Qaeda into an Islamic superpower, the champ who knocked out Uncle Sam in the third round. [After having knocked out the Soviet Union -Ed.]”
I am a bit confused by the addition.
I thought Reagan’s arms race knocked out the Soviet Union?
I thought the US takes credit for having helped the Afghan freedom fighters to kick out the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.
If you are saying that Al Qaeda knocked out the Soviet Union, then you are suggesting that the US was one of Al Qaedas first supporters.
Do you really want to give credit to Al Qaeda for defeating the Soviet Union? You are getting close to calling the US a supporter of terrorism…
I thought Bin Laden was just one of many Arabs fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan. And I thought the US only supported Afghan mujahedeen, but not Arab mujahedeen.
And I thought that the Afghan mujahedeen rather than the Arabs or Al Qaeda knocked out the Soviet Union.
Since you give credit to Al Quaeda for knocking out the Soviets, are you then also saying it was a mistake to support the mujahedeen because the Soviet defeat benefited Islamic extremists and Al Qaeda in particular??
(One could say that the Soviet Union would have collapsed even without the defeat in Afghanistan due to Reagan’s defence policies, the economic failure in the SU, the democratic revolutions in the Warsaw Pact etc. So therefore in hindsight there was no need to support the mujahedeen and other Islamic fundamentalists…)
Atlantic, I think you misunderstand what he is saying with his addition. This is being said as if from al Qaeda’s point of view. They believe they defeated one superpower, the Soviets, and a retreat by the US in Iraq would be spun as a defeat of yet another superpower and this would have a propaganda effect. He’s not saying that this is what happened, but how al Qaeda would spin it and how it would be believed by many in the Islamic world.
phil,
That’s it, exactly. Thanks for clarifying the point I was trying to make.
Hate to break it to you, but Al Qaeda did NOT defeat the USSR, the Afghans did. They did most of the fighting and most of the dying and it was the Afghans which the US armed through Pakistan. Foreign fighters, while present, did not make up a significant part of the resistance numerically or in terms of who was responsible for the victory. In short, they helped but they by no means won against the USSR.
Chirol,
Please see the previous two comments.
Thanks for the clarification.