Poison Pills, Iraq War Funding and the Factually Challenged NYT

If you want to know the likely Democratic strategies for Iraq, they usually get floated first in the opinion section of the New York Times. And what appears there today is a prescription for putting barely disguised poison pills into the supplemental appropriations bill.

This is now a race to defeat. General Petraeus has promised to brief our elected leaders in September (assuming Murtha and Pelosi can make that briefing) on the status of counter-insurgency operations in Iraq. It seems a reasonable bet, based on all that has occurred since February, that General Petraeus will be reporting significant progress.

This leaves the Democrats in a quandry. In what must be the craven low point of partisan politics, Harry Reid and Jack Murtha have already begun attacking the honesty of General Petraeus. But that will be nowhere near enough. The far left of the party is demanding an outright end to the war, irrespective of the President's veto. And given their stranglehold on Democratic politics today, they have touched off a bidding war among Democratic presidential candidates to see who can surrender the fastest - with Ms. Clinton submitting the latest bid.

There is of course no chance of such legislation passing into law, but it greatly complicates what Democrats in Congress will seek to put into the bill. The NYT tells us today that it will be benchmarks tied to penalties. There is nothing wrong with crafting reasonable benchmarks that are grounded in reality and take into account on-going hostilities. That is not what the Democrats have in mind. In articulating this strategy, the NYT attempts to deligitimize Maliki, falsely painting him as inept and partisan, unable and unwilling to do what is necessary to govern Iraq:

Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial, most Congressional Republicans are prepared to back up President Bush’s veto of the Iraq spending bill. It is now essential that the revised version not back away from demanding that Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, finally deliver on the crucial national reconciliation measures he has spent the last year dodging.

In the last year, Prime Minister Maliki has broken ranks with the Sadrists, overseen the adoption of a major security effort targeting al Qaeda, ex-Baathists and Shia militants, he has submitted an oil sharing law that is now with Parliament, he has drafted a law to restart pensions for retired Baathists, he has proposed a de-Baathification law that is now in the cabinet, and he has travelled to Anbar province to meet with Sunni leaders. Does that sound like dodging? Ah, but one cannot expect the NYT to evince intellectual honesty. Broad slanders are more their style.

What Mr. Maliki needs to do to slow Iraq’s bloodletting is no mystery. Iraq’s security forces must stop siding with the Shiite militias.

Today, U.S. and Iraqi forces are permanently encamped in Sadr City, Sadr is in hiding in Iran, and splinter groups of his militia are being pummled from Diyala to Sadr City. All of this is occurring with the explicit approval of Maliki and has been ongoing for months. Again, the NYT does not let facts get in the way of argument.

Iraq’s oil revenue must be apportioned fairly. . . . Then there is the endless soap opera that is one day supposed to produce a fair share-out of Iraqi oil revenues. The Bush administration prematurely popped champagne corks in February when Mr. Maliki’s cabinet agreed on a preliminary draft. Now, in May, there is no share-out, no legislation and even the preliminary agreement is starting to unravel.

The oil sharing law is with Parliament and is expected to be voted on this month. It provides for oil wealth of the nation to be centrally collected then spent on a per capita basis. You cannot get fairer then that. There is no hold up from Maliki on this. The Kurds are screaming bloody murder because they want to break away and create their own state eventually - thus, they want to control the oil wealth in their sector of the country. But, the Kurds do not have the numbers in Parliament to stop this legislation. It should be voted on in the last week of May. The NYT is trying to use this one as a bad fact while they still can. Unfortunately for the NYT, all of this negative press only insures that, when the law passes, it will be hailed as a major development. That is the danger of this type of partisan overreaching in which the NYT is engaging.

Anti-Baathist laws now used to deny Sunni Arabs employment and political opportunities must be rewritten to target only those responsible for the crimes of the Saddam Hussein era.

This is a red herring. It was long thought that a quick de-baathification would draw Sunni support for the government and winnow them away from al Qaeda. Events have overtaken this one. The Sunnis have given their support over to the government for a host of reasons, and are rueing the fact that they abstained from taking real part in the elections. For Shias, they are afraid of a quick de-Baathification because of fears of Sunnis back in power. Given Iraq's history, it would be unrealistic to ignore that the Shias hold those concerns. Pushing this really will be a poison pill. Legislation is in cabinet for de-baathification. It was submitted in March. When it will be out is anyone's guess. But to put it in perspective, how about our legislation on border countrol and illegal immigrants? We have been at that one for years now, and it is nowhere near as divisive as de-Baathification.

Without these steps, Mr. Maliki and his allies cannot even minimally claim to be a real national government.

Like it or not, NYT, this is the government voted on by millions of Iraqis. How you can claim them to be illegitimate is beyond me. Well, no, its not. This is simply another attempt at deligitimizing the Iraqi government. It makes it much easier to turn your back on them when the first opportunity presents.

With them, there is at least a chance that Iraqis can muster the strength to contain the chaos when, as is inevitable, American forces begin to leave.

That is an unusual and ominous sentence. It would seem that the NYT is laying the groundwork for a quick retreat, irregardless of the situation on the ground, does it not? They will lay the blame for the chaos on Bush and Maliki, rather then on al Qaeda, Iran and their own policies. I wonder how long that fallacious construct will stand?

Mr. Bush acknowledges that these benchmarks are important. Yet he refuses to insist, or let Congress insist, that Baghdad achieve them or face real consequences.

This is laying the groundwork for the argument that refusal to put in poison pills that Iraqis cannot meet is partisanship and unreasonableness on the part of Bush.

Consider the Baghdad security drive. Last week, The Washington Post reported that Mr. Maliki’s office had helped instigate the firing of senior Iraqi security officers who moved aggressively against a powerful Shiite militia. After betting so many American lives, the combat readiness of the United States Army and his own remaining credibility on this bloody push to secure the capital, it is a mystery why Mr. Bush would allow the Iraqi leader to undermine it.

It might be helpful to reread that Washington Post article and pick it apart. There is no claim that Maliki had any role in the firing of the sixteen officers, nine of whom were Sunni. Further, most of them were relieved for corruption and/or lack of effectiveness. There is a question about a few of the firings. But to paint Maliki as a sinister force attempting to block attacks on Shia militias because of that is just baseless slander. Or, as the NYT refers to it, objective journalism.

The leading Sunni Arab party in Mr. Maliki’s cabinet is now threatening to withdraw its ministers, declaring that it has “lost hope” that the Iraqi leader will deal seriously with Sunni concerns.

This is hardball politics, nothing more. This has absolutely nothing to do with the effectiveness of the Maliki government, and everything to do with the Sunnis in government seeing an opportunity to leverage America to get concessions. See here. This is just another NYT red herring.

Mr. Bush, by contrast, sees “signs of hope” in the Baghdad security situation, urges Americans to give his failed policies more time and seems offended that Congress wants to impose accountability on Baghdad and the White House.

Thus we are given a choice, I guess, between Bush's "failed policies" and the NYT/Democrat "policies to insure failure." I think I will opt for the former.

The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won’t let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America’s withdrawal. If Mr. Maliki and Mr. Bush still don’t get it, Congress will have to enact new means of enforcement, and back that up with a veto-proof majority.

This is nothing more then the NYT floating the idea of poison pills that the Democrats are trying to put back into the supplemental appropriations bill. If there was any interest at all in actually suceeding in Iraq, the NYT would acknowledge the yeoman's effort of Maliki in leading the country and would focus benchmarks on security, reconstruction and the provision of basic services.

Our military has not and will not lose this war. Only our government can do that for us. And if that is the goal, then they should do it up front and take responsiblity for it, not by trying to sneak poison pills in the backdoor.

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Shooting Dionnes In A Barrel

The left's motivation to retreat from Iraq is now so nakedly partisan and political that it can't be covered up. But that will not sway partisan hacks from trying to claim otherwise as they fight to keep middle America from waking up to the changing reality in Iraq and the potential costs to the nation if Reid and company succeed in forcing defeat and retreat. For example, see this today from EJ Dionne which, if it did not appear in the Opinion section of a major newspaper, I would consider an attempt at satire:

President Bush and Vice President Cheney cannot make the case that their Iraq policies have succeeded, so they are doing one thing they do very well: taking a serious argument over the future of American foreign policy and turning it into a petty partisan squabble.

This is not really an argument over the "surge" of troops into Iraq. It is a fight over whether we want to make an open-ended commitment to keeping combat forces in Iraq for many years or whether we anticipate pulling most of them out within a year or two.

Way to stay on message, E.J. The surge is meaningless. We don’t want any reports of improving conditions in Iraq to confuse the decision. I like how you seperate the surge from the issue of declaring defeat in advance and getting out of Iraq. And Bush is the partisan acting for wholly political reasons. I love the way you turn a Dem weakness around by accusing the other side of the failing. Great tactics, EJ.

Even if the surge succeeds in a narrow sense -- by reducing the number of Iraqis killed in sectarian violence in Baghdad -- there is no guarantee that the overall situation in Iraq will be any better, no guarantee that Iraqi leaders will take the political steps necessary to end the internecine killing and create a stable government, no guarantee that we will make progress against al-Qaeda.

Good, EJ. We need to stay away from the original reason to get out of Iraq – that there was a “civil war” going on. Can’t have a civil war without sectarian violence now, can we. Thank God the surge is so narrow in its scope and that it can’t guarantee outcomes. Why the hell did we get into all this anyway if al Qaeda and Iran had not agreed to surrender and make it easy for us in the first place.

Although he conveniently appeared in Washington as Congress was voting on war appropriations, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, did not play politics.

I like the way you frame this one. Bringing the top general in Iraq, the one leading the effort to stabilize the country, to Washington, for an unwanted briefing on the facts directly in advance of voting on retreat was clearly a partisan political move by the Bushies. And just to attend that briefing, Nancy had to cancel a visit with the art dealer where whe was getting the photos of her talking to Syria's president framed. Ooops - sorry - I forgot, she didn't attend the Petraeus briefing.

Wednesday in assessing the situation there. He spoke, rightly, of progress in Anbar province, a Sunni stronghold, but added: "The ability of al-Qaeda to conduct horrific, sensational attacks obviously has represented a setback and is an area in which we are focusing considerable attention."

See. The Surge is not working. Just because the Sunnis in Anbar (hey, aren’t they the one’s supposed to be fighting the other half of the civil war?) are joining government security forces in droves and are moving al Qaeda out of their Anbar bases is meaningless so long as 1 or 2 suicide bombers from Saudi Arabia can blow themselves up. A good I told you so moment, EJ.

The president's comments this week were less measured. "I will strongly reject an artificial timetable withdrawal," Bush said, "and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job."

Let's parse that statement. The notion that Congress has an "artificial timetable" suggests there must be such a thing as a "natural timetable." But what would that be? Presumably, the president would reply: when we achieve victory. But what is the definition of "victory" in the murky mess we're in? The administration offers only generalities that lead us nowhere.

EJ, you might want to stay away from this one. Its too easy to point out that the natural timetable would be when Iraq and its government are stabilized and can stand on their own. That is, after all, kind of how we left Germany and Japan. Work on that one.

And it's beyond chutzpah for a politician who has lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for more than 2,280 days to attack "Washington politicians." Didn't Petraeus get his orders to pursue the surge from a certain Washington politician otherwise known as the commander in chief?

EJ, this one is pretty weak too. Can you tighten this one up. Bush is criticizing Reed, Pelosi et al for making military decisions that aren’t theirs to make under the Constitution. We don’t want to raise that or the Dems will have to take responsibility for those decisions. Let’s stick to the simple arguments, okay, before we start confusing the issues with facts.

Or take Vice President Cheney's statement on Tuesday: "Some Democratic leaders seem to believe that blind opposition to the new strategy in Iraq is good politics." Cheney assumes that opposition to the administration's policies must be "blind" rather than a considered, rational response to four years of failure. And the opposition must be rooted in "politics" and not in principle, presumably because reasonable people cannot possibly have good cause for disagreeing with the administration.

I love how you do this, EJ. Cheney is acting only for partisan political gain while Reid is the politician acting only on principal. I like how you focus on the pre-surge days and how you sidestep the fact that Reid said he would not believe any change in facts on the ground. No need to dwell on that when we can dwell on the pre-surge days.

What Bush and Cheney are doing is not just wrong. It's dangerous. If they were interested in success in Iraq, they would have turned down the partisan rhetoric long ago.

This is absolutely fantastic. You have made Bush and Cheney out to be the dangers to our national security, and taken the focus off the ramifications for our national security if we retreat. Be careful with the non-sequiturs though. We need to appeal to middle America, not just George Soros.

A substantial majority now opposes their policies. The last thing the administration needs is more polarization, which clearly has not worked in its favor.

That’s better. These republicans should treat war and our national security like good dems – a lot less principle, a lot more polling.

The president needs to convince Americans that a decent result in Iraq is still possible. . . .

EJ and I agree on that one. Wholeheartedly.

With the president set to veto the supplemental spending bill that includes calls for withdrawal, the whole burden of proof in this debate should change.

Good, EJ. We do not want some idiot reporters asking our boys questions about what will happen as a result of a retreat and surrender – at least not before the 08 election is over. Way to keep this debate focused on what matters. Only ask questions and expect reasonable answers from the Republicans. Great stuff.

The burden should no longer be on those who say we are reaching the limits of what military force can achieve in Iraq -- partly because we never sent enough troops in the first place and also because our military is stretched to the breaking point, limiting how many forces the Washington politician in the White House can offer Petraeus.

Watch this kind of argument, EJ. Somebody might figure out that the Congress holds the purse strings and can increase the size and funding for our military at the stroke of a pen. We have spinach farmers, peanut farmers and labor unions who can put that money to much better use supporting Democrat candidates as long as we don’t let the cat out of the bag.

Instead, the burden of proof should be on those who have offered years of bravado and false optimism. Why are Americans supposed to believe Bush's current claims? Why shouldn't Congress continue to pressure the president to bring our combat troops home on a reasonable schedule? And why doesn't the president start talking seriously to Congress instead of just shouting at Democrats?

I like how you do that EJ. Nothing that Bush says about the facts can be believed. We get to take Dems at their word now. Hmmm, what about Petraeus though. He may be a problem. You may want to attack his veracity a little more in advance of his September report. But there’s time for that I guess. And I love the way your euphanism for retreat by the way – “bring the troops home on a reasonable schedule.” That has a great ring to it.


You can read EJ Dionne's dribble here. If this is what we can expect from the Dem's in light of what will most likely be increasingly good news from Iraq, there is a hole there the size of the Grand Canyon to be exploited. Only gross imcompetence in communicating it too the public could possibly fail this one. So why am I still worried?

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Taheri asks Reid, To Whom Will You Surrender?

Amir Taheri has a cutting essay today on Harry Reid and his impact on the war debate.

Without meaning to do so, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pushed the debate on Iraq in a new direction. Reid claims that the war is lost and that the United States has already been defeated. By advancing the claim, Reid has moved the debate away from the initial antiwar obsession with the legal and diplomatic controversies that preceded it.

At the same time, Reid has parted ways with Democratic leaders such as Sen. Hillary Clinton, who supported the war but who now claims that its conduct has been disastrous. What they mean, by implication, is that a Democratic president would do better than George W. Bush and win the war. Reid's new position, however, means that even a Democratic president wouldn't be able to ensure a U.S. victory in Iraq. For him, Iraq is irretrievably lost.

Some antiwar analysts have praised Reid for what they term "his clarity of perception." A closer examination, however, would show that Reid might have added to the confusion that has plagued his party over the issue from the start.

Because all wars have winners and losers, Reid, having identified America as the loser, is required to name the winner. This Reid cannot do.

The reason is that, whichever way one looks at the situation, America and its Iraqi allies remain the only objective victors in this war.

Reid cannot name al Qaeda as the winner, because the terror organization has failed to achieve any of its objectives. It hasn't been able to halt the process of democratization, marked by a string of elections, and it has failed to destroy the still fragile institutions created in the post-Saddam era. Al Qaeda is also suffering from increasing failure to attract new recruits, while coming under pressure from Iraqi Sunni Arab tribes, especially west of the Euphrates.

. . . What about the remnants of the Saddamite regime? Can Reid name them as victors? Hardly. . . .

Reid may believe that Iran, either alone or with its Syrian Sancho Panza, is the victor. If that's the case, Reid shares the illusion peddled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Convinced that the Americans will run away, mostly thanks to political maneuvers by Reid and his friends, Ahmadinejad has gone on the offensive in Iraq and throughout the region. By heightening his profile, he wants to make sure that Iran reaps the fruits of what Reid is sowing in Washington.

But even then, it's unlikely that most Iraqis would acknowledge Ahmadinejad as winner and bow to his diktat. The Islamic Republic cannot act as victor solely because Reid says so.

It's possible that Reid imagined that his analytical problems are over simply because he has identified the war's loser. The truth is that his troubles are only beginning. He must tell Americans to whom they wish their army to surrender in Iraq.

That Reid is desperately trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory isn't surprising. His party requires an American defeat in Iraq in order to win the congressional and presidential elections next year. . . .

Read the whole article here. Even as events are advancing for the better in Iraq, fully 55% of Americans polled by the WSJ now believe that victory is not possible in Iraq. It is incredibly disheartening. What happens between now and September is crucial. American's had every right to demand much more from our government. By any measure, the Bush administration followed a magnificent military campaign with fumbling to a degree usually only seen in a Three Stooges short. But the Iraq of today is a far different animal then it was on election day last year, and I question just how many Americans want to embrace defeat in Iraq, with all the ramifications thereof, just to punish Bush or to reward the far left.

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More Thoughts On The Democrats' Embrace of Defeat

Ed Morrisey at Captain's Quarters hits the nail on the head with his commentary this day:

. . . [T]he Bush administration understands the catastrophe in store for the region if the US yanks the troops from Iraq, while the Democrats have played this new strategy strictly for political gain. The same party leaders that scolded Bush during the election last year for listening to Donald Rumsfeld rather than his field commanders now won't even bother to attend a briefing with Petraeus before setting out on this course. They set the vote up in order to coordinate campaign commercials while declaring defeat from Capitol Hill. They have made themselves into a disgrace in less than four months in power, reminding the nation why they locked them out of power for the previous six years.

Read the entire post here.

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Joe Lieberman Responds to Harry Reid

Senator Joe Lieberman, eloquent as always, responds to Harry Reid's craven and opportunistic claims claims that the Iraq war is "lost" and the surge is "failed" because of al Qaeda suicide bombings in Baghdad.

Last week a series of coordinated suicide bombings killed more than 170 people. The victims were not soldiers or government officials but civilians -- innocent men, women and children indiscriminately murdered on their way home from work and school.

If such an atrocity had been perpetrated in the United States, Europe or Israel, our response would surely have been anger at the fanatics responsible and resolve not to surrender to their barbarism.

Unfortunately, because this slaughter took place in Baghdad, the carnage was seized upon as the latest talking point by advocates of withdrawal here in Washington. Rather than condemning the attacks and the terrorists who committed them, critics trumpeted them as proof that Gen. David Petraeus's security strategy has failed and that the war is "lost."

And today, perversely, the Senate is likely to vote on a binding timeline of withdrawal from Iraq.

This reaction is dangerously wrong. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both the reality in Iraq and the nature of the enemy we are fighting there.

. . . In the two months since Petraeus took command, the United States and its Iraqi allies have made encouraging progress on two problems that once seemed intractable: tamping down the Shiite-led sectarian violence that paralyzed Baghdad until recently and consolidating support from Iraqi Sunnis -- particularly in Anbar, a province dismissed just a few months ago as hopelessly mired in insurgency.

This progress is real, but it is still preliminary.

The suicide bombings we see now in Iraq are an attempt to reverse these gains: a deliberate, calculated counteroffensive led foremost by al-Qaeda, the same network of Islamist extremists that perpetrated catastrophic attacks in Kenya, Indonesia, Turkey and, yes, New York and Washington.

Indeed, to the extent that last week's bloodshed clarified anything, it is that the battle of Baghdad is increasingly a battle against al-Qaeda. Whether we like it or not, al-Qaeda views the Iraqi capital as a central front of its war against us.

Al-Qaeda's strategy for victory in Iraq is clear. It is trying to kill as many innocent people as possible in the hope of reigniting Shiite sectarian violence and terrorizing the Sunnis into submission.

In other words, just as Petraeus and his troops are working to empower and unite Iraqi moderates by establishing basic security, al-Qaeda is trying to divide and conquer with spectacular acts of butchery.

That is why the suggestion that we can fight al-Qaeda but stay out of Iraq's "civil war" is specious, since the very crux of al-Qaeda's strategy in Iraq has been to try to provoke civil war.

. . . When politicians here declare that Iraq is "lost" in reaction to al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks and demand timetables for withdrawal, they are doing exactly what al-Qaeda hopes they will do, although I know that is not their intent.

Even as the American political center falters, the Iraqi political center is holding. In the aftermath of last week's attacks, there were no large-scale reprisals by Shiite militias -- as undoubtedly would have occurred last year. Despite the violence, Iraq's leadership continues to make slow but visible progress toward compromise and reconciliation.

But if tomorrow Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds were to achieve the "political solution" we all hope for, the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq would not vanish.

Al-Qaeda, after all, isn't carrying out mass murder against civilians in the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenue. Its aim in Iraq isn't to get a seat at the political table; it wants to blow up the table -- along with everyone seated at it.

Certainly al-Qaeda can be weakened by isolating it politically. But even after the overwhelming majority of Iraqis agree on a shared political vision, there will remain a hardened core of extremists who are dedicated to destroying that vision through horrific violence. These forces cannot be negotiated or reasoned out of existence. They must be defeated.

The challenge before us, then, is whether we respond to al-Qaeda's barbarism by running away, as it hopes we do -- abandoning the future of Iraq, the Middle East and ultimately our own security to the very people responsible for last week's atrocities -- or whether we stand and fight.

To me, there is only one choice that protects America's security -- and that is to stand, and fight, and win.

Read the entire article here. It is a very reasoned response. But I wonder if it is keeping Senator Lieberman awake at night knowing that he can put an end to this Democratic opportunism by merely moving his chair across the aisle? You know it has to be eating at him.

Update: Here is an article from Hugh Hewitt asking when Lieberman will join the Republicans. And here is Lieberman's floor speech. It is actually bettern then the article he authored.

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Some Not Quite Inspiring Democrat Moments In History . . .

From the Ryskind Sketch Book. As the WSJ so succinctly put it, the Democrats now own defeat in the Iraq War. And see here, discussing the few truly anti-war democrats, and the majority who are naught but unprincipled opportunists, such as Give 'Em Surrender Harry.

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"Give 'Em Surrender" Harry Reid

We as a nation now have two "Harry" bookends to our historical period. At one end is Harry Truman, who led us to victory in World War II, utterly defeating Japan and Germany. Truman then led us part way into the Korean Conflict, where we decimated the North Korean Army and then pushed back the Chinese hordes that crossed the Yalu. That Harry had a nickname. It was "Give 'Em Hell" Harry. And now, at the opposite end of the spectrum in time and substance, we have "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry, the Senate Majority leader.

"Give 'Em Surrender" Harry declared our nascent counterinsurgency stategy a failure and the Iraq war lost yesterday, making an analogy between Bush's surge and the futility of the Vietnam War.

As evidence that the surge had failed and our loss as a nation complete, “Give ‘Em Surrender” Harry cited to the violence in Baghdad of Wednesday - a series of 4 car bombs, 3 of them suicide bombs, for which Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility. To amplify “Give ‘Em Surrender” Harry’s analogy to Vietnam, this act of violence is his Tet Offensive.

For those who might not know, Tet was the defining event of the Vietnam War. It was a mass offensive by 84,000 North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldiers and Viet Cong. And it was a total military failure. Within thirty days of its start, the U.S. had killed 50,000, completely decimating the Viet Cong and taking a sizable chunk out of the NVA. U.S. losses were 1,100 soldiers. Nonetheless, the mass offensive shocked the press. Walter Cronkite led our nation's journalists in portraying the Vietnam Conflict as unwinnable and Tet as a victory for the North Vietnamese. It led directly to our withdrawal from the "quagmire" of Vietnam.

Back to Give ‘Em Surrender Harry. His defining "Tet" event is not quite as large. Give ‘Em Surrender Harry just declared that the United States and its nascent counterinsurgency operation have failed and been defeated by four members of al Qaeda.

Let that sink in for a moment.

The foe we face in radical Islam is every bit as much an existential threat to us and Western Civilization as Nazi Germany. We are one dirty bomb on Wall Street away from a recession or maybe a depression. We are one nuclear explosion in a port city away from much, much worse. And we are a series of coordinated attacks on our malls and infrastructure away from going into martial law.

As "Give 'Em Hell" Harry's predecesor, FDR, told the nation on December 9, 1941, "the United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete," against such an existential foe, else there would never be "security for any nation-or any individual . . ." Give 'Em Surrender Harry obviously never read that speech discussing American values, American resolve, and the unthinkable consequences of failing to defeat such a foe. You can find FDR's speech here. If you have not read or heard it, it is very much worth taking the time and effort to do so. And someone might wish to pass it on to Give 'Em Surrender Harry.

Though the threat we face may be dire, "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry is declaring our defeat at a point when our losses are minimal by any measure. To date, our soldiers lost in Iraq number 3,315. Each is a tragedy, and as a former soldier and the father of soldiers, I deeply appreciate and grieve for each one. I am in no way belittling their loss when I point out, for the benefit of "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry, that 3,315 killed in Iraq is 3% of the losses we sustained in WWI to defeat German aggression; it is 1% of what we sustained defeating the Nazis in WWII; it is 6% of what we sustained in destroying the North Korean Army and then driving back the Chinese hordes in the Korean Conflict; and, it is 6% of what we sustained in Vietnam before we were pulled out.

And, just so you know, the U.S. has never lost an engagement in Iraq or Afghanistan involving a platoon size element or larger of U.S. soldiers. A platoon is about thirty men. Do you understand how significant that is?

With that track record, how can we possibly lose to Islamic extremists in Iraq or Afghanistan - or anywhere else in the world for that matter? Well, that is unless we are forced to embrace defeat predicated upon "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry's Tet Offensive of four al Qaeda suicide bombers.

Do you think Give 'Em Surrender Harry really means it when he says the surge has failed and our nation has lost in Iraq? Or is it just "Give Em Surrender" Harry who has decided that he wants us to lose? Is it just "Give Em Surrender" Harry who wants to insure that the surge does not succeed? And is it just "Give Em Surrender" Harry who is putting his quest for raw power above the horrid ramifications of a defeat for our national security and our foreign policy policy?

"Give 'Em Surrender" Harry offers no assessment of the costs that may arise out of his embrace of defeat. The mantra of "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry and his fellow Democrats has been that we cannot give President Bush a "blank check" to continue the war. I think any reasonable assessment of the costs of fighting a greatly emboldened radical Islam, flush with the victory of defeating the United States in Iraq, would utterly dwarf the costs of seeing Iraq to a stable democracy with all the major players - Sunni, Shia and Kurd - invested in its success.

To put it bluntly, Give 'Em Surrender Harry's claim of defeat in Iraq is cowardice, cynicism and hypocrisy writ on a grand scale. And in my view - traitorous. Perhaps we should nickname him "Benedict" Harry.



Update: Lest you think that last suggestion too over the top, consider this. Give 'Em Surrender Harry's statement that the Iraq war is "lost" is already having reverberations around the Islamic world. Read this from The Volokh Conspiracy:

Iranian Press TV reports, in response to Reid's statement:

Leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, has said the US has lost the Iraq war, and Bush's troop surge has failed.... Reid's comments came a day after 200 fatalities were reported in bombings in Iraq, despite a much touted US Security Plan which the White House said sought to root out insurgency."

A Republican party e-mail also reported the following as translations of items from Al-Jazeera Online, and Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, "The Leading Arabic International Daily"; please let me know if the translations are inaccurate:

"Yesterday the leader of the Democratic majority in Congress, Harry Reid, announced that he conveyed to Bush that the United States lost the war in Iraq and that the additional America forces that were sent there will not succeed in the achievement of any positive progress."

"Leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, has said the US has lost the Iraq war, and Bush's troop surge has failed.... Reid's comments came a day after 200 fatalities were reported in bombings in Iraq, despite a much touted US Security Plan which the White House said sought to root out insurgency."

As I have said before, it may well be quite proper -- and certainly constitutionally protected -- for people to criticize the war; and sometimes the benefits of such criticism, even of the "war is lost" variety and even when said by leading U.S. politicians, outweigh the costs. Yet it seems to me hard to doubt that this statement will have grave cost.

. . . Yet my suspicion is that the harm will be quite substantial indeed.

It is one thing for a dissembling Joe Biden to pronounce the surge a failure, or a New York Times cheerleading for the far left to call the war lost, but quite another when a leader of the Democratic Party and the Senate Majority Leader does so. I am quite willing to bet that Give 'Em Surrender Harry is now the new poster boy for a much energized radical Muslim recruitment from Terhan to Ridyah to Morroco to London, Rome and Washington D.C. Does anyone doubt for a moment that Wahhabi / Salafi clerics the world over, even as you read this, are not praising Give 'Em Surrender Harry's pronouncement as "Allah's will" and pointing to it as proof that more bloodshed will ultimately see radical Islam ascendent throughtout the world.

And if you want to forecast how Give 'Em Surrender Harry's statement will impact upon the average Iraqi who has a choice between supporting us and the Maliki government or the insurgents, be it al Qaeda in Iraq or the Iranian backed Mahdi Army, if you turn to the book authored by General Petraeus, the Army's field manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency, you will find this:

1-134: . . . The populace may prefer the HN [i.e., Iraqi] government to the insurgents; however, people do not actively support a government unless they are convinced that the counterinsurgents - [i.e., U.S. and Iraqi forces] have the means, ability, stamina, and will to win."

Give 'Em Surrender Harry may succeed in his clear objective of gaining political power in the '08 election, but at what cost to America in blood and gold?

Update: Now we know that, in the violent events of last Wednesday that "Give 'Em Surrender" Harry cited as proof the surge has failed, 3 of the 4 al Qaeda bombs were greatly limited by defenses put in place by the surge.

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Maliki Stumbles As The Washington Post Charts the Path to Retreat

Two items of note in this morning's news. The first involves Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki who, along with his government, has been working magic the past three weeks -- including a draft of an oil law, full political support for the aggressive pursuit of shia insurents and militias, and the announcement that he will dismiss all cabinet ministers from Sadr's party. Maliki has worked a three week sea change in the direction of Iraqi politics. Today, however, is a first real misstep. It comes in response to a raid in Basra conducted by British soldiers and Iraqi special forces on the headquarters of an Iraqi intelligence unit.

"Major Gell said the intelligence agency office was raided after an investigation earlier Sunday led to the capture of five suspected bomb makers and evidence that pointed to possible violations at the agency’s offices. In those offices, he said, “Evidence of significant criminal activity such as torture was found.”

Maliki was apparently "caught by surprise" when told of the raid. Instead of supporting the raid or waiting for a full report as to what was found, he immediately "condemned" the raid while ignoring the evidence of misdeeds.

“The prime minister has ordered an immediate investigation into the incident of breaking into the security compound in Basra and stressed the need to punish those who have carried out this illegal and irresponsible act,” said the full text of a statement issued late Sunday by his office.

Read the whole story here. I hope this was a simple stumble that is quickly corrected by Maliki. I sincerely hope this does not signal in any way a return to business as usual with Maliki caving to pressure to protect Shia government members at the expense of fairness and the rule of law. We will see as this plays out in the coming days.

The second item of note today comes from the Washington Post, who, following on the heels of yesterday's horrid anti-American hit piece, continue their drumbeat of defeatism. Today's piece is an article by Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks, "Bush Iraq Strategy Has No Option For Failure." Implicit in the article is a criticism of Bush for being unrealistic about the prospects for success in Iraq, and the article examines what seem to me to be wholly unrealistic "Murtha" options of redeployment to safe areas in Iraq, leaving the remainder of the country to flow into anarchy. Though ridiculous, it receives, of course, top billing in the WP today.

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