Posts with the tag 'Iraq'
I already refuse to watch even a moment of them - and will do my best to tune out even the barest mention of them. This due, of course, to the fact that China’s government is an anti-human, worst-sort-of-culture-of-death imaginable tyranny. But here’s another reason, if you need one - from NRO’s The Corner:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, issued the following statement in response to the International Olympic Committee’s decision to exclude Iraqi athletes from the Beijing Olympics:
“It is outrageous that the IOC would reject athletes from a democratic Iraq, and at the same time, from Saddam Hussein’s son Uday’s notorious, torture-based Iraqi Olympics team. embrace those from repressive regimes like North Korea, Burma and Sudan. This is the same Olympic organization that embraced the participation of athletes
“Rather than give the world the excitement of seeing Iraq’s athletes further unify their nation across sectarian boundaries in the spirit of Olympic competition, the IOC has chosen to spit in the eye of the athletes and people of this emerging democracy.
“I urge President Bush and the leaders of the free nations participating in the Beijing Olympics to put maximum pressure on the IOC to reverse course. Democratic leaders should not embrace the farce of watching athletes from some of the world’s most brutal regimes being paraded in front of them while athletes from new democracies are spurned.
“First tortured by Uday, and now rejected by the IOC, the athletes of Iraq have suffered enough.”
There is something which continues to outrage - no matter how many times I see it - about bodies staffed with international elites which will grovel to tyrants but have all sorts of objections to imperfect democracies. We can forgive them, of course - cut off as they are from the wellsprings of truth, the global elite often can’t even tell when they are doing a horribly wrong thing…but forgiving them and understanding their sorry plight doesn’t make it any better for the people of Iraq, who have every right to be represented in Beijing if, for instance, the slaves of North Korea are allowed in…
Tags: acts of cowardice, China, Iraq, Olympics
July 26th, 2008
The Christians of Iraq have suffered doubly - from Saddamit tyranny, and then as the easy target of terrorists and criminals. Things have improved remarkably in Iraq, and now we’re starting to see some signs of life in the Iraqi Christian community:
Christians in the southern Iraq have begun a campaign to restore churches which have been rendered unusable due to war and neglect.
Father Imad Aziz Al Banna of the Chaldean Archeparchy of Basra told Iraqlaan News Agency that the local Christian community has requested government funding for the restorations and is collaborating with the Ministry of Planning and the Basra Governorate Council, BaghdadHope.com reports.
Built in 1880, one of the oldest churches in southern Iraq, the Chaldean Church of Um Al Ahzan (Our Lady of Sorrows), recently reopened. Father Al Banna celebrated a special Mass and baptism there on June 29, Ankawa.com reports.
It presently serves only 18 Christian families. In the whole Archeparchy of Basra there are reportedly only one priest, two permanent deacons, and two religious sisters among 2,500 of the faithful.
Father Al Banna said there is confidence among Christians that the government can preserve the Christian religious heritage in the area. Some families who fled the region have even returned because of the new security situation.
The Christian community in southern Iraq dates back to the fourth century and reportedly was the launching pad for the spread of Christianity to the territories of the Persian Gulf.
The final test for the new Iraq is whether or not the Christian minority will be allowed to flourish - elsewhere in the Moslem world, under pressure from tyrannical regimes, the Christian communities, already small, have shrunk rapidly over the past few decades. Much has justifiably been made of the way Iraq’s Christians have suffered - but in Lebanon, Egypt and elsewhere in the Moslem world, it has been a long, dark night of persecution.
There are stirrings of change, however - this news story about Iraq is one of them, but I have it on first-hand account that Mass is celebrated in Moslem countries thought to be 100% Moslem, and I recently read a story where the Catholic Church is, very quietly, negotiating with the Saudi government to construct a church for Saudi Arabia’s large Christian community, mostly made up of foreign laborers imported to Arabia to do the work Saudis simply won’t do. The real end of the War on Terrorism is when Christians and Jews can live and work in the Moslem world without let or hindrance ffrom the Moslem governments, so let us take this small sign as an idicator of a much brighter future.
Tags: Iraq, religious liberty
July 26th, 2008
Interesting opinion piece over at Opinion Journal:
A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .
Oh, wait a minute. That’s not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a “W.”
There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.
And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society — in which people sometimes make the wrong choices — and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell…
…Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense — values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right — only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like “300,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Narnia,” “Spiderman 3″ and now “The Dark Knight”?
The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?
The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of “The Dark Knight” itself: Doing what’s right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified…
…When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, “He has to run away — because we have to chase him.”
Being a coward is, pro-tempore, easier than being a hero - being a coward only requires that one do nothing; being a hero requires that one act. Of course, failure to act can land you, eventually, in much worse trouble than the immediate risk of acting, but a coward can always rationalise away future risks if it gets him out of the particular spot he’s in. While those who act are those who make things happen (good or bad, depending on the actor), it is only those who act nobly who are subjected to the calumny of the cowards. To insult the efforts of a wicked man, you see, is to take a brave stance - so much easier to call Marines in Haditha cold-blooded killers than to take on the cold-blooded killers the Marines are fighting.
The dichotomy between President Bush and the man who wants to replace him cannot be more stark - Obama is lauded for doing nothing; Bush is condemned for doing something. What did Obama do to garner support which eventually awarded him the Democratic nomination? He spoke out against liberating Iraq before the liberation was attempted. What did President Bush do to earn the hatred of the left? He ordered the liberation not of Iraq, but of Afghanistan. Oh, I know - we’ve spent so much time on Iraq that it seems that Iraq triggered leftwing hatred of Bush…but if you think back on it, you’ll remember that the first “anti-war” campaign post-9/11 was to keep us out of Afghanistan…because the Taliban hadn’t attacked us, because we shouldn’t get into the middle of a civil war, because it is impossible to defeat a terrorist enemy on his own ground, because it would be a humanitarian catastrophe. It wasn’t Iraq; it was the fact that President Bush proposed to do something - that is the source of the hatred.
Had President Bush made a few heart-rending speeches and merely promised the full weight of American law enforcement, he would still be disliked on the left for various reasons, but the hatred wouldn’t be there because in such a response there is no challenge to the cowardly. The coward, being able to look at a mere indictment of Osama bin Laden, can take all sorts of exception with what President Bush did…heck, the coward could even say that invading would be better…but there is no challenge; no forcing of a choice. No contrast between right and wrong. Obama doesn’t challenge - he tells the cowards that they were right, that we shouldn’t have acted - that being afraid to confront evil is the smart thing to do. He tells the coward that he never has to shoulder a heavy burden - that the UN, EU and everyone else on God’s earth will take care of it, but he’ll never be asked to sacrifice, save perhaps in a higher tax bill.
President Bush looked at the rubble of the Pentagon and WTC and was filled with a terrible resolve - that this shall not stand, and that those who did it will be made incapable of doing it again. For a while there, the overwhelming majority was with him - but as hard decision followed hard decision the siren song of defeatism and cowardice took its toll until, now, President Bush is in many ways the most unpopular man in the United States. All too many just wish he’d go away and stop demanding of us a hard courage to face the difficult tasks. Millions who hate President Bush will want him again, if we’re ever attacked like 9/11 again…but for now, they just want him get out, and allow a coward to stroke the ego of cowards.
And the only thing which may prevent this unhappy outcome? Another man of courage - John McCain. We’ll see in November if there is a majority of Americans still in favor of doing what is right, rather than talking about what is right and acting like talking is doing.
Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Defeaticrats, Iraq, John McCain, liberal lies
July 25th, 2008
Interesting recent poll from Rasmussen:
Nearly half of Americans (48%) now believe the United States and its allies are winning the War on Terror, as opposed to 20% who give the nod to the terrorists, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national survey. These figures reflect a dramatic improvement from a year ago—in July 2007, only 36% thought the U.S. and its allies were winning. An equal number thought the terrorists held the advantage.
The 28-point difference is the most favorable margin recorded by Rasmussen Reports since tracking began in January 2004 and seems to reflect a growing confidence among adults that the tide is turning in Iraq and in the war on terror in general. The previous high was established on September 6, 2004 when 52% thought the U.S. and its allies were winning but 26% thought the terrorists were winning at that time for a 26-point favorable margin.
Thirty-seven percent (37%) now think the situation in Iraq will get better over the coming six months while only 25% expect it to get worse. A year ago, the assessment was far more pessimistic—just 23% said that things would get better while 49% offered the more pessimistic response. Another recent poll showed that 40% now believe it is possible for the U.S. to win the War in Iraq.
The new findings also show 45% now believe the United States is safer today than it was before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, while 37% believe otherwise. Those figures are also the most optimistic on record.
The standard line about the end of the Cold War is that by putting the fear of nuclear war to bed, it allowed for a foreign policy lightweight - Bill Clinton- to win the White House. Its a great theory, but it forgets that 57% of the American people voted against Bill Clinton in 1992…hardly a ringing endorsement of Clinton’s policy prescriptions. But, today, the same idea is alive and well - heck, over at NRO’s The Corner some people seem to think that the mis-reported story of Maliki on Obama’s Iraq plan has pretty much wrecked McCain’s chances for November. The word is out - the American people really, really want to vote for a Democrat in November and McCain’s only shot was to convince the American people that with a war going on, placing our bets on the inexperienced Obama was too dangerous. And now that victory is breaking out in Iraq, that line is gone for good.
While there are a couple of third party candidates out there on the left and the right, my view is that for Obama to win he’s going to have to do something that no Democrat has managed in 32 years - score an outright majority of the vote in November. He can do it, but thus far the polling shows him consistently falling short and never showing any movement which would indicate he’s on his way to a majority. McCain seems stuck in the electoral doldrums, too - hardly ever breaking 45% in polling (though Rasmussen has recently showed Obama and McCain tied at 46%). What it seems to me is that while Obama has wowed his base, he’s not doing much with anyone else - meanwhile, McCain is doing remarkably well amongst independent voters, but has yet to enthuse the GOP base for November. Key to victory for McCain is energising the base, key for Obama is appealing outside the left.
In this McCain has an advantage. Obama is pretty much locked in to very leftwing positions - he’s tried to triangulate himself out of them, but he can’t stray too far towards the center lest he alienate too much of his base. McCain, on the other hand, has plenty of chances to make the argument to the GOP base that they’d better get excited about him - on taxes, spending, judges and the war, McCain is just what the GOP doctor ordered. McCain has two ways to do his job - propose conservative ideas, and point out Obama’s ultra liberal ideas, and what they’ll mean for America. In both cases, McCain can make a strong pitch for enthused GOP support.
So, while Obama and his Democrats might be thinking that the victory in Iraq gets them off the hook and they can just say “Afghanistan” from time to time and allow domestic issues to carry them to victory, in my view the victory in Iraq gives McCain the chance to force Obama on the defensive initially on just war issues, but eventually on the worthiness of his whole program. A man who can be so wrong about Iraq can also be wrong about other things - like whether or not he’ll be able to stick it out in Afghanistan; whether or not his health care plan is good for America; whether or not his energy policy has what it takes…on issue after issue, Obama’s manifestly bad judgement on Iraq can be used to question his fitness on other issues. And while doing this, McCain can continually point out his correctness on Iraq and how this courageous and right decision lays the groundwork for him to have the courage and wisdom to tackle judicial issues, Afghanistan, taxation, government waste, etc, etc, etc.
If attitudes about the war are improving as Rasmussen’s survey shows, then there may soon come a time when McCain’s pro-victory stance from 2007 switches from liability to asset, while Obama’s 2007 defeatism (already being shoved down the memory hole as far as Obama can manage it) will show through more and more as the foolhardy opinion of a man who hasn’t the knowledge, guts or wisdom to be President.
Tags: Barack Obama, Defeaticrats, Iraq, John McCain, liberal lies, Troop Surge
July 23rd, 2008
This counts as “What Media Bias? Part 117″.
The New York Times rejects a McCain Op-Ed responding to Obama - the offending document, via Drudge:
In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.
Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”
Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.
Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.
The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance…
…Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”
The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.
I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.
The Iraq issue will be, I think, key for McCain - not in the sense that a majority will vote based just on that issue, but that it is the easiest issue for McCain to question Obama’s judgement and further question Obama’s fitness to carry Afghanistan to victory. Obama is staking his foreign/military policy meme on a “get out of Iraq, win in Afghanistan” proposal - the narrative will be that Obama will “end” the war in Iraq so that we can, finally, win in Afghanistan and thus repair all the damage President Bush has done and McCain proposes to continue. But this is a two-edged sword Obama is wielding - McCain can point out that Obama’s defeatism when the going got tough in Iraq indicates that Obama will also flunk the test when things get rough in Afghanistan. Obama ran up the white flag once entirely un-necessarily, what can he say to demonstrate to us that he won’t surrender, again, in Afghanistan?
Obama is nothing but a story - a fraud wrapped up in an illusion. As long as no one points out the nakedness of this would-be Emperor, he’ll be fine. McCain’s job is to force people to see what Obama really is - an ambitious non-entity with no requisite experience justifying installing him in the most powerful position in the world. If the election revolves around which man has the better story, then Obama will be our next President - if the election revolves around who is best able to be President, McCain will be sworn in on January 20th. We’ll have to see if Obama can hide in plain sight until November, or if McCain will force him, naked, into the public view.
Tags: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Iraq, John McCain, liberal lies, Troop Surge
July 22nd, 2008
Looks like the Obama campaign will have to trash the latest draft of Obama’s foreign policy talking points.
A German magazine quoted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as saying that he backed a proposal by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months.
“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months,” he said in an interview with Der Spiegel that was released Saturday.
“That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes,” he said.
But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks “were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately.”
al-Maliki’s actual meaning more closely resembles the position of John McCain… so one has to wonder if the bungled translation was inf act bungled, or deliberately misquoted to try to give Obama a foreign policy credentials boost.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: And John McCain pretty much says it all about Obama’s ludicrous junket (H/T NRO’s The Corner):
My opponent, Senator Obama, announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before departing on a fact-finding mission that will include visits to both those countries. Apparently, he’s confident enough that he won’t find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable.
Tags: Barack Obama, Iraq, John McCain, Nuri al-Maliki
July 19th, 2008
Neatly encapsulates the total difference between himself and his opponent:
Progress between the United States and Iraq on a time horizon for American troop presence is further evidence that the surge has succeeded. Most of the U.S. forces used in the surge have already been withdrawn. When a further conditions-based withdrawal of U.S. forces is possible, it will be because we and our Iraqi partners built on the successes of the surge strategy, which Senator Obama opposed, predicted would fail, voted against and campaigned against in the primary. When we withdraw, we will withdraw with honor and victory. An honorable and victorious withdrawal would not be possible if Senator Obama’s views had prevailed. An artificial timetable based on political expediency would have led to disaster and could still turn success into defeat. If we had followed Senator Obama’s policy, Iraq would have descended into chaos, American casualties would be far higher, and the region would be destabilized.
Once again - wars don’t “end”. Wars are won, wars are lost - but wars don’t just “end”. The fact that Obama said he wanted to end the war shows his complete lack of understanding of war. He doesn’t know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, or how its done…and yet he wants to be placed in charge of it, because he believes that it can just be ended. We’ve won in Iraq - a lot of the troops have already come home, more will probably follow in short order…but we will only draw down as we and our Iraqi allies determine it is time to bring more US troops home. The enemy is still there and may have many nasty surpises in store for us in Iraq - so we stay until we’re sure we’re done, and we only draw down when we’re certain that less US troops won’t adversely affect the overall situation. As McCain correctly points out, had we follow Obama’s advice in 2007, we would have lost the war.
Your choice, Americans - the man who figured out what needed to be done for victory, or the man who demanded we suffer defeat.
Tags: Iraq, John McCain, Troops Surge
July 19th, 2008
I mean, for crying out loud, these people are just nuts:
During Jane Mayer’s event today at New America promoting her penetrating new book, The Dark Side, a topic came up during the Q & A that I’d like to expand on–the possibility of establishing a truth commission for the Bush administration’s transgressions. The idea has been getting some play recently, both from Nick Kristof in the NYT and scattered across some lefty blogs (a funny parody here, another suggestion here). The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is generally held up as the model for such bodies, which don’t have formal judicial power but instead serve primarily as instruments for the discovery of past wrongdoings by governments.
So far, when each instance of misconduct has been revealed — from the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes and waterboarding to extraordinary renditions and habeas-corpus-free detention of prisoners at Guantanamo — individual solutions have been sought and some individual actors have been put forth to be held accountable. But this approach is piecemeal at best and does not get at the connective tissue and the systematization of abuses.
A truth commission, however, would provide a more holistic approach to the violations that have been committed or ordered by individuals and agencies within the government. A commission would serve as an opportunity to look back and expose where the administration started to go wrong in its decision-making process; allow those whose rights have been violated to be heard; and give Americans on the whole a chance to cleanse our national conscience–and our image abroad.
I guess they really believe their own press releases - these people haven’t entirely been playing a political game (though there’s a huge amount of that in this); they seem to actually believe that we’re out there violating the constitution, torturing prisoners, randomly wiretapping innocent Americans, and generally acting like the worst people, ever. This is what they think about a center/right GOP President who regularly ticked off his own conservative base by reaching across the aisle to work with Democrats. Can you imagine what they’d feel like with a completely conservative President who was determined to fight it out tooth and nail on each issue?
This insanity on the left really has got to stop - this is the stuff with which civil wars are made. You keep talking yourself into thinking that you’re boxed in with no way out, and you’ll then start thinking of turning to violence. I think the only thing keeping the lid on these kooks is the fact they are convinced that Obama will win…but what if Obama loses? People who think we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission simply will not accept an Obama defeat…they will very swiftly convince themselves that they have been robbed…and thus be convinced that there is no way to work within the normal political framework.
Look, lefties, President Bush really isn’t evil…and he really isn’t dumb…and he really didn’t deceive us into liberating Iraq. All of that BS was cooked up by the leftwing ANSWER right after 9/11…the typical lies communists put together about anything America does. Think about it - President Bush is being accused of the very same crimes as Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan were accused of. Unless you want to believe that all of these men were criminals, you should grow a little suspicious that every time since WWII (ie, since we stopped being allied with communism) that we’ve engaged in any sort of warfare, the US President is accused of using chemical warfare, torturing prisoners, fighting for money, spying on Americans…its all a bunch of nonsense, people. The most transparant and stupid anti-American propganda…garbage even Goebbles would be embarrassed to use. Stop buying it - understand that the people we elevate to the White House are generally decent human beings who sincerely want to do whats best…and the servants of your goverment, especially those in the military, are so honor-bound and professional that they just wouldn’t do the sort of acts they are accused of doing.
Wake up. Stop being kooks. Get a grip on reality.
Tags: FISA, Gitmo, Iraq, Signals Intelligence Program
July 19th, 2008
Just another sign that the new, free Iraq is taking its just place in the world:
When Benedict XVI returns from Australia, he will be visited in Castel Gandolfo by the prime minister of Iraq.
Nouri al-Maliki will visit the Pope on July 25, the Holy See reported.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Holy Father’s secretary of state, will also meet with the Iraqi leader.
Al-Maliki has been the prime minister in Iraq since 2006. He has repeatedly condemned violence against the Christian minority of his country as an attack on all Iraqis.
I’d say lets start a count down calendar to when the last liberal will finally admit that we’re winning in Iraq…but we might be waiting a long, long time for that…
Tags: Benedict XVI, Iraq, Prime Minister Al-Maliki, Vatican
July 17th, 2008
Can’t say it any clearer than this:
Over the last year, Senator Obama and I were part of a great debate about the war in Iraq. Both of us agreed the Bush administration had pursued a failed strategy there and that we had to change course. Where Senator Obama and I disagreed, fundamentally, was what course we should take. I called for a comprehensive new strategy — a surge of troops and counterinsurgency to win the war. Senator Obama disagreed. He opposed the surge, predicted it would increase sectarian violence, and called for our troops to retreat as quickly as possible.
Today we know Senator Obama was wrong. The surge has succeeded. And because of its success, the next President will inherit a situation in Iraq in which America’s enemies are on the run, and our soldiers are beginning to come home. Senator Obama is departing soon on a trip abroad that will include a fact-finding mission to Iraq and Afghanistan. And I note that he is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he has even left, before he has talked to General Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq, and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time. In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: first you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy…
…In wartime, judgment and experience matter. In a time of war, the commander-in-chief doesn’t get a learning curve. If I have that privilege, I will bring to the job many years of military and political experience; experience that gave me the judgment necessary to make the right call in Iraq a year and half ago. I supported the surge because I believed it was our only realistic chance to reverse the disaster our previous strategy had caused, and the right thing to do for our country. And although events have proven me right, my position wasn’t popular at the time, and I risked my own political ambitions when I took it. When I tell you, I will put our country’s interests — your interests — before party; before any special interest; before my own interests, every hour of every day I’m in office, you can believe me. Because for my entire adult life, in war and peace, nothing has ever been more important to me than the se curity and well-being of the country I love. Thank you.
Obama was wrong about the surge - there is no way around that. More than his being wrong, however, there is now his rank dishonesty - his claims that he didn’t say the surge would fail, his Orwellian excising of his old Iraq position from his website, his attempts to spin himself into an architect of victory when he was singing the siren song of defeatism for the past 18 months. A dishonest man who can’t come up with the right solution - this is not the sort of man we want as President.
John McCain promises us that he’ll put country before everything - and we have the absolute proof that he’ll do that. He really did jump out in front of nearly everyone - including the President - in advocating one of the most unpopular acts our government has ever undertaken, and it worked…and our nation, and the world, is better off for it. All honor to those who saw the way clearly - and let us leave those who wanted to surrender in the dark recesses of our national memory, not elevated to the most powerful office in the world.
Tags: Barack Obama, Defeaticrats, Iraq, John McCain, liberal lies, Troop Surge
July 16th, 2008
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