Arthur Fonzarelli said:
If the war turns out to be a disaster - and let's pray it doesn't - then voters will repudiate Republican foreign policy in 2006 and 2008, and Democrats will be the beneficiaries.
Not their fault this war was started and I sure hope that the American public realizes this.
So why should some Democrats now be acting as though they want to see their country lose a war? Why should they say things that may undermine the morale of U.S. forces and our Iraqi allies and contribute to a U.S. defeat?
I don't want the Americans defeated, I want them to finsih the job quickly and get out.
And why should they reinforce the image of their party as being so hopelessly force-averse that it can't be trusted to lead on foreign policy?
The path to peace is never through violence. Don't remember which philosopher said that, but it rings true. Why must we be the police of the world. Let the UN be reformed or whatever and let them do the policing.
It's one thing for a Democrat like Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.) to harshly criticize the way the Bush administration is conducting the war and then recommend constructive steps for winning it.
Which is why I like him so much and hope that he is going to run for president because I feel that he is a man I can trust to offer me options.
But what Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have done with their "quagmire" and "grotesque mistake" talk is to declare that the war is, in effect, a lost cause.
That is their opinion just like it is your opinion they are traitors.
Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are demanding that President Bush come up with a new strategy, but they are offering none of their own.
It is the job of the president to set policy and it is the job of the Congress to enact it.
Democrats of all stripes go out of their way to declare that they support U.S. troops, but Kennedy and Pelosi are implying that those men and women are fighting and dying in vain.
You think that there are not pointless deaths every day, you think that there aren't in Iraq? You think we are doing the right thing? Sign up so that it isn't in vain. I wish that the troops would finish the mission and come home so they will again be safe.
The logic of the Kennedy-Pelosi position should lead them to call for immediate withdrawal, but they aren't doing that either.
Because, they, like me, realize the need to complete the mission, but they just want to get out, unlike the Bushies.
To be sure, they aren't alone in defeatism. Democrats are gleefully quoting Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), who says that "the reality is that we're losing in Iraq." Hagel, though, is virtually the only public Republican naysayer, while it's hard to find a Democrat who supports the war.
Yeah, this is always a partisan battle with you. Who cares? Support is at an all-time low, yet it is only the Democrats who criticize it and use defeatism.
One is that they are taking advantage of polls showing that the public has turned sharply negative on the war.Another is that they want to claim vindication amid rising casualty rates.And a third is that they just want to keep saying what they think - that the war is a loser.
Politicians take polls into account, Democrat or Republican-valid point. I don't think it is the second because nobody is that evil and mirthless. And I would hope that the third is the most true.
In this week's hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said with some alarm that support is flagging even in South Carolina - "the most patriotic state I can imagine."
So to be patriotic is to always support ones country, yeah, SC displays taht perfectly.
Rumsfeld gave Graham a good answer: This is "the time that leadership has to stand up and tell the truth. If you're facing a head wind, you've got two choices. You can turn around and go downwind or you can stand there and go into the wind, and that's what needs to be done."
What wind is this. This is the man who keeps saying that we are defeating them and that they are dying off. Now is he admitting that he in fact was wrong and they are not dying off?
The danger is that defeatism at home will create a defeatist dynamic in Iraq. As Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, told the committee that among "our troops and the troops we're training in the Iraqi and Afghan security forces, I never sensed the level of their confidence higher."
So, basically, we are supposed to fall in line and be good little soldiers and not dissent...gotcha
He added that, "when my soldiers ... ask me the question whether or not they've got the support from the American people, that worries me. And they're starting to do that.
The troops will always have the support of the American public, no matter what. We admire them for the noble spirit even if we don't like actions that are taken by the military.
Obviously, it's up to President Bush to run the war well and to rebuild domestic support for his policies. He has some progress to show: increasing numbers of Iraqis trained, a constitutional process under way, the decision of some Sunnis to take part in politics, aggressive new action against the enemy.
And he also has so many against.
Bush's policies may fail on their own because they were misconceived or badly executed. What shouldn't happen is for U.S. policy to fail because Americans lose their will. Bush's critics, the Democrats, should tell him how to win, not declare that the cause is lost.
Mort Kondracke is the Executive Editor of Roll Call.
Well, however much you want them to give options, this war wasn't started by the Dems. It was started by a neo-con administration that wanted war and wouldn't stop for anything. It is not their duty to present policy, though they can if they wish. That is purely the job of the president, who still is yet to present an Iraq stategy to end the war faster and train enough troops. I am not even talking exit strategy, I am talking strategy in general for winning the war, because all we have right now is "head into the wind."