Excellent article from Glenn Reynolds yesterday about the war in Iraq:
I confess that I don’t blame people for being tired of the war. I was tired of the war before we invaded Iraq. (In fact, one of my early posts here at MSNBC — now lost to this site’s former archiving system, alas — was entitled “Confessions of a Weary War-Blogger”). But people are usually tired of wars long before they’re over. The phrase is “war is Hell,” not “war is amusing.”
But it’s not just a question of tiredness. As Brendan Miniter notes in the Wall Street Journal, the latest calls for “timetables” have more to do with politics than with strategy:
The last thing we need in Iraq is a timeline for withdrawal. Victory sets its own schedule, and it’s not contingent on the U.S. election calendar. Arbitrarily forcing a timetable on the battlefield will only aid the enemy. Yet a growing number of politicians are now calling for just that–or, at least, a better (read more negative) official accounting of what’s happening in Iraq. With polls showing less support for the war and pols parroting that public opinion, we’re in danger of losing sight of how to defeat the enemy.
Sen. Joe Biden, a Delaware Democrat, joined the parade over the weekend while also bluntly saying he’s looking at a presidential bid in 2008–although he was careful to add that he thinks the next presidential election will turn on national security. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., normally a somewhat sensible Tennessee Democrat, has also joined the procession and hopes his call for a timeline will help win him the Senate seat Bill Frist is vacating. And it’s not just Democrats.
Like too many people, these folks see the war as less important than their own immediate political objectives. Better to be President after losing a war than to suffer as a Senator in a nation that’s winning, apparently.
This timetable the left is talking about is just plain crazy. Do these people not see that if we left Iraq before they are able to defend themselves then all the deaths, all the sacrificies would have been in vain
Why even Kofi Annan says there’s progress in Iraq:
Elections were held in January, on schedule. Three months later the Transitional National Assembly endorsed the transitional government.
The dominant parties have begun inclusive negotiations, in which outreach to Sunni Arabs is a major theme. A large number of Sunni groups and parties are now working to make sure that their voices are fully heard in the process of drafting a new constitution, and that they participate fully in the referendum to approve it and the elections slated for December.
Indeed, just last week an agreement was achieved to expand the committee drafting the constitution to ensure full participation by the Sunni Arab community. This agreement, which the United Nations helped to facilitate, should encourage all Iraqis to press ahead with the drafting of the constitution by the Aug. 15 deadline.
As the process moves forward, there will no doubt be frustrating delays and difficult setbacks. But let us not lose sight of the fact that all over Iraq today, Iraqis are debating nearly every aspect of their political future.
Now that is one person’s opinion I could care less about. The crook Kofi shouldn’t even be heading that corrupt organization anymore so what he believes is just….unimportant.
And it’s not just Iraqis. Inspired by the Iraqi elections — though some reports seem to neglect that aspect — the Lebanese, after expelling Syrian troops, crossed religious and ethnic lines to overwhelmingly elect an anti-Syrian, pro-democracy government. Even the New York Times had to note that “It was a startling change in the way politics have usually been carried out here – along strict clan and religious lines and long under the control of Syria – and perhaps an example of a greater yearning for democracy in the Arab world.”
Notably missing from the story, however, were the words “Bush” and “Iraq.”
You’d think that the strategy of overthrowing dictators and encouraging democracy as a way of defeating terrorism would draw support from the left, since it’s consistent with the “root causes” talk we heard right after 9/11. But you’d be wrong, and for one simple reason: Bush is doing it.
This point show’s how insincere the left is. Their mantra has been bringing freedom to those who are oppressed but since Bush is doing it, F those oppressed people.
Doctor Sanity has some thoughts on this also:
I’m just another weary war blogger. September 11th is what galvanized me. I have not lost sight of the purpose of winning in Afghanistan or Iraq; and I doubt that I will-but I am exhausted by the coverage of the war on terror. I am exhausted at the continued cluelessness of the Left, which is making winning all that much harder (and costing the lives of many people, I might add, as they continually give encouragement and hope to our enemies). But there are two things that console me.
…
Second, I don’t believe I have ever felt as proud of my country as I do now, watching the wave of freedom and democracy that is spreading all over the world. Emboldened by Bush’s words and actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, people of many countries have hope for the first time that they will live to see freedom established in their own homelands. My heart swells with a never-before sense of wonder at the resiliency of the human spirit as it cries out for liberation from oppression.
Once more America is a beacon of freedom in the world. The fog-makers and emissaries of the dark in our own country are trying to dim that light; some even are trying to put it out–but they can’t, because its bright, clear signal can still pierce their fog and reach the souls in the world who still have the eyes to see it.
I would have to agree with the good Doctor. I have never been more proud of our country and it’s military. There have been many proud moments that I have lived through, such as the fall of the Soviet Union and the wall and Desert Storm but neither compares to what our country and what our President is doing, spreading freedom through regions that we thought would never have them.
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