God Damn It, We're Winning. No, no, no, no, no, no...
Clyburn: Positive Report by Petraeus Could Split House Democrats on War

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.
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Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

Please, for a moment, set aside your own beliefs about the United States presence in Iraq, and look at this from an impartial perspective:

(1) We are in a war.
(2) Some of our leaders claim that we are losing that war: either because we are incapable of fighting that war, or because our participation in that war is making things worse.
(3) In order to solve (2) they want us to withdraw as soon as possible.
(4) A report comes out saying that in fact we are winning the war.
(5) The leaders complain that success is impeding their ability to withdraw, to pass legislation for (3).

Now hang on a second: if the reason for passing legislation in (3) is because we're losing (point 2), but if it turns out that we are in fact succeeding--then shouldn't the reaction be "oh, thank goodness things are working: we now don't have a need to pass legislation to withdraw?"

Instead, the reaction is "this is a big problem for our party."


Now think about this for a second: how deeply cynical is this position--"my country is winning a war--and that is a problem for us politically"?

Now I'm not a "my country, right or wrong" sort of a guy: blind patriotism is for idiots--just as blind opposition is also for idiots. I have very specific things about this country which I like, just as I have very specific things I dislike. From first principles I believe the things that are right outweigh the things that are wrong--and generally I tend to be more optimistic about our country than pessimistic.

So when I see Democrats claiming that they were lied to and if they knew the truth they wouldn't have voted for authorizing the war, I wonder why half our country's leaders are stating that they abdicated their security oversight responsibilities and the major media hasn't taken them to task for it. (I also remember Reagan being slammed for the same thing--essentially being accused repeatedly of being asleep at the helm.) When I see Democrats going along more and more with the radical left's anti-war cries I wonder how half of our country's leaders have essentially caved into an extremely vocal and (to my eyes) irrational minority and abdicated their responsibility to the majority of the electorate they represent, who do not agree with this vocal minority.

And when I read articles like this I cannot understand how hatred of the current Bush Administration can blind so many people to what seems to me to be a clearly cynical and untenable position which would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory while dooming tens of millions of people to anarchy and certain death in the vacuum that an untimely withdrawal would create.

And I have to wonder who in the world would ally themselves with the United States when the Democrats would throw them to the lions and certain death when it was politically convenient in a national election cycle.