Saturday, April 21, 2007

Senator Harry Reid has declared that the war is lost and that the troop surge has failed. The basis of his claim: The violent car bombings that occurred the past week. This opinion was not given to him by the Secretary of Defense, or the Joint Chiefs, or the CENTCOM commander, or the military leaders on the ground in Iraq. No, this is Harry’s own personal opinion based on what he’s seen on the news. Harry Reid says the war is lost.

Now, there are a lot of people out there who feel the same. And, yes, there are many people in the world who give uninformed opinions about many things. But Harry Reid is a prominent US Senator and with that comes a certain responsibility. One of those responsibilities is not undermining the US military in its efforts abroad, which is exactly what Reid’s uninformed opinion has done. Again, Reid is not basing this on any statement made by the Dept of Defense. No, this is how he sees it. But how he sees it is also how our enemies see it and when a prominent US Senator agrees with our enemies then it certainly goes a long way in boosting their morale and damaging the morale of our troops. But I’m sure Harry doesn’t care about that. The Democrats must win back the White House no matter what.

I’ve lost all respect for Reid, and for most Democrats. I’ve ranted on this site before about how low they’re willing to stoop for political gain. This is no different. Harry Reid is a bad man who is making statements that do nothing but endanger our soldiers overseas and empower the enemy that they fight. But, as I said, he doesn’t care. The Dems think they’ve been given a mandate, but I disagree. The US people may want the war to end, and I am one of them, but I don’t think the US people want their elected leaders making these kinds of statements – statements that enable and embolden those who fight our troops every day. Harry Reid is a fool and he should be ashamed of himself. And before he makes grand statements about conditions on the ground, maybe he should consult with the military leaders who are living in those conditions. Just a suggestion.

Again, if the Dems feel they truly have a mandate then why not end the war now? Cut the funding and end it. No, they won't do that because it takes balls. Instead, they continue to fund the war while doing whatever they can to ensure our defeat. After all, that's the key to their White House victory in '08. American success in Iraq would be disastrous for the Dems. And cutting the funding would be equally disastrous. So they will fund the war, but continue with these antics to do what they can in helping defeat our troops. This is your Democrat Party. Feel proud?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even though he has a right to free speech, Mr. Reid is being rather irresponsible in saying this. I mean this is exactly the sort of thing the terrorists use to support their Jihadist propaganda. The reason we might lose the war is not because of military defeat. We can always win military engagements. If we lose, it will be because of people like Harry Reid, and a loss of public support.

Dan Trabue said...

But we can't always win military engagements. Even though we spend more on our military than the next 25 countries combined, strength alone can't win military engagements.

If you're waging an unsupported war, then no matter how much you devastate the other country, you will lose.

That's because you can't win a bad war. You can crush the opponent and the folk surrounding them. You can turn a nation to ashes. But you can't win.

USA Today poll, March 5: Which comes closer to your view about the war in Iraq?
--Definitely win: 11%.
--Probably win: 17%.
--Can win, but don't think will win: 20%
--Do not think it can win: 46%

CNN poll, March 13: Do you think the U.S. can win or cannot win the war in Iraq?
--Can win: 46%
--Cannot win: 46%

Washington Post/ABC News poll, April 16: Will U.S. win or lose the war?
--Lose: 51%
--Win: 35%

Bush has already lost this war because it was wrong and unsupported to begin with. Reid is just stating what the majority of the US believes.

Anonymous said...

Dan, I don't mind if you argue, obviously. That's good healthy debate, but please, don't bring up the majority thing. The majority elected Hitler, thought slavery should be legal, etc. Now, I'm not saying liberals or anti-war people are like that, what I'm saying is that the majority is often wrong. Just because many people believe something doesn't make it right. So what do polls showing anything prove. Facts are the only way to argue.

Now, to the issue: We can always win a military engagement. In fact, the war was won a long time ago. The reconstruction is the hard part. And it takes time. And lives. It always has. The problem is, America is incapable of fighting wars, no one has the stomach for it. But it is neccesary, and we've won against insurgencies before and reconstructed countries before, and we can do it if we have support.

Dan Trabue said...

I'm fine with disagreeing, too. And the thing where we disagree is not so much that we don't have the stomach for war but rather that we don't have the desire for wrong wars.

Of course, the majority can be wrong, but they can also be right, as in this case, says I.

I'm just pointing out the numbers thing to show you that the majority of our good, patriotic citizens disagree with you - we think this war wrong. We're not wanting it ended because we're cowards but because we think it wrong.

Anonymous said...

I know you think it's wrong. That's fine. I just mean what does that prove? The majority, after all, elected Mr. Bush, and you don't seem to like him very much. So I'm just saying the majority doesn't mean much as to whether something is right or wrong.

But really, what makes this war wrong? I don't have much sympathy for Saddam. And before you cite that Iraqis are getting killed, we didn't do that. It's the people we're trying to stop doing that, so what did we do wrong?

Allisoni Balloni said...

The war was won a long time ago? PLEASE prove that.

Anonymous said...

How about looking at the timeline? We took Baghdad in about a month. It took us years and years to get to Richmond and Berlin. After we did though, we entered reconstruction, which was, in both aforementioned wars, characterized by guerillas and insurgents. That would be the phase we're in now.

John Washburn said...

Robert, are you actually asking them to learn lessons from history? I think that's way too reasonable for the cut-and-run crowd. After all, if we asked them to remember history then they'd be forced to recall the Khmer Rouge and the hundreds of thousands that were murdered in SE Asia after our cut-and-run policy there.

But that's ancient history right? No way that can happen in Iraq, right?