21 02 07 A "Republican" Disgrace
After watching Tucker Carlson's show on MSNBC last night we are steaming mad - more so than we can remember in quite some time. The source of our irritation? Frank Gaffney and his "Victory Caucus" and their attempts to demonize any Republican who is not still dancing lock step with President Bush and his neocon orchestra. This post is a complete disgrace. While we have already expressed our dismay at the pointlessness of non-binding resolutions, to accuse those in the Republican party who do not agree with the "troop surge" and/or are seeking other alternatives in the face of a continued failing effort in Iraq of being defeatists is as close to McCarthyism as you can get. Now they are taking aim at anyone, even in their own party, who dares oppose them. They like to throw around the word "treasonous" in describing those who argue for other alternatives. In fact, it is Gaffney and his ilk who are acting treasonously by continuing to pigheadedly persue failed policies which have given aid and comfort to our al Qaeda enemies through the resulting increased chaos in Iraq.Here is one excerpt of the interview:
What getting out means, as a practical matter, is defeat. It is retreat in the face of the enemy, the enemy in Iraq will be emboldened, the enemy that has tried to defeat us in Iraq will be emboldened and people elsewhere around the world, allies and enemies alike, will take from this that the United States is unfortunately a waning power. Now, will we be able to regroup and fight on other battle fronts? Quite possibly but alas some of them will certainly be here in the United States.The enemy in Iraq will be emboldened. Which enemy is that? The very few thousand (if that many) foreign jihadists? Or the tens of thousands of Sunni insurgents who have no interest in the US outside of Iraq? Will Iran or Syria be emboldened? Is Gaffney claiming the leadership in those two countries have forgotten it took the US only two weeks to destroy the Iraqi military and remove the existing government? And that we undertook the operation with specific orders to cause as little damage to infrastructure and civilians as possible? What would Iraq look like had we operated under a WWII model and just left the rubble behind? Yes Iran and Syria could look like Dresden if we wanted them to. The US is not weak. Incompetent? Perhaps. Weak, absolutely not.
Gaffney and his neocon brethren have had four years to utterly screw up what was an amazingly fast victory over the Iraqi Army in 2003 and subsequent occupation of the country. At this point what is 'win'? Standing up a new Iraqi army? Political reconciliation? If our intensive efforts for the past four years have been unable to stand up a half way capable Iraqi army that is willing to fight at all times for their country nor bring Sunni, Kurd and Shi'a together, what makes Gaffney think this will happen now or the near future? Will he send in a brigade of neocons to wave a magic wand to make it all better? How, as some have proposed, is targeting just the foreign jihadists primarily in al Anbar province retreat in the face of the enemy? Iraq has no WMD. Saddam is gone. The country is de-Baathified. They have a constitution and have had elections. If the only way they are able to work out their political differences is by killing each other in brutal fashion that is their business not ours. Our only remaining 'duty' at this stage is killing the jihadists and preventing them from establishing bases of operation and training camps. We can do this with less troops and without sitting in the crossfire of domestic sectarian warfare. Eventually all civil wars end. That the majority of Iraq will be dominated by Shi'a policies and politics was an inevitable outcome and if this was so undesirable to the US we should never have invaded in the first place.
To this point we have been ambivalent about the troop "surge". There are too few extra troops to have a significant impact and past surges have failed. The only reason we do not oppose it outright is the US now has two competent commanders - Gates as Sec. Defense and Petraeus on the ground in Iraq. To our thinking, success will be attained if they are able to dial the situation on the ground back to late 2005/early 2006 levels of violence. At that point, hopefully late in 2007, we can focus solely on foreign jihadists and the continued training of the new Iraqi army and police forces.
We will say it bluntly: the neocons have been the ruin of the Republican party. They try to claim Reagan would have been on their side. Sorry, he would not. Reagan offered moral support and limited aid to help those who wanted democracy achieve it on their own terms. The battle of the Cold War was primarily one of US national interest against the USSR. These neocons and those Republicans they have converted are not a majority of the party, but they are the loudest. To continue down the path they are on now will not only result in a very public fracturing of the overall Republican party, but almost certainly assure its status as a minority party. Even McCain and Giuliani will be hard pressed in 2008 to unite a torn up Republican party and also gain enough independent and Democratic support to win. And the Democrats will come closer to the magic total of 60 in the Senate as well as increase their majority in the House. Impossible? Recall only the "realists" in the Republican party saw the loss of the Senate in 2006 as not only possible, but likely. Unfortunately, it is those same realists who are now tarred and feathered as defeatists (or too scared to speak up) that are trying to find the best way to consolidate our gains while minimizing our losses so as to move forward in Iraq on terms most favorable to the US.
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