...as Democratic majority leader. If Democrats are to have any hope of fielding a viable candidate for the White House next year, if Democrats hope to retain power in Congress, Reid must resign his leadership role. To publicly state, whatever his private feelings, within earshot of the enemy, that this nation has lost the war shows his complete ineptness for leading a nation at war. However he wishes to paint our military involvement in Iraq, we ARE at war. And we cannot afford to lose.
To echo his critics, if America has lost the war in Iraq, who then has won? The insurgents? The foreign fighters from Syria and Iran and any number of other Muslim states? Al-Qaeda? Is that something we can be comfortable with? To allow the enemy to know for certain that America cannot fight for what it holds dear? To telegraph our punches so deliberately as to give our enemy a helping hand in killing American troops? Reid's comment was not simply treasonous-- a lot of other labels prop the treason up, not as a straw man, but as the heart of truth for him and everyone who championed his statement, which was reckless, cowardly, foolish, and ignorant of the fact that his words will embolden an enemy who trains children to be suicide bombers, who treats women as chattel and literal slaves.
Harry Reid is the worst kind of fool, pandering to extremism within his own ideology to give extremism of a different breed the upper hand in murdering U.S. Citizens on the battlefield, for make no mistake! Our military is comprised of U.S. Citizens who are routinely treated as second-class citizens by Reid, Pelosi, the Democrat Party as a whole, and their sycophantic rabid base. What is worse: To have returned home from Vietnam only to be spit upon by jerks at the airport? or to be told you've lost the war while remaining on the front line at the insistence of the very ones elected to represent your best interests. Which to Senator Reid's mind must mean to have your ass shot off on foreign soil for a war he isn't even sure you can win, and have in fact already lost.
Harry Reid said the war is lost, that the only hope of winning the war is through diplomacy. What a contradiction! The war is lost, and yet it can still be won! The Senator needs to make up his mind! Which is it? Is it lost or is it won. It is obvious to anyone with ears to hear that Senator Reid is too weak to lead the senate, and must resign his leadership position. He is simply too weak to lead.
Another Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt (facing a similar threat to freedom and Western Civilization) said this about Nazi Germany and the Neville Chamberlains of the day:
The experience of the past two years has proven beyond doubt that no nation can appease the Nazis. No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb. We know now that a nation can have peace with the Nazis only at the price of total surrender. ...
The American appeasers ignore the warning to be found in the fate of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and France. They tell you … that all this bloodshed in the world could be saved; that the United States might just as well throw its influence into the scale of a dictated peace, and get the best out of it that we can. They call it a "negotiated peace." Nonsense! Is it a negotiated peace if a gang of outlaws surrounds your community and on threat of extermination makes you pay tribute to save your own skins? Such a dictated peace would be no peace at all. …
What they have in mind is only a revival of the oldest and the worst tyranny. … It is not a government based upon the consent of the governed. It is not a union of ordinary, self-respecting men and women to protect themselves and their freedom and their dignity from oppression. It is an unholy alliance of power and pelf to dominate and enslave the human race. …
Let not the defeatists tell us that it is too late. … Our defense efforts must not be blocked by those who fear. … We must be the great arsenal of democracy. … No dictator, no combination of dictators, will weaken that determination by threats. … We have no excuse for defeatism. We have every good reason for hope … hope for the defense of our civilization. …
I have the profound conviction that the American people are now determined to put forth a mightier effort than they have ever yet made … to meet the threat to our democratic faith.
--President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
December 29, 1940
I don't know what is worse... a man who believes the greatest nation and military might on the face of the earth today has lost a war it has yet to lose? or the great crowd of sycophants cheering him on! Reid is a dangerous man to this nation, and a hypocrite of the worst order, confirming General Petraeus with an overwhelmingly near-unanimous democratic vote to command the surge just prior to deliberately seeking to cut his legs out from under him... and our troops. Nancy Pelosi herself had all the time in the world to meet and foment a foreign-policy coup with a state-sponsor of terrorism, but couldn't find time to be present for General Petraeus' progress report.
Rudy Giuliani nailed Democratic hide to the wall the other day, saying:
This war ends when they stop planning to come here and kill us, but until then, if I have anything to say about it, the lesson that I learned coming out of September 11, 2001, is, never, ever again will this country be on defense waiting for them to attack us. The United States of America will be on offense and make no mistake about it, the Democrats want to put us back on defense...
The Democrats-- and I can make a lot of other points about this --do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us. But I listened a little bit to the Democratic debates, and I could be slightly wrong about this but I think this is almost correct. If one of them gets elected it sounds to me like we're going on defense, where we got a timetable for withdrawal out of Iraq. We're going to wave the white flag there. We're going to try to cut back on the Patriot Act. We're going to cut back on the electronic surveillance. We're going to cut back on interrogation. We're going to cut back, cut back, cut back, and we'll be back in our pre-September 11 mentality of being on defense.
The question is going to be, "How long does it take and how many losses do we have along the way?" And I truly believe if we go back on defense for a period of time, we can ultimately have more losses and it's going to go on much longer. The power of our ideas is so great we'll eventually prevail. The real question is how do we get there? Do we get there in a way in which it's as expeditious as possible and with as little loss of life as possible, or do we get there in some circuitous fashion?
They hate us, not because of anything bad we've done. This has nothing to do with any aggression on the part of the United States of America. It has nothing to do with anything America is taking from anyone. It has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms that we have and the freedoms that we want to share with the world because the freedoms that we have and the freedoms that we want to share with the world are in conflict with their perverted interpretation of their religion. Their maniacal, violent, and perverted interpretation of their religion, in which they train their young people to be suicide bombers, and they train them to hate you and despise you and they train them to hate your religion and to not allow you to have religion of your own or anyone else. They hate us for the reasons that are the best about us, because we have freedom of religion, because we have freedom for women, because women are allowed to participate in society, because we have elections, because we have a free economy. Well, we're not giving that up, and you're not going to come and take it from us.
The Democratic Party is willing to put us back on defense... a 9/10 mindset. They are willing to kill more American Troops than are necessary. They are willing to wave the white flag of surrender, which they did this very week. And now they want to put one of their own in the White House? I don't see it happening.
The Democrats have gambled that they don't need the military to gain the White House. They have enough within the MoveOn rank and file to give them the Oval Office. I don't see it happening. What I do see happening is another 9/11 style attack on this nation should they get their way.
Mrs. Bill Clinton was the only candidate at the debate who answered correctly the question: "If a couple cities get nuked by Al-Qaeda tonight during the debate, what's your reaction?"
Mrs. Clinton: "We're going to retaliate"
And yet she's all but unelectable. While she can answer that question correctly, Harry Reid can't make up his mind as to whether we have, beyond hope, lost the war in Iraq.
Harry Reid must resign for the sake of the Democrat Party. But for myself, I hope he stays... He'll only serve to highlight the all too obvious shortcomings of the Democrat Party. This nation will not long survive, intact, a Democrat in the White House, ESPECIALLY with Democrats controlling both houses of Congress.
This month the state department is releasing the annual report on terrorism. It says that the number of terror attacks increased this year - 3rd year in a row they've increased. So I'd say whatever plans the administration is following isn't working.
According to a recent PIPA poll 75% of muslims have a negative view of the United States. 79% think a primary foreign policy goal is to weaken islam. So we're not winning the war for hearts and minds either.
So tell me how are we winning the war? How have we not wasted four years chasing chimeras? 3,300 coalition dead. 400,000 iraqi's dead. Billions of dollars in debt. When does following this aggressive, machismo plan produce results? What's the return on investment?
The Iraqi Parliament is taking two months off for summer vacation. So this surge plan isn't gonna produce political progress until at least fall. How long do we have to wait before we admit we aren't willing to fix this mistake? We moved like a bull in a china shop; destroying all the structures that kept this multi-ethnic society together.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step. God bless Sen. Harry Reid for saying what everybody already knows.
Let's try with a few elementary questions which I hope you will answer:
1) Is there sufficient antiwar sentiment in the United States that the 2008 Presidential race should, in a democracy, be a referendum on whether United States forces should remain, therefore mandating the Democrats nominate an antiwar candidate?
2) How small a slice of the electorate must support a position in order for that position to be considered "extremist?"
3) Here's what victory in Iraq looks like to ELA, maybe best plausible case and least acceptable outcome:
4) This is the circumstance under which ELA would say it's a lost cause (e.g. mass uprising? all allies leave? Iraqi government collapses?):
Umm...I don't think Rudy is in charge any more.
"According to a recent PIPA poll 75% of muslims have a negative view of the United States..."
Teah? What was the percentage before we went into Iraq? And...wht shouldn't they have a negative view of a nation whose congress is fighting hard to deny them freedom from tyranny?
"This is the circumstance under which ELA would say it's a lost cause..."
He's already said it...if a Democrat gets elected to the whitehouse the war will be a lost cause.
Mr. Giuliani, as Daddio pointed out, is not the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg is. In point of fact, Giuliani left office just a few months AFTER 9/11... December 31, 2001, to be precise.
I also would like to know how many Muslims viewed the United States negatively PRIOR to the Iraq Invasion. I distinctly recall seeing hordes of Muslims in the streets cheering and dancing and celebrating on 9/11.
The only chimera here are your 'facts' BenT... and your perspective.
Nothing in this life is easy.
No Battleplan survives the initial clash.
Expecting anything to be a cakewalk is certainly the mark of a fool.
Investments take time to mature.
This war is not lost until "Patriots" like you and Reid take your balls and go home like the crybabies you are... Forcing the rest of us to quit the game.
How very noble and patriotic of you both, willing to bloody your own noses to make peace with the enemy... Thanks for using 3300+ American lives as cannon fodder for your limp-wristed sensibilities toward defending your country, and the freedoms you enjoy.
How foolish does one have to be to not realize we can and will be attacked again on American soil? by Radical Muslims!
I'd end this by saying 'God Bless America', but that day is done, isn't it? We deserve what's coming to us. And that cannot be laid solely at the feet of Liberalism, and their wussification of America. No, the apathy of each and every American who chose not to stand up against Liberalism deserves equal billing.
----
As an aside, I don't know what is worse, Communism or Liberalism... they look so much alike these days.
But it wasn't treason. I refuse any definition of treason that includes merely saying something. Period.
But it was stupid to say, whether or not he believes it.
I personally think the war is being lost, and if it is won it will be under a Democrat president.
I said early on that Republicans suck at fighting wars for the same reason they suck at everything else to do with government: They hate government, and are suspicious of it, and are unwilling to fully use its full power for anything -- not even a war!
Rumsfled hamstrung these operations -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- from the outset. Bush let him. The neocons conflated the two, and made up something called the GWOT, which, like "Mission Accomplished," caused more rhetorical harm than good.
I'm tired of griping about the mistakes and the moralty of Iraq. I want the war in Iraq over. I want it fricking won -- or I want the leaders of this country, of whatever stripe, to consciously and delibterately admit that it was a cluster---- from the beginning, and then I want them to redefine "victory" to suit the reality of whatever the best-case can realisticallly be, and then I want the troops brought back and our broken military fixed.
And, while it is up to the Senate to decide whether to censure Reid, and up to the Democratic Party to decide whether to remove him as majority leader, and up to the people of Nevada to decide whether he should re-elected, or even recalled (if their state law allows for such), I personally want him to shut his stupid mouth.
Thanks for saying that, ER. Me too.
(Harry Reid, that is.)
Given the polls, I seriously don't think the Dems have much to worry about in the 2008 election (barring that they nominate Hillary) so I don't think you need to worry about the Dems losing ground too much, Eric.
I'm going to have to disagree with ER on this one. We can't win a war that was wrong to begin with. Harry Reid is saying what we, the people, are expecting our representatives to say. Hopefully, they'll also take the actions we elected them to take.
As to opinion polls of Muslims I will say that the new PIPA poll was incepted in 2002 so I can't point you pre-9/11 data from this poll. Looking at a lot of other polling places I can say that before 9/11 the US had a poor muslim relationship. Mostly because of our staunch support for Israel. However the highest number I saw was an negative rating of 65%. Then there is a short sharp jump in global US approval after 9/11. It only lasted for a few months though. Since then the number has climbed higher than previous highs, in all majoratatively muslim countries. So, yes, GW's administration has lost the war for hearts and minds.
It is always interesting to me that when you reply to my posts on Iraq you completely ignore the staggering number of Iraqi casualties. AT LEAST 400,000! You treat them as if they are less worthy than 3,300 american lives. "We must stay in Iraq and keep treading water, so 3,300 americans will not have died in vain!" You never think about the suffering of the Iraqi citizens dieing in markets and schools. Dieing so we can "fight them there so we don't fight them here." That's the sort of arrogant view that disgusts me about you and D.Dad and Ms.Green. While you were wringing your hands for the students who couldn't defend themselves with guns at VT, a car bomb killed 200 in an Iraqi market. Did WorldNetDaily report that tragedy?
You'll have to take that up with the majority of the US, Eric, not just Ben and Reid. We think this war was wrong. We want this war ended.
It is on the basis of morality and national security that we think thusly. Disagree if you wish, but your "side" has had its day and now it's over.
Or at least I pray so.
LOL!
"I refuse any definition of treason that includes merely saying something. Period."
I refuse to predict the outcome of war over someone just saying something.
LOL!
Are you kidding? This is exactly the mindset the democrats embrace. It is exactly what they think will propel them to the Whitehouse. And with their allies in the media, they just may accomplish it.
What Bent DOES care about is handing over all our hard work to Al-Qaeda and Iran, both of whom will overrun Iraq and turn the nation into a new regional base of operations for their terroristic goals of conquest and subjugation. What Bent DOES care about is seeing America tuck tail and withdraw in defeat, he cares about seeing America lose respect in the world. He cares about seeing America break her promises, shirk her responsibilities, and live up to the label Osama bin Laden himself affixed to her good name.... "Paper Tiger"
Bent doesn't care about 400,000+ dead Iraqis, if he did he'd insist we root out the evil that daily bombs them to oblivion. America didn't kill 400,000 Iraqis... the terrorists did, the insurgents did. We cared enough to lift Saddam's yoke from the shoulders of the Iraqi people, but Bent doesn't want us to care about keeping someone else from replacing that yoke with something altogether the same, or altogether worse.
You're right... That IS exactly the mindset Democrats embrace. It is EXACTLY what they think will propel them to the White House. But allies in the media notwithstanding-- despite their bogus polls --most Americans do NOT want to see America lose this war... They do NOT want to see America tuck her tail and run, and they do NOT want a leader who does not stand up to bullies... ESPECIALLY those who bloody OUR noses, as was done on 9/11.
As I stated at Ms. Green's place, unless there is a "hue and cry" [...a link for those of who who don't know what that means] from the people of this nation, en masse, Reid and the rest will get away with their treason. They will even be rewarded for their courage, as is evidenced by the admiration and support he and others receive after the fact. Imagine that! Being rewarded for treason!
The fact that ER himself 'dang near agrees' with me should speak volumes about the mood of this country toward losing and weakness. All it will take is more of the same to make genuine fear for their chances next year to take root in their hearts. So I stand by what I said: "If Democrats are to have any hope of fielding a viable candidate for the White House next year, if Democrats hope to retain power in Congress, Reid must resign his leadership role."
Naturally, I hope he's proves to be as bullheaded as he is wrongheaded on this issue. In short, I want Reid firmly in the driver's seat. Remember Tom Daschle? That's what I want in my Christmas stocking in Oh-Eight!
Firstly, in regard to #1, Democrats aren't going to nominate a candidate who ISN'T anti-war, so the spoils will go, as always, to whomever brings the most people to the polls. Whoever wins, it'll be another close margin, and mandates aren't given to parties who win by just a few percentage points. Democrats don't have a mandate simply because they've won. Neither do Republicans. Mandates, like Cloture votes, require an genuine majority.
Number 2-- How small a slice? It could also be said 'How large a slice'? Extremes are matters of perspective. I can't say how small... or large.
Three. Victory in Iraq is a government that is sound, stable, and able to defend itself, its borders, and the rights of its citizens. How long did it take between the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the Ratifying of the Constitution and the settling of its powers? It's going to take time, but all we need to see is a sound, stable government capable of those things I've already enumerated. Again, we're not there yet.
Lastly... It is a lost cause when when we cease to believe we can win and take up our balls and go home. It is a lost cause when we adopt the strategy of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Jack Murtha, and every other elected official irrespective of party affiliation that would rather surrender to Al-Qaeda, Iran, Syria, and every other goon desirous of killing their fellow Iraqis.
Untrue. The United States won the Indian wars, which were wrong to begin with -- although they seem to have resulted from an inevitable clash of cultures.
And speaking from a strictly legal perspective, the North, arguably, started the War Between the States by painting the South into a corner. The Abolitionists were agititating, of course, but emancipation was a second thought for Lincoln, for whom it was seen as a political wartime expediency, not a, or even "the" main cause of the war. The war decided the question, but until then, state's rights -- as actual small sovereigns partnering as components of a federal government, "united states," were legally and constitutionally equal to the federal government. Some say, and I am among them, even though the end of slavery was a good thing (and on its way to the dustbin of history already, probably by 1880 or 1885), that it was "wrong" of the Northern interests to impose their will on the Southern states by warring against them. Yet the Union won.