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Whitey
08-02-2006, 08:43 PM
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/439904p-370586c.html

Dems in full retreat





With world attention focused on Israel's war with Hezbollah, leading Democrats have finally settled on a position on Iraq. Surprise, they're for a retreat. They're wrong and they have picked a terrible time to wave the white flag to terrorists.
In a letter to President Bush, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and 10 other Dem bigwigs demanded Bush start withdrawing our troops this year and "transition to a more limited mission," whatever that means.

"In the interests of American national security, our troops and our taxpayers, the open-ended commitment in Iraq that you have embraced cannot and should not be sustained. ... We need to take a new direction," the letter said.

Right, new direction: Backward, march.

Pelosi told The Washington Post a reason for the letter was Bush's plan to shift more U.S. troops to Baghdad. That's bizarre. Since that's where most of the mayhem is taking place, putting extra troops there makes sense as the last hope of saving Iraq's government.

But Pelosi and Reid work in strange ways. After months of seeing which way the political winds are blowing for the midterm elections, they're obviously trying to take advantage of the war's unpopularity. As such, they have set up a clear difference between the parties.

But they're doing it while our troops are still fighting and dying there. And they're undermining Israel as it battles Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. They have, in Margaret Thatcher's famous phrase, gone wobbly. While there's never a good time for weak knees, now is about the worst.

Thankfully, Bush doesn't seem tempted to follow them. Despite enormous pressure from other countries, and some in the White House, he continues to speak forcefully for the most important principle of our time: The need to defeat terrorism. And he has correctly linked America's fight in Iraq with Israel's two-front campaign.

Even after what he called the "awful" events of Sunday, when Israeli bombs killed nearly 60 civilians, most of them children," Bush held out for a "sustainable" ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Most of the world, excepting a shrinking Tony Blair, is clamoring for an "immediate" ceasefire, a pause that would allow Hezbollah to rearm and reclaim southern Lebanon. Indeed, grisly images of dead children are the most powerful weapon Hezbollah has, which is one reason it hides in residential areas.

It is distressing, if not surprising, that France leads the way in surrendering to them. On Monday, their foreign minister was in Beirut, where he dined at the Iranian Embassy and called Hezbollah's sponsor Iran a "great country" that "plays a stabilizing role in the region."

Presumably, Democrats won't go that far, but do those who believe America should quit Iraq also believe Israel should accept Hezbollah on its border? In either case, the message would be clear: terrorism pays. And we're afraid of it.

That's not to say dissent is unpatriotic or that differences on the war are not legitimate. Iraq has proven to be a huge mistake and many Israelis are saying their government blundered by being drawn into Lebanon on Hezbollah's terms and timing.

Yet those mistakes, and the horror of civilian deaths, are not the fundamental issue. The overarching truth is that Islamic terrorists have started a world war - World War III - against America and our allies. Our errors may help the fanatics with their recruiting, but our policies are not the root cause of terrorism.

Bush knows that. Democrats have just proven they don't.

Damocles
08-02-2006, 08:52 PM
Thank you for the link...

Beefy
08-02-2006, 10:36 PM
There does come a point when one must realize the failures of his executed foreign policy. What you're saying is that essentially, the only decision to be made was the decision to go to war. All subsequent decisions go back to the first one. We went, thus we will stay the course, no matter what, no matter that terrible situations abound to the nth degree, no matter that our guys are dying at an alarming rate, no matter that things are not getting better, no matter that we are tapping our resources, no matter that our guys are losing arms, legs, eyes, what have you, no matter that there were'nt wmd, no matter that the country did not embrace our occupation, no matter that things are far worse there than they were before the war. None of that matters, the only thing that matters is that the decision was made, right whitey?

If I could give a poker analogy, this is akin to going all in preflop with a weak hand. Because that's what they did, unwilling to make any adjustments, unwilling to see the forest for the trees, your guy went ahead and made every decision before he knew what he was up against.

Be proud of him man. If you're not, you obviousy want to raise the white flag. Think a little bit for the love of god.

FUCK THE POLICE
08-02-2006, 10:51 PM
You know, MBL, you usually just joke around, but every now and again whenever you actually make a point you kick ass.

I'm giving you Watermark's OFFICIAL "Kickass" award. You should hang it up high on your wall.

Beefy
08-02-2006, 10:58 PM
You know, MBL, you usually just joke around, but every now and again whenever you actually make a point you kick ass.

I'm giving you Watermark's OFFICIAL "Kickass" award. You should hang it up high on your wall.

Well, most of the stuff you peons talk about means nothing to me. Foreign policy and fiscal conservatism are paramount. It is these issues that allow for social liberalism even to take place. And social liberalism is what most of us call personal freedom. So I'm not exactly a one trick pony, but thanks for the props.

You are a really nice spaz.

FUCK THE POLICE
08-02-2006, 11:57 PM
Well, I usually ignore foreign policy. Immigration xenophobes, however, piss me off. I'm usually more of a social policy guy, but every now and again I'll get into that nitty gritty economic stuff. There's also, well... Uhmm... the thing most people know me for and I talk way too much about. It's really never fun to debate that, though, since everyone on ever political site I've ever went to agrees with me on it. MY implementations are better though....

And I personally believe that social freedom is more important than economic freedom... I'd rather live in the ridiculously free Netherlands than Ireland.

Beefy
08-03-2006, 12:02 AM
Well, I usually ignore foreign policy. Immigration xenophobes, however, piss me off. I'm usually more of a social policy guy, but every now and again I'll get into that nitty gritty economic stuff. There's also, well... Uhmm... the thing most people know me for and I talk way too much about. It's really never fun to debate that, though, since everyone on ever political site I've ever went to agrees with me on it. MY implementations are better though....

And I personally believe that social freedom is more important than economic freedom... I'd rather live in the ridiculously free Netherlands than Ireland.

Surely you realize though, that there is a relationship there. Social and economic freedom cannot be mutually exclusive. If they were, you'd have neither.

FUCK THE POLICE
08-03-2006, 12:52 AM
Surely you realize though, that there is a relationship there. Social and economic freedom cannot be mutually exclusive. If they were, you'd have neither.

Of course they aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they're probably slightly mutually inclusive. If you'll take a look, most of the most economically restrictive nations are also the most socially restrictive, and vice versa. Then again, there are nation like Singapore that have lots of economic freedom and practically no social freedom. Granted, it is practically a one-party state (the electioneering and abuse of the single-member district ssytem in Singapore makes turn-of the century democrats look like pansies). Most of the less democratic nations on Earth usually turn out ot be the most restrictive, and I've never seen a dictatorship in which the dictator respected your rights. That said, I'd probably rather have a dictator that respected my rights than a majority that didn't.

BRUTALITOPS
08-03-2006, 04:48 AM
watermark's former socialist tendencies show themselves.

:P

LadyT
08-03-2006, 05:09 AM
If I could give a poker analogy, this is akin to going all in preflop with a weak hand. Because that's what they did, unwilling to make any adjustments, unwilling to see the forest for the trees, your guy went ahead and made every decision before he knew what he was up against.

:clink:

OrnotBitwise
08-03-2006, 09:20 AM
Thank you for the link...
Too embarrassed to admit where he got it, I'd say.