The Real meaning of cut-and-run
I watched Hannity & Colmes last night and started getting irritated at the No. 1 DNC talking point. I know you've all heard it about 60,000 times now. It goes something like this...Iraq is a failure. Bush is a failure. Bush should apologize to the troops for sending them into an illegal war. (Here's a bit of news...troops fight in wars. No!!!)
Alan Colmes gets almost giddy when he talks about coalition deaths. And there isn't a liberal politician around today who hasn't jumped on the anti-Iraq bandwagon. Hell, even many conservative pundits and columnists like Robert Novak are starting to get soft. Well today President Bush fired back.
| President Bush, campaigning to get out the Republican vote in Tuesday's midterm elections, challenged Democrats today to produce a "plan for success" in Iraq instead of leveling only "harsh criticism." Democrats rejected the charge, pointing to draft legislation they proposed in September, the Real Security Act of 2006, which calls for beginning the "phased redeployment" of U.S. forces from Iraq before the end of the year. |
Here's the problem. John Kerry, a leading senator in the Democratic Party, insulted the intelligence of our military. But rather than simply say "I'm sorry," he arrogantly condescended the troops by acting like we all should have gotten his pathetic attempt at a joke. What's even more telling is how quickly he then used his "apology" to attack the President's policy in Iraq.
Let me try to spell this one out for anyone who is against the war in Iraq. IT'S A WAR!!! War is not pretty. War is not fun. War is not clean. War is not perfect. And unfortunately people die in wars. But that doesn't mean you retreat back to the comforts of your DC brownstone the moment things get tough.
I truly think the anti-war crowd simply doesn't understand the nature of our fight. I think they have images of a fast-food style war where UN forces fire off a few weapons, our enemies' retreat in fear, and we all come home and sing kumbaya around the campfire. But today's war on terror couldn't more opposite.
Our troops are fighting an invisible enemy. Islamic Jihadists don't have colors. They don't wear uniforms. They don't have flags. (unless they are Hizbollah) They don't all look the same and certainly aren't all the same sex. They'll fight with civilians. They'll fight against civilians. They'll fight in the middle of their own children without a care in the world. Their ideology is entrenched in places like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and on and on. Hell, they have cells right here in our own backyards. And John Kerry and the DNC call it a failure because we haven't won yet?
Then a report comes out saying Jihad is on the rise since our invasion. Liberal pundits jump on it like Clinton on an intern and act like there is something profound in the fact that terrorists are not happy with America. Like we should take stock in the opinions of people who proclaim "convert to Islam or die."
To which I ask, what did you expect to happen when we started fighting back? Did Germany suddenly start toasting the U.S. when we invaded Normandy? Did the North Vietnamese send us a Christmas card after we joined in support of our friends to the south? Did Russia send us cookies when we took a hard-line approach to the cold war? Has Castro been secretly sending cigars to American presidents since the missile crisis? Of course not.
Folks, I think the biggest problem we face today isn't terrorism. The biggest problem we face as a nation is our leadership's fear of taking a stand to do something tough. There is no doubt that George Bush would love to bring our troops home tomorrow. But thankfully he understands this is a war that won't be won in a few days. Thankfully he understands this is probably the toughest fight our nation has ever seen. And until Democrats like John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi understand that, we'll have to listen to a constant negative pulse over why Iraq is a failure and why we should walk away from this fight.
I'm just curious...if North Korea or Iran fires off a nuke at Hawaii or Israel, what would John Kerry do? Do you think he would stand up to the challenge? For a man, and more importantly a Democratic party, that has run or protested every noble fight this country was a part of, it shouldn't surprise you they oppose our policy in Iraq.
I can't remember the pundit who said it, but a great quote about Iraq goes like this... "Had we not invaded Iraq but put all our troops in Afghanistan, Dems would be saying the exact same thing."
Face it, if Iran declared war on the U.S. tomorrow, John Kerry and the DNC would retreat after the first bullet was fired.