A CONSENSUS

This being Yom Kippur weekend, I only have time for a relatively brief message. Unfortunately, it happens to be as sobering as it is short.

I was reflecting on the goings on in Iraq and the efforts of both parties to adjust to the facts on the ground. The GOP’s position is simple enough to understand. They’re going to support this invasion for as long as there is a mathematical chance that we can “win.” The alternative – losing the game while there’s still a chance – is simply unacceptable. Ask any football coach.

As for the Democrats, they’re a bit more puzzling. They claim that they oppose the war. And yet they continue to fund it, year after year after year. Now that they have the votes to stop the war by cutting off funding, they refuse to do it. Why?

The answer is quite simple. The Dems don’t want to be blamed for losing this war any more than the GOP does. If the Dems cut off the funding while the generals claim that the Fat Lady hasn’t sung yet, then this fiasco will be blamed on the Dems as much as the GOP. Why should the Dems risk letting that happen when they could score a clear victory by letting the GOP continue to bleed lives from now until the next election … and thereby hand the Dems the upper hand on a silver platter?

It makes me sick to type those words. I’d like to say that they are overly cynical. To be charitable, I’d like to think that maybe a number of the Dems truly want to give the surge a chance, and many more would like us to get out but very judiciously, so that we don’t make matters worse with a precipitous pullout. I’d like to think that, but I don’t.

It’s pretty obvious that, as long as the Dems fund the war, the GOP will continue to maintain more or less the same troop levels from now until their likely defeat next November. Reducing 25,000 won’t make that much difference. Thus, if and when the Dems take over in January 2009, we’ll still have a ton of troops in Iraq. So then what? According to every Democratic candidate, we will pretty quick pull out all our “combat” troops, leaving at most a rump group to guard against the creation of terrorist camps and the like. So if that’s the case, if it’s inevitable that we’re going to turn tail in a couple of years, why are we funding a massive war in the interim?

The real question is why the Democratic Party is playing politics with the lives of so many American heroes, and so many innocent Iraqis. Just as Hillary Clinton likes to blame President Bush for hoodwinking her into entering this war (not mentioning that she never bothered to take the time to read the intelligence reports), she and other Democrats are blaming Bush and the GOP for continuing the war. I’m not kidding folks. Just listen to TV and radio news shows and you will hear the Democratic leaders, one after another, hammering away at the GOP by blaming them for continuing to support the Iraq War.

Frankly, the Dems are the ones with the chutzpah. They truly are insulting our intelligence. At least the GOP has been consistent. They might actually believe in this war, and they want to make every effort possible to win this thing and establish an American colony in the Muslim world. Of course that’s crazy, but isn’t it somehow less offensive than what the Democrats are doing, treating this thing as just another political football?

I’m looking ahead to December of 2008, and assuming that the war is still going strong and the Democrats are poised to occupy the White House as well as the Congressional majority. Will the Democrats think then that all the killing will have been worth it? Will they really be proud of their victory?