The Democrats' Investment in Defeat

On Thursday of last week, Sen. Harry Reid said that the Iraq war is lost.

"Now I believe, myself, that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows: that this war is lost, that the surge is not accomplishing anything," Reid, D-Nev., told reporters.

If that is so, who won? Reid's comments would have led him to be charged with treason in previous times in this country. He claims his reasoning for the war being lost is the recent violence at the hands of Al Qaeda in Iraq. So he's sending a message to Al Qaeda that their terrorism is working. He's sending a message to all terrorists basically that if they get really violent, we won't have the stomach to hold out against them. Senator Reid may as well go ahead and capitulate our government now to Sharia law and save everyone the trouble. Because under his pretenses we'll never be able to fight terrorists. They're too violent for us.

Contrast his message to sending a message that we are united against these terrorists and that their acts of terrorism are cowardly and that WE WILL DEFEAT them. Period. Instead of being emboldened to thinking that they can win, they would eventually succumb to the idea it is they, not us that cannot win this war.

Now we have the terrorists riding high thinking that they can do whatever they want to us and we won't have the stomach to stay in the fight. Al Qaeda just has to keep the bombs going off for a short while longer and they'll have their victory. This despite the many setbacks they've experienced recently. If they win and push us out of Iraq, there will literally be no stopping them. People will join their ranks with little to fear from U.S. and they'll be swimming in money from supporters throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. That'll be when the real fun starts. Where will Sen. Reid be then? If he doesn't succumb to some terrorist attack I'd suspect he'd be looking to make political capital out of the situation and maybe pick up a few more Congressional seats.

He already sees Iraq as a chance to pick up Congressional seats in 2008.

"It's at least my belief that they are going to have to break because they're going to look extinction, some of them, in the eye," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of his Republican colleagues.

Added Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.: "We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war."

Let's shift gears and talk about some of those recent setbacks to Al Qaeda for a moment; because they are not insignificant.

Al Qaeda's support in Iraq has been waning recently. They seem to be engulfed in a civil war with their Sunni brethren. Sunni tribal leaders have been working with Coalition and Iraqi forces to oust them from the region. These tribal leaders have also have formed a new anti-insurgent party aimed at opposing insurgent groups and promoting a better image of American forces to Iraqis. The Sunni insurgent group, Islamic Army of Iraq split ranks with Al Qaeda earlier this month. And most recently, a senior Al Qaeda operative in Iraq has been apprehended and is beginning a pleasant stay in Guantanamo Bay.

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In response to Sen. Reid's statements about losing the war, Sen. Joseph Lieberman released this statement:

WASHINGTON - Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) today made the following statement in response to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's comment that the Iraq War is "lost:"

"This week witnessed horrific terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists in Iraq, killing hundreds of innocent civilians and leading Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to declare that the war is 'lost.'

With all due respect, I strongly disagree. Senator Reid's statement is not based on military facts on the ground in Iraq and does not advance our cause there.

Al Qaeda's strategy for victory in Iraq is clear. They are trying to murder as many innocent civilians as possible in an effort to reignite sectarian fighting and drive us to retreat from Iraq.

The question now before us is whether we respond to these terrorist attacks by running away as Al Qaeda hopes - abandoning the future of Iraq, the Middle East, and ultimately our own security to the very same people responsible for this week's atrocities - or whether we stand united to fight them.

This is exactly the wrong time to conclude that we have lost the war in Iraq, or that our new strategy has failed. Instead, we should provide General Petraeus and his troops with the time and the resources to succeed. We should not surrender in the face of barbarism."

Sen. Lieberman was the only Democrat (he's an Independent but still caucuses with the Democrats) to vote against the appropriations bill that would have forced American troops from Iraq regardless of any progress made in the war. Sen. Lieberman went on to give an eloquent speech before the Senate prior to the vote on the appropriations bill. Here are some excerpts:

When we say that U.S. troops shouldn't be "policing a civil war," that their operations should be restricted to this narrow list of missions, what does this actually mean?

To begin with, it means that our troops will not be allowed to protect the Iraqi people from the insurgents and militias who are trying to terrorize and kill them. Instead of restoring basic security, which General Petraeus has argued should be the central focus of any counterinsurgency campaign, it means our soldiers would instead be ordered, by force of this proposed law, not to stop the sectarian violence happening all around them--no matter how vicious or horrific it becomes.

The sectarian violence that the Majority Leader says he wants to order American troops to stop policing, in other words, is the very same sectarian violence that Al Qaeda hopes to ride to victory. The suggestion that we can draw a bright legislative line between stopping terrorists in Iraq and stopping civil war in Iraq flies in the face of this reality.

I do not know how to say it more plainly: it is Al Qaeda that is trying to cause a full-fledged civil war in Iraq.

And yet, if we pass this legislation, according to the Majority Leader, U.S. forces will no longer be permitted to patrol Iraq's neighborhoods or protect Iraqi civilians. They won't, in his words, be "interjecting themselves between warring factions" or "trying to sort friend from foe."

Therefore, I ask the supporters of this legislation: How, exactly, are U.S. forces to gather intelligence about where, when, and against whom to strike, after you have ordered them walled off from the Iraqi population? How, exactly, are U.S. forces to carry out targeted counter-terror operations, after you have ordered them cut off from the very source of intelligence that drives these operations?

And here is the best:

For most of the past four years, under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the United States did not try to establish basic security in Iraq. Rather than deploying enough troops necessary to protect the Iraqi people, the focus of our military has been on training and equipping Iraqi forces, protecting our own forces, and conducting targeted sweeps and raids--in other words, the very same missions proposed by the proponents of the legislation before us.

That strategy failed--and we know why it failed. It failed because we didn't have enough troops to ensure security, which in turn created an opening for Al Qaeda and its allies to exploit. They stepped into this security vacuum and, through horrific violence, created a climate of fear and insecurity in which political and economic progress became impossible.

For years, many members of Congress recognized this. We talked about this. We called for more troops, and a new strategy, and--for that matter--a new secretary of defense.

And yet, now, just as President Bush has come around--just as he has recognized the mistakes his administration has made, and the need to focus on basic security in Iraq, and to install a new secretary of defense and a new commander in Iraq--now his critics in Congress have changed their minds and decided that the old, failed strategy wasn't so bad after all.

Sen. Lieberman manages to address, quite well I might add, each and every point made by Sen. Harry Reid who is pushing for the "redeployment" of U.S. military forces from Iraq. Sen. Lieberman sees very well the marked flaws found in the Democratic Leadership's strategy for Iraq.

If Al Qaeda hired an official spokesperson here in the US to basically pitch propaganda to help them win the war, that spokesman would say exactly what Harry Reid and many Democrats have been saying. So who's side is Harry Reid really on? It seems that the Democrats (or at least the Democratic leadership) happen to find themselves in the same corner as Al Qaeda on this one.

Why are we not trying to discuss options on how to win the war instead of trying so fervently to lose it? Democrats just push and push and push for leaving Iraq regardless of any possible good news about the surge and regardless of other ideas that might bear fruit in Iraq.

I will answer my own question by saying that Reid and other Democrats don't want us to win. And yes I do believe that. Harry Reid has admitted openly that Iraq is going to yield Congressional seats. All the actions and rhetoric of the Democrats so far says that they see Iraq as a political tool to help them in 08 instead of a war that needs to be won, not lost. Losing the war will be that final nail in the coffin for George Bush and possibly the only tool they need to gain seats in Congress as well as gaining the White House in 2008. Apparently it's completely worth those precious seats to go ahead and throw in the towel on this all important war. Right now, they have really put themselves in a political corner such that a victory in Iraq would be a political disaster for Democrats. And it didn't have to be that way, but they have clearly positioned themselves 180 degrees from the President on this and now either he wins or they win, not we all win like it should be.

Harry Reid wouldn't even bother showing up at Gen. Patraeus's brief before the Senate the other day. Probably because he doesn't want to hear anything that might be good news regarding Iraq. He has to continue to sell Iraq's loss to the general public no matter what. And he has to continue to make Iraq the number one issue to make political capital out of. They (the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate) will keep playing games with legislation to get as much as they can out of the Iraq issue until 2008. And that my friends, is reducing war to pure politics. I hope history crucifies these people for that.

Again, this is treason as far as I'm concerned but treason or no, Harry Reid will probably get reelected. There's a comforting thought.