Dems still do not get it on troop cuts

Washington Post:

Senate Democrats reacted angrily yesterday to a report that the U.S. commander in Iraq had privately presented a plan for significant troop reductions in the same week they came under attack by Republicans for trying to set a timetable for withdrawal.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said that the plan attributed to Gen. George W. Casey resembles the thinking of many Democrats who voted for a nonbinding resolution to begin a troop drawdown in December. That resolution was defeated on a largely party-line vote in the Senate on Thursday.

"That means the only people who have fought us and fought us against the timetable, the only ones still saying there shouldn't be a timetable really are the Republicans in the United States Senate and in the Congress," Boxer said on CBS's "Face the Nation." "Now it turns out we're in sync with General Casey."

Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), one of the two sponsors of the nonbinding resolution, which offered no pace or completion date for a withdrawal, said the report is another sign of what he termed one of the "worst-kept secrets in town" -- that the administration intends to pull out troops before the midterm elections in November.

"It shouldn't be a political decision, but it is going to be with this administration," Levin said on "Fox News Sunday." "It's as clear as your face, which is mighty clear, that before this election, this November, there's going to be troop reductions in Iraq, and the president will then claim some kind of progress or victory."

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Let's see. The President has said all along that the decision on when the number of troops should be left for the military. The military has made that decision and the Democrats call that political, because their attempts to force a political decision to cut troops failed. The big difference is that if the military dicides the situation is such that fewer troops are needed that is far different from a group of Democrats who are saying the war is unwinnable and that the troops should be brought home.

One is victory and the other is defeat. It is clear that the Democrats are angry about being denied the military defeat that they wanted and they are looking pretty foolish at this point because they had so little faith in the US military and its plan to defeat the enemy. When Harry Reid holds up his blank prop and calls it the Repblican plan for Iraq, he is insulting the cilitary commanders who have been given the responsiblity for developing a plan to defat the enemy. What Reid, nor any of the Democrats can do is explain how retreat or redeployment is a strategy for victory.

When confronted with the fact that our military's strategy in Iraq is working the Democrats are angry. They were just too invested in defeat to see it coming.