No strings

Brian Bresnahan:

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The Congressman (Adrian Smith) said that what he’d seen and heard in Iraq solidified his position and reinforced his vote against the supplemental spending bill with all the strings attached for the war.

One of the specific points he gathered from the troops in Iraq which reaffirmed his position was the “need for flexibility;” read not specific directives from Congress which would only serve to complicate matters.

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535 armchair generals, led by some with the war-time personalities of Sybil, constantly readjusting the bar and redefining benchmarks for success so as to never achieve success is simply a bad idea.

Just look at some of the critics’ shifts to see the multiple personalities of their positions.

One of their criticisms is that we’re not doing enough to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. But fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq doesn’t seem to be necessary. Al Qaeda is suspected of setting off the bomb in Iraq’s parliament last week. But instead of using the occasion to reinvigorate the fight against them, defeatists here point to it as a reason to get out of Iraq. So, do they or don’t they think we need to fight Al Qaeda?

Congressman Smith noted how the violent overreach by Al Qaeda in Iraq has driven Iraqi’s together in a fight against them. Last Saturday’s Telegraph from Britain noted that the same attack had even brought Sunnis and Shiites in parliament together, resolved to fight Al Qaeda. Military intelligence and news articles over the last several months have shown the same trend, a growing, concerted effort against Al Qaeda by the Iraqi’s, especially in Anbar Province. Doesn’t it seem odd that they increasingly understand the threat from Al Qaeda while we seem less and less willing to acknowledge it?

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There is much more about the moving goal posts of the critics. First they say we need more troops and then when they are ordered over there they say we don't need them. They say we need a new strategy yet they fear implementation of the surge. Some are clearly afraid of winning which would discredit their pessimism and defeatism. Winning would be a disaster for Harry Reid, et.al. That is where many of the Copperheads are today.