White flag is Democrats favorite weapon outside US
...It is time for Democrats to admit they were wrong and run up the white flag on their anti war stance. It is time to MoveOn to victory in Iraq and fund the efforts of our troops who are providing it. They have been building a record on the war that the Republicans should run against in 2008, and if the Democrats do not turn around soon they will be swept from office. They need to quit listening to MoveOn and start looking at the facts on the ground instead of making them up.The only weapon the Democrats want to employ against our enemies in the Middle East is a white flag. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as wobbly on Iran as on the Iraq war, says the Bush administration should be pushing for a "surge in diplomacy" with dealing with Iran.
Mr. Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats have a "can we talk?" message for the terrorists in Iraq — where Tehran, working through proxies, has been actively working to destabilize the country and kill and maim American soldiers. They're eager to embarrass President Bush and denying sufficient funding to the military to do the job against al Qaeda terrorists for another year is the way they're determined to embarrass him.
On Monday, Mr. Bush reiterated Pentagon warnings that the failure to approve funding for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 will force the Army to run out of money for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in mid-February and the Marines four weeks later. In a Nov. 26 memo, Army Vice Chief of Staff Richard Cody ordered commanders to prepare for widespread layoffs of civilian personnel. Congress is doing this despite the fact that, in recent weeks, even antiwar partisans like Rep. John Murtha and Sen. Hillary Clinton have had to acknowledge that the "surge" strategy implemented by Gen. David Petraeus is succeeding. Mr. Bush has requested $196 billion in funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, enough to continue military operations through the end of next year. The House has approved legislation it knows that Mr. Bush will veto — the troops get $50 billion in funding, but only if the president acquiesces to Democratic demands to begin withdrawing troops at once with a near-complete pullout by December 2008 — in effect, a surrender date. So far, the Senate, the world's laziest deliberative body, has passed nothing.
Moreover, Gen. Montgomery Meigs, who just retired as head of the Pentagon department charged with coming up with new technologies to protect soldiers from improvised explosive devices, warned late last month that his agency will not get new technologies to troops in the field and will lay off hundreds of contract workers if Congress does not deliver more funding. In an interview with the Web site GovernmentExecutive.com, Gen. Meigs indicated that he is optimistic about the eventual outcome of the military's fight against explosive devices, which account for more than two-thirds of American casualties in Iraq. But he did not sound optimistic at all that Congress would come across with additional money. "What I can't fund today will not go into the field next summer or fall," he said.
Once more, the contrast between between the heroism of the American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan and the slip-shod performance of Congress, which is responsible for providing the money while the soldier provides the blood, is breathtaking. Since the beginning of this year, the military has achieved remarkable success in implementing Gen. Petraeus' surge strategy, which includes working with Iraqis to clear al Qaeda and other Islamic jihadists from Baghdad and Anbar and Diyala provinces. Iraqis who fled the country to escape violence have started to return. But the military success has not budged the Democratic gridlockers in Congress, whose strategy in next fall's elections is invested in a U.S. defeat and retreat from Iraq. Since the start of the 110th Congress, members have cast more than 60 votes on the Iraq war, nearly all funding restrictions or other defeatist measures pushed by Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi to pander to the crazies on the extreme left of their party.
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