September 13, 2007

Child’s Play In Iraq

By Michael J. O’Shea

“I am reminded of the time I saw my 3-year-old daughter trying and failing to tie her shoes. She got angry. Still, she kept trying.

“‘This is difficult,’ she concluded. ‘But I like difficult.'”

A child grittier than Congressional leaders, spunkier than people twenty times her age.
She’s Bill Gates’ daughter, but that’s immaterial. Her mother Melinda wrote those words, but that’s immaterial, too. What matters is what Melinda Gates also said to other philanthropists about starting the Gates Foundation.

“It turns out that her parents like difficult, too. And I suspect that you all like difficult, which is why you’ve devoted your lives to solving some of the world’s toughest problems.”

That’s what Congressmen are elected to do: solve some of America’s — and therefore the world’s — toughest problems. But Congressmen prefer childish ways instead and so play: play statesmen, play leader.
Listening to leaders in Congress one would imagine that, like a child, they still believe in the stork: Iraq, which they voted to liberate from Saddam’s rule, would go from tyranny to ally against terrorism in four-tenths of a decade.

… continued on link site below.

… plz visit this link, this is an Awesome piece! Great read!

Child’s Play In Iraq – link

They may have won the House and Senate but, the way the Democrats think today is definitely a minority. Their mode of thinking, their view of the world, their view of this country’s place in the world, is a minority opinion in this country. They may not even realize it.

When you have a bunch of lap dogs around you, this is one of the problems that highly successful people have. They surround themselves with a bunch of “yes” people that will say whatever the highly successful person wants to hear, so they can stay in good graces, get paid and be whatever. That’s the Media, in a sense, just bucking these guys up.

These headlines are ridiculous yesterday. “What do the Democrats have to do now? What will the Democrats do now?”

Well, they’re going to retreat, well, they’re going to withdraw, well, they’re going to move to the middle, well, they’re depressed, well, they’re this or that.

So they sit there and live with this preoccupation that they’re getting tricked, this barbecue jockey from Texas somehow is using slick packaging and marketing to defeat them, because he’s too stupid to do it on his own.

They really think they and the American people are being screwed. The lesson here is humility.incapable arrogance When something goes wrong, the first person or organization that you look to to find out what might be wrong, is yourself and your organization. They are and their cockiness and their superiority and their elitism, and basically the way they lie to themselves.

Now, folks, when I make allegations about people such as I just did about the Democrats, I don’t just say it. I give you evidence.

I want to share with you something that Nancy Pelosi said this week: “What Congress is trying to do is a responsible deployment, redeployment and a change of mission in Iraq so that we can focus on three things: redeployment out…” Folks, stick with me on this. She said they’re focusing on three things in Congress: “redeployment out, readiness of our troops, strengthening our military to protect our interests wherever they may be threatened, and focusing on the real war on terror — which is Afghanistan, as well now as in Iraq.”

Now, in the first place, that’s four things. But do you understand what she just did? She just said we want to take the troops out of Iraq, redeploy ’em out so that we can have them ready to protect our interests in Afghanistan and Iraq!

They’re always portrayed as the smartest people, the most learned, the most scholarly. I’m telling you, here, we’re dealing with people with the IQ basically above that of two eraser heads — and I’m being generous there!

She said this: “We have said the troops can stay.” Arrogance, condescension. We have said? She has no constitutional power to say “we” anything. She ain’t the commander-in-chief, and neither is Harry Reid.

But she said, “We have said the troops can stay, a small number can stay, whatever number necessary to fight the Al-Qaeda. But we must get our combat troops out of that civil war in Iraq. We are trying to find our common ground. That’s where I told him the House Democrats were.” You cannot say something like this without having two characteristics about you: A, genuine stupidity; and, B, arrogance and superiority.

“We have said the troops can stay, a small number could stay, whatever number necessary to fight the Al-Qaeda.” Whatever number necessary to fight “the” Al-Qaeda? “”But we must get our combat troops out of that civil war in Iraq.” Uh, if a Republican had said something like this, it would have been Dan Quayle all over again. That’s just Nancy Pelosi.

Here’s Harry Reid: “This war is president’s war, and the Republicans have bought this war hook, line, and sinker. We’ve done our very best to do the right thing for our country. We’ve kept the president’s foot to the fire. And as a result, we believe the American people see what we’ve done here and what we have here. We have a Bush war supported by Republicans in Congress.”

Now, he’s being political. He’s trying to position this as Bush’s war because they have to circle the wagons now. But, again, you clearly are able to see the arrogance, the elitism in this.

“We’ve done the best to do the right thing for our country. We’ve kept the president’s foot to the fire. We believe the American people see what we have here.”

Harry, I’m going to just tell you, if those election results in November were as you have been telling us they are, your first resolution would have passed. If the election in November was about getting out of Iraq — and it wasn’t, Senator Reid. It was about two things: Macaca and Mark Foley, and Republicans who failed to govern as they had campaigned. You guys didn’t “win” anything. The incumbents lost. So Harry Reid has just now confirmed what I said before. It’s the president’s war; it’s the Republicans’ war. We, ladies and gentlemen, are going to have to win this war without Democrats. Frankly, as stupid as they are, that’s probably an advantage.

Resource:

UPI: Al-Qaida in Iraq Takes Heavy Losses
NYT: Disappointed Democrats Map Withdrawal Strategy
NYT: Bush to Sell Limited Iraq Pullout as Middle Way
Bloomberg: General Petraeus Wins the TV War in a Rout: Margaret Carlson
WSJ: Iraq Testimony Appears to Have Won No Converts
WP: General Returns to War That Is Now His Own
WT: Petraeus unites GOP on pullout

A story from The Politico.com-Democrats scramble for Iraq strategy in which it was stated that the Democrats are searching for a new policy now, a new strategy, on Iraq. They don’t quite know what to do. Well, here it is.

Headline: “‘Democrats Scramble for Iraq Strategy.’ Democrats are scrambling to deal with a new dynamic on Capitol Hill — they’re the ones who are trying to come up with a new political strategy on the war.” That alone says a mouthful.

Here we have a war over the US national security, and they’re looking at it as a political issue and trying to come up with a strategy. Bottom line is, they’ve come up with a strategy. Senate Democrat leader, Harry Reid, says that Senate Democrats “reject the call by General Petraeus for a reduction of as many as 30,000 US troops in Iraq by next summer, saying it is not enough.”Withdrawing 30,000 troops does not go far enough. So the new strategy is the old strategy. The new strategy is, “No, you gotta pull ’em all out, much more than that, and do it much sooner.”

That’s their new strategy, which is their old strategy.

The Democrats now have their “new strategy” — and that is their old strategy — of saying, “Get us out! We need to have a timetable! We need to get troops out of there.” So Petraeus comes up with one and they say it’s not good enough. They reject it. They wouldn’t agree with anything.

If Petraeus said, “We want to get out in six months,” they’d find a way to disagree with that. It’s too soon or whatever. But what do they keep saying about President Bush? He has a closed mind. He can’t be changed by new information. He refuses to deal with reality! He will not admit his mistakes. Well, General Petraeus has spoken, not glowingly, but realistically, about Iraq. So has Ambassador Crocker.

Now, let’s see. Who has the closed mind now, the president or the left? Who refuses to be changed by new information? Who rejects it? Who doesn’t even want to hear the new information, the president or the left?

The answer is obvious.

Petraeus’s Decorations < PLEASE VISIT LINK

Sept 10-07

Tom Lantos, who is co-chairing the committee (he’s from California) told Petraeus (I’m going to have to paraphrase this) that he knows — he, Lantos, and all Congress knows — that Petraeus and Crocker have been sent up there to convince the Congress and the American people that victory is at hand. Lantos says, “I don’t buy it.” Who the hell is Tom Lantos? This is before the Petraeus report has been made public. He told General Petraeus: We’re not going to believe a damn word you say here, General. He did say, by the way, “nothing personal.” We know it’s the Bush administration.

I’m paraphrasing here. We know you’ve been sent up here to lie. It’s what he said! You’ve been sent up here to try to convince us that victory is at hand. “I don’t buy it,” said Congressman Lantos, and I will guarantee you when this is all over, you know where the media is going to go? They’ll go to Lantos. “It was like a very courageous thing you said to General Petraeus. What’s your thought on this?” He’ll repeat it and they’ll marvel and they’ll go to Petraeus, “What do you think about what Lantos said?” They won’t ask Petraeus about what he said. If they do, it will be under the auspices of, “Is this really what you think, or is this what Bush told you to say?”

sorry for this kinda being a few days old…, I missed it, then when I found out about it… I was outraged! so… hence this post.

…THEN at the hearing…

LANTOS: The fact remains, gentlemen, that the administration has sent you here today to convince the members of these two committees and the Congress that victory is at hand. With all due respect to you, I must say: I don’t buy it.

And he went on to talk about how “The fact remains, the administration has sent you here today to convince the members of these two committees…”

Can I give you the lowdown on what the law is here? By the way, who writes the laws in this country? People like Tom Lantos, members of the United States Congress. The report that General Petraeus might deliver, if these windbags could ever shut up, was required by the US Congress, and the words in the law say, “The president shall present to Congress” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the report on the surge, or whatever they’re calling it officially.

Well, the Democrats know this. They wrote the law. But when the surge was reported as working, when there was progress, immense progress, to be reported, the Democrats started changing tune, and they came out with this notion among many other things, that the president is writing a report. “The president’s writing the report! It’s the Bush report! It’s the Bush report!”

The president is required to present it, and Petraeus and Crocker originally were not going to appear in public testimony. The Democrats howled and screamed so the administration said, “Okay, we’ll send ’em up there, if that’s what you want.”

I just remembered who Tom Lantos’s military advisor is. It would be Bashar al-Assad. The last time he went on a foreign trip it was with Nancy Pelosi to Syria. Remember that trip? Hunter responded to Tom Lantos. This is how he did it…

HUNTER: The last week or so has been spent attacking your credibility with major attacks here in the United States, and some of them emanating from right here, saying essentially that your testimony is going to be — and I quote my friend from California, Mr. Lantos, “Not your testimony, but testimony which is written by, ‘political operatives.‘”

In fact, I know that’s not the case. I haven’t reviewed your testimony, but I know this: duty, honor, country. Those are the principles by which our great officers in the United States Army and the other services derive their careers and base their careers on. It’s an outrage that we spent the last week prepping the ground, bashing the credibility of a general officer whose trademark is integrity, who was unanimously supported by the US Senate.

Mr. Chairman, let’s — let’s lead off this hearing with this stipulation. That the gentlemen who are appearing before us, and particularly General Petraeus, whose credibility has been attacked all week long by the left in this country, represents the very best in military tradition, that he’s going to testify with an independent, candid view, and he’s going to give us the one thing we ask of all of our military officers, and that’s a candid, independent assessment given with integrity in the same tradition of MacArthur and Eisenhower and Schwarzkopf.

LOL… That had to make ’em mad. Hunter said let’s start with the stipulation these guys are honorable. Can we start with that? He didn’t say this, but if they prove they’re not honorable, we’ll go there, but let’s not start with the assumption that they’re liars. Let’s not start with the assumption that they’re just a bunch of puppets. But that’s exactly where the Democrats want to start. I think one of the reasons for this is this conference call that Michael Lerner has made public between Democrats and anti-war activists.

He says, “Right now we would write the story of this Congress as profiles in cowardice. There’s a great deal of frustration with the Democrats in the Congress, a sense almost of betrayal.” By the way, you could sense that in Osama Bin Laden’s tape. Osama Bin Laden was frustrated last week with the Democrats.

Did you notice, by the way, that after Bin Laden’s tape came out, the Democrats ramped it up? That’s when they started hitting Petraeus even harder. We know who they’re responding to. Look, it is not extreme to say that in a question of allies here, the Democrat Party is much closer to Osama Bin LadenBin Laden comes out and than the American people in terms of what they want. Kerry was asked a question by George Stephanopoulos about it.

Bin Laden says, “You’re not doing your job right,” and Kerry says, “Well, we don’t have 60 votes, George.”

He actually responded to it! He actually responded to it from a defensive posture, upset that Bin Laden was upset with him, perhaps.

NRO: Petraeus’s Decorations

You know, ladies and gentlemen, it’s amazing. The Democrats‘ experts on the military, they have no concept how to win. They don’t want to win, and they challenge the integrity and honor of General Petraeus, sitting before them in full military dress with his fourlie to them. They also tell us they need to run our health care industry, not the doctors, not the medical professionals, not the highly trained specialists in medicine.

No, no, no, no! Democrats need to run our health care, people like John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton. Yet they are never questioned on their expertise.

Nobody said, “Well, who the hell are you to run the health care of this country? Who are you to determine military policy?” They never, ever, are questioned on it, and we are going to stop giving them a pass on this, and we are going to stop laughing at them when they make these statements. By the way, General Petraeus tells the Democrats what to do with their “Bush Report“ talking points.

PETRAEUS: At the outset I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or the Congress until it was just handed out. As a bottom line up-front, the military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met.

They have spent a week demeaning and impugning the integrity of the most gifted, qualified four-star general we’re told we’ve got for this particular mission.

They have said to his face this morning that he is a liar; that he is simply going to mouth words offered by the president. He took it right back at them. Now what are the Democrats going to do? What will they do?

They’ll call him a liar again.