Scary Times

It is not my habit to watch Congressional hearings but yesterday, anticipating fireworks, I tuned in on the Senate hearing on the situation in Iraq. Senator Hillary Clinton lit her fuse but I thought that her presentation was a complete dud. She denounced Secretary Rumsfeld personally and bitterly but there was no effort at soliciting information needed for Senatorial oversight or for public enlightenment. It was very disappointing as she is the front runner for the Democrats in ’08.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), as usual, was a star. His simple questions seeking the number and types of enemies of orderly government in Iraq drew equally straightforward answers from Rumsfeld’s top generals. Bottom line, the generals guessed that there were about 40,000 terrorists and insurgents of one kind or another. Graham then quickly extrapolated that 40,000 outlaws in a population of some 25 million (about one in 600) certainly could be quelled if the major populations (Shiite, Sunni, and Kurd) were intent on forming a viable government and nation. There was no ready answer from the DOD representatives. Obviously, things have to get worse before they get better – if they ever do – in Iraq.

Senator John McCain who has long been committed to the Iraq War and was one of Bush’s key supporters in the run up to the attack appears to recognize that what we’ve been doing in the country has failed but that we can’t allow anarchy to take over by withdrawing.

If they come to power in November and in ’08, the Democrats better be very careful. We’re stuck in Iraq until that country is relatively stable, be it one nation or three smaller ones. The pity is that the quagmire will be ongoing until this question is settled and a government or governments are in place and in control. With luck and diplomatic skill, pray that we can work with them. The Democrats would pull out troops in advance of equilibrium at America’s peril.

There can be no doubt that terrorists want to drive us out of Iraq and from all Muslim lands. They are doing their absolute best to acquire WMD to use on our interests in the region, on Israel and on us at home. The tragedy is that George Bush took us into Iraq based on a false premise and now he is stuck there without a plan to get us out, and we’re stuck with him. 40,000 extremely dangerous people are working overtime to kill our troops and Iraqis. While no operational connection was ever made between Saddam’s government and the terror networks clearly intent on hurting us badly, those networks are present in Iraq now and they want us gone so that they can take over the country and use its resources against us.

The Dems better understand that we’re firing Republicans for horrendous errors not to pack up and come home from the region. We should never have gone into Iraq. The administration should have kept up the pressure in Afghanistan but chased a red herring and the better targets of opportunity in Saddam’s realm. Because of the administration’s bungling and relative weakness, Hezbollah and Hamas came from behind and started a diversionary war with Israel to take pressure off of their patrons, Syria and Iran, even as Iran works like mad to acquire WMD.

The commitments in Iraq made by the Bush government simply cannot be abandoned; they must be managed. There can be no doubt that the intentions of the Bush administration were to keep America safe. They simply made terrible errors based on the prejudices of its officials and advisors. We want them out to punish them for incompetence, bad decisions and maladministration of the government. The Dems better not attempt to walk away from this war; they better damn well fight it more effectively.

While I’m voting for Senator Clinton or any other Democratic nominee, it’s a vote as much against the present crowd as for a change in direction that further endangers the country and its allies. A major problem is that Bush decided that we could solve the problem of international terrorism on the cheap by simply killing the terrorists and insurgents instead of investing in something akin to the Marshall Plan in postwar Europe. This has cost far more than what was perceived to be the more expensive approach that will ultimately have to be taken anyway.

Iran has outflanked the U.S. with the Arab world, and we have failed ourselves and Israel by our bungling in the Muslim world. These are scary times and the incumbents have endangered our interests and even our homeland. The die hard supporters of the president’s plan must be voted out, but moronic reactions on the part of the Democrats to simply hide from jihadists would be worse than what we’ve experienced under George W. Bush.

Blog on!

Wild Bill