How can you even think of pushing forward legislation to set a withdrawal date for US forces from Iraq? Do you know how much you embolden the insurgency here in Iraq? YOU ARE JEOPARDIZING THE LIVES OF US SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN WITH YOUR ACTIONS. You and your fellow Democrats are causing the Al Qaeda supported insurgency to use more catastrophic attacks against us and Iraqi forces. You will see more SVBIED’s with chlorine gas, more VBIED’s against civilians and security forces every time you and other Democrats open your mouths. You will have to live with yourself and try to sleep at night knowing all the defeatist propaganda you have spewed forth is nothing more than ammunition for Islamic extremist groups around the world and more US deaths. The ! unsuspecting people who support you know nothing of what goes on over here; you fill their heads with nonsense and talk of pullout to appease them. The only thing that will happen is the establishment of an extremist Islamic state where sharia law is the law of the land and no one is safe.
Sunni Moslems here are coming to our side and joining forces with the government to defeat Al Qaeda(AQI) here in Iraq, but they need our help and they need us to stay. I have spent the last 7 months(3rd tour) in Iraq. I have watched Iraqi citizens pick up weapons and form militias in areas to join forces with Iraqi police/Army. Common citizens who fight and die because we are standing next to them. Not cutting and running or talking of withdrawal. This started after the surge forces the President sent here arrived. We have lost Marines also and it hurts more than you will ever know but we have made a commitment to these people. And I for one will not abandon them and I have of a platoon of Marines who feel the same. I have no control over what happened in 2003 and why we invaded Iraq. That is another discussion, but we are here and they need our help to rid their country of these terrorists. Yes eventually we will leave but we need to do a phased withdrawal without a timeline. At least without a timeline that is published for the world to know. The citizens of Iraq need to see some solidarity in our government, Democrats and Republicans coming together and supporting our President in this war. There is a middle ground here for both parties, you all need to come together and work towards a solution. What we don’t need is more theatrics and clashes between the parties. AQI loves to see that it causes them to do more attacks and continue with the murder and intimidation campaign against Iraqi citizens.
Someone needs to step forward and bring the two parties together. Meet and talk about what you all can do and come to an agreement on the war. Like I said before we need a unified front to present to the world on the Iraq war. The Iraqi people need a morale boost, they need to see we are behind them and we will support them and not cut and run. The insurgency needs to see our resolve is strong and we will endure and defeat them. Extremist Islamist terror groups use our perceived weakness against us. They misunderstand our kindness for weakness. Weakness shown to the world brings more recruits to their cause; it causes more civilian deaths and violence.
Please I implore you to not push this agenda. I have watched you on television and you seem to be using this as a steppingstone to further your political career. STOP!!! More is at stake here. Our countries word is on the line, my word to many Iraqi citizens is on the line. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines lives are at stake. We know the risks and we face them daily. Don’t make our mission more difficult.
Gunnery Sgt. Stephen F. Krueger
Platoon Sgt 3rd Recon Bn
[End Update]
Just as General Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates predicted, the actions of the Democratic Congress and Senate have emboldened al-Qaeda.
They will try to deny it, their supporters will say Reuters is a conservative leaning news source (LOL) because of this headline, but it is accurAte and all their justifications cannot change the fact that they were warned, repeatedly and events on the ground are proving General Petraeus and Robert Gates correct.
There will be comments made to this stating that the new pork laden bills handing a roadmap to the terrorists had nothing to do with it, but those people will be speaking after the fact.
Petraeus and Gates told congress and the senate that the enemy would be emboldened. They have become emboldened.
Any excuses now are simply that, flat, dishonest excuses.
As I stated back on January 30, 2007:
Congress bears responsibility for the deaths that follow their interference and defunding of a war.... including raising the question of forcing withdrawal.Prof. Robert Turner of the University of Virginia suggested that Congress had made itself responsible for the deaths of the 1.7 million Cambodians estimated to have been slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge, by denying funds for President Nixon to wage war inside Cambodia. Similarly, he said Congress bore responsibility for the deaths of 241 marines killed by a suicide bomber in Lebanon in 1983 because it raised the question of forcing a withdrawal there.
History and historians have a major advantage over us that are in the here-and-now. They can look back and take the consequences of the actions we make NOW into their accounts, as they have done with Vietnam and Lebanon.
Congress now has death on its hands as they bicker within to reach a compromise on a bill they already know will be vetoed by the President, any soldier that dies because the funds were not given to them to keep them safe, is on Pelosi and crews head now.
Once again, they have been warned, and yet they will act all surprised when the veto pen is used.... do they think the world over hasn't heard about it?
Al-Qaeda certainly has.
Do they think their "surprise" will be believed?
Lets also remember that Congress, while bickering, not a single Democratic house member even bothered to show up for the first progress report from General Petraeus.
The don't care how things are going in Iraq... or someone would have made an appearance to actually find out, now wouldn't they?
Wapo says that Senate has set the stage for a showdown and I agree.
Krauthammer has a piece in Wapo today, a very good read with some interesting questions.
"Our bill calls for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq so that we can focus more fully on the real war on terror, which is in Afghanistan."
-- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, March 8
Of all the arguments for pulling out of Iraq, the greater importance of Afghanistan is the least serious.
And not just because this argument assumes that the world's one superpower, which spends more on defense every year than the rest of the world combined, does not have the capacity to fight an insurgency in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan. But because it assumes that Afghanistan is strategically more important than Iraq.
Thought experiment: Bring in a completely neutral observer -- a Martian -- and point out to him that the United States is involved in two hot wars against radical Islamic insurgents. One is in Afghanistan, a geographically marginal backwater with no resources and no industrial or technological infrastructure. The other is in Iraq, one of the three principal Arab states, with untold oil wealth, an educated population, an advanced military and technological infrastructure that, though suffering decay in the later years of Saddam Hussein's rule, could easily be revived if it falls into the right (i.e., wrong) hands. Add to that the fact that its strategic location would give its rulers inordinate influence over the entire Persian Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf states. Then ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question.
Then he points out the one thing that the democrats run from, have not spoken a word about and are scared to even acknoledge.
Al-Qaeda has provided the answer many times. Osama bin Laden, the one whose presence in Afghanistan (or some cave on the border) presumably makes it the central front in the war on terror, has been explicit that "the most . . . serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War that is raging in Iraq." Al-Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri, has declared that Iraq "is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam in this era."
And it's not just what al-Qaeda says, it's what al-Qaeda does. Where are they funneling the worldwide recruits for jihad? Where do all the deranged suicidists who want to die for Allah gravitate? It's no longer Afghanistan but Iraq. That's because they recognize the greater prize.
[...]
If our resources are so stretched that we have to choose one front, the Martian would choose Iraq. But that is because, unlike a majority of Democratic senators, he did not vote four years earlier to authorize the war in Iraq, a vote for which many have a guilty conscience to be soothed retroactively by pulling out and fighting the "totally just war."
But you do not decide where to fight on the basis of history; you decide on the basis of strategic realities. You can argue about our role in creating this new front and question whether it was worth taking that risk to topple Saddam Hussein. But you cannot reasonably argue that in 2007 Iraq is not the most critical strategic front in the war on terrorism. There's no escaping its centrality. Nostalgia for the "good war" in Afghanistan is perhaps useful in encouraging antiwar Democrats to increase funding that is needed there. But it is not an argument for abandoning Iraq.
He speaks to deaf ears because the Democrats do not care about conditions on the ground, success or any amount of progress, they care about politics.... PERIOD.
Oh, and lets not forget, they also care about their spring breaks even if it means this: (From Wapo)
But Congress now leaves town for a recess, with the House not returning until April 16.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House panel that a delay in funding would force the Army to curtail training and equipment repair necessary to prepare units for deployment, which could lead forces now in Iraq and Afghanistan to have their tours lengthened.
If the funds do not arrive in time, the Army will have to cut spending on National Guard, reserve and active units at home to give priority to soldiers fighting overseas, according to Pace and senior Army officials.
Yes, by all means, go on vacation and leave our troops without the funds they need.
This is a part one, I will link part two here when it is finished.
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