Why would the majority leader of the Senate wish for America to lose?
Why would the majority leader of the Senate deliberately knife our soldiers in the back?
Why would Harry Reid then backtrack and claim he was misunderstood?
Politics. Pure and simple, undiluted politics is the answer to this question.
The Firestorm Reid has started will not die down, it hasn't yet and we do not intend to let him get away with his treasonous words.
This Blue Star Dad joins in with hundreds of thousands of other Blue Star families, active military and those of us that support our troops unconditionally and their mission, in calling for Reid to be presecuted for endangering our troops, giving comfort and aid to our enemies and emboldening them.
Treason:
The crime of betraying one's country, defined in Article III, section 3 of the U. S. Constitution: "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." Treason requires overt acts and includes the giving of government security secrets to other countries, even if friendly, when the information could harm American security. Treason can include revealing to an antagonistic country secrets such as the design of a bomber being built by a private company for the Defense Department. Treason may include "espionage" (spying for a foreign power or doing damage to the operation of the government and its agencies, particularly involved in security) but is separate and worse than "sedition" which involves a conspiracy to upset the operation of the government.
Sedition:
The Federal crime of advocacy of insurrection against the government or support for an enemy of the nation during time of war, by speeches, publications and organization.
For a list of more action that cobdanny, a Blue Star Father, feels should be brought against Harry Reid, visit Crotchety Old Bastard's post saying "Thank You Senator Reid."
With position and power comes responsibility, for example:
If I were to go on television and claim that we have lost in Iraq, who would care about my opinion?
But for the majority leader of the Senate to do so for the whole world, including our enemies to see, is an act of complete irresponsibility and I truly hope our administration is looking into the legal ramifications and whether charges can be brought against Harry Reid.
A portion of the evidence that can be used is how Reids words have comforted and given aid to our enemies which is shown by the reprinting and use of his words by al-Jazeera, Al-Sharq al-Awsat and the Iranian Press, just to show a few public examples.
The most telling of Reid's comments was this quote, hat tip to Lew Waters from Right in a left world:
Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, after declaring today that This War Is Lost, is also quoted that he “plans to continue an aggressive push for an early withdrawal from Iraq” and “does not particularly care that Republicans will try to paint that position as a lack of support for U.S. forces.”
Why? He answers, “We are going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war.”
Don't count on it Harry Boy because as shown here as well as multiple other sites, your comment has just guaranteed the loss of a large voting group for anybody in the Democratic party, veterans, active military, their families and all of us that support the troops and their mission.
This is what one Blue Star Mother thinks about it: (From the comments section of this post, quite a lively conversation has been going on)
Chemist said ~ "Seriously, these people are just men. Not Gods. They kill for a living. That's nothing to aspire to, despite your wish to canonize everyone who serves. They are not any better or worse than me, and my opinion counts just as much as theirs."
As the mother of a soldier, I take offense to those words. But you will never understand why. You will never understand the beliefs and thought that goes into the decision to become a soldier and raise your right hand and swear to protect the Constitution and defend this country.
If you did you would never have thought the words "theat's nothing to aspire to" nevermind using them in an argument against this war. Just shows that you have no idea what makes a soldier tick or why they do what they do.
You will never understand why, as the mother of a soldier who raised her right hand and is willing to do her duty no matter where it takes her, the actions of those such as Reid, Pelosi, Murtha and Kerry raise our hackles. Plus, the fact that we know that the enemy is watching these actions and seeing weakness in our leaders and that this will bring about more attacks on our soldiers and the people they are trying to protect. Anything that does not help our troops, we're rather prickly about and Harry Reid saying for all the world to hear that we have lost this war does not, in any way shape or form, help our troops.
The soldiers I've talked to are not too happy with this either. Not at all, in fact.
Yankeemom
PCMom, whom is also a Blue Star Mother has this to say:
I love your site!
And to all the nay sayers...
Please tell my son and the rest of the Warriors in the 4-9 Cav that they are losing. For some reason what the men are witnessing is not what Harry Reid keeps telling the world the Warriors are witnessing.
This is representative of the emails and letters that our Blue and Gold Star families are sending in, as well as our active military members in response to Harry Reid's words and actions.
Reid also knows that his words are causing a backlash, hence his incredibly stupid attempt to backtrack.
The war in Iraq "is lost" and a US troop surge is failing to bring peace to the country, the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, said Thursday.
Then after Joe Lieberman took Reid to task for his stupidity, Reid responds with this (Please make sure you don't have a drink in your mouth, because getting liquid off the keyboard after spewing it, is REALLY hard to do)
"No one wants us to succeed in Iraq more than the Democrats. We've proven that time and time again since this war started more than four years ago. We take a back seat to no one in supporting our troops, and we will never abandon our troops in a time of war.
Isn't that a riot??
I about fell off my chair when I read that and here is a hint to Harry the traitor Reid, actions speak louder than words, your words are hollow and an incredibly clumsy attempt to repair the damage you have done to your party.
Some would wonder why Harry Reid picked this time to make his announcement, well for once, the mainstream media is showing us the good news from Iraq, and in here lies the Democrats problem.
They have invested everything in America's defeat, their political reputation, the 2008 elections, their personal reputations and that is far more important to them than our soldiers lives.
Harry Reid and the rest of the house and senate are privvy to information we do not see until the mainstream media gets around to reporting it, IF they decide to, and it looks like a couple of the most liberal media outlets have chosen now to show us some of the good news, which gives us insight into why Harry Reid and party needs to counter that and do everything in thier limited power to ensure our defeat, sooner rather than later.
From AP:
MUQDADIYAH, Iraq - At least two major insurgent groups are battling al-Qaida in provinces outside Baghdad, American military commanders said Friday, an indication of a deepening rift between Sunni guerrilla groups in
Iraq.
U.S. officers say a growing number of Sunni tribes are turning against al-Qaida, repelled by the terror group's sheer brutality and austere religious extremism. The tribes are competing with al-Qaida for influence and control over diminishing territory in the face of U.S. assaults, the officers say. The influx of Sunni fighters to areas outside the capital in advance of the security crackdown in Baghdad may have further unsettled the region.
"This is a big turning point," U.S. Maj. David Baker said Friday in the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba. "If they are fighting against each other, it's better than them fighting against us."
Even Sunnis who want to cooperate with the Shiite-led government are becoming more emboldened to speak out against al-Qaida. In Anbar province, more than 200 Sunni sheiks have decided to form a political party to oppose the terror group, participants said Friday.
The clashes have erupted over the last two to three months, pitting al-Qaida in Iraq against the nationalist 1920 Revolution Brigades in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces north of Baghdad as well as Anbar to the west, U.S. officers said. In Diyala, another hard-line militant Sunni group, the Ansar al-Sunna Army, is also fighting al-Qaida, they said.
"It's happening daily," Lt. Col. Keith Gogas said Thursday in an interview at an Army base in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. "Our read on it is that that the more moderate, if you will, Sunni insurgents, are finding that their goals and al-Qaida's goals are at odds."
From LATimes:
Iraqi tribal chiefs forming an anti-insurgent party
The Sunni sheiks aim to set up a council and enter elections. They also seek to enhance U.S. troops' image.
RAMADI, IRAQ — A group of Sunni tribal leaders in beleaguered Al Anbar province said Thursday that it intended to form a national party to oppose insurgents such as Al Qaeda in Iraq and reengage with Iraq's political process.
The announcement came after 200 sheiks said to represent 50 tribes met here and agreed to form a provincial sheiks council and hold the first convention in May of their new party, called Iraq Awakening. Sheiks from three other provinces will attend, organizers said.
The driving force behind the new party, Sheik Abdul-Sattar abu Risha, said in an interview that the tribal leaders would be pushing a slate of candidates in Al Anbar provincial elections later this year, as well as in the next round of national parliamentary balloting, scheduled for 2009.
One purpose of the party, Sattar said, is to promote a better image of American-led forces "to the Iraqis here." He added that the tribes also would participate in a U.S.-backed effort to reestablish a court system in Ramadi, the provincial capital.
[...]
U.S. military leaders here said they were cheered by the announcement because cooperation from sheiks in Al Anbar in recent months had contributed to a rise in Iraqi police and army recruitment and a sharp reduction in insurgent attacks on U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies.
After remaining neutral or in favor of the insurgency that followed the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, many Al Anbar sheiks eventually grew disenchanted due to the brutality of foreign-led militants. Sattar said he began organizing sheiks in September after his father and three brothers were killed by insurgents.
"The terrorists destroyed the network of people and how they communicate, and the new sheiks council is here to bring it back and fight the insurgents until they are out of the country," Sattar said.
Now we understand a little better why Reid chose the time he did to try to do as much damage as he could, publicly to General Petraeus and our troops.
He had no choice.
When we win, the Democrats and the far left lose everything because of their continual cut and run policies and the fact that all their eggs are in one basket....that baskets name is DEFEAT.
I once said that betting against our troops was a very bad idea and I stand by that.
The Strata-Sphere has summed it up nicely in one paragraph:
No wonder Senator “Surrender” Reid was so adament about Iraq being lost. He needs to get us out of there soon or else we will succeed. And he and his party will be damaged goods for not only predicting we would lose, but working as hard as they could to see that we lose. When losing means more death and possibly IEDs here in the US that stigma would be a death knell for liberals across this country. They would rightfully be shunned as the party that almost got is killed.
Exactly.
Now for the poll, you can only vote once a day.
A quick note to commenter Miss Beth, from the blog, Miss Beth's Victory Dance, well said and I am glad we are on the same side!!!!! (Hate to piss you off, for sure)
Borrowed this picture from Miss Beth also.
[UPDATE] From Gathering of Eagles, I just received this in my email box:
An Open Letter to Senator Reid on His Declaration of Defeat.
The following letter was written by Lt. Jason Nichols, a Naval officer who is currently serving in Baghdad. He is also the head of Appeal for Courage, a group of American active duty and reserve service personnel who are appealing to Congress to stay and finish the war.Senator Reid:
When you say we’ve lost in Iraq, I don’t think you understand the effect of your words. The Iraqis I speak with are the good guys here, fighting to build a stable government. They hear what you say, but they don’t understand it. They don’t know about the political game, they don’t know about a Presidential veto, and they don’t know about party politics.
But they do know that if they help us, they are noticed by terrorists and extremists. They decide to help us if they think we can protect them from those terrorists. They tell us where caches of weapons are hidden. They call and report small groups of men who are strangers to the neighborhood, men that look the same to us, but are obvious to them as a foreign suicide cell.
To be brief, your words are killing us. Your statements make the Iraqis afraid to help us for fear we’ll leave them unprotected in the future. They don’t report a cache, and its weapons blow up my friends in a convoy. They don’t report a foreign fighter, and that fighter sends a mortar onto my base. Your statements are noticed, and they have an effect.
Finally, you are mistaken when you say we are losing. We are winning, I see it every day. However, we will win with fewer casualties if you help us. Will you?
Respectfully,
LT Jason Nichols, USN
MNF-I, Baghdad
Again, I suggest to everyone to send these letters with your own to your GOP representative and ask them respectfully to read them into the record on the Senate and House floors.
Sending them to Reid is a futile excercise because he will not respond and he ignores all the active militray's emails because he cannot face them even via email.
.