Dems Own Defeat: Straight From the Donkey's Mouth

Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, today said that the war in Iraq is lost.

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.

"I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week," Reid told journalists.

Reid said he had delivered the same message to US President George W. Bush on Wednesday, when the US president met with senior lawmakers to discuss how to end a standoff over an emergency war funding bill.

"I know I was the odd guy out at the White House, but I told him at least what he needed to hear ... I believe the war at this stage can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically."

Then, for added measure, Reid drew yet another comparison to Vietnam:

But Reid drew a parallel with former US president Lyndon Johnson who decided to deploy more troops in Vietnam some 40 years ago when 24,000 US troops had already been killed.

"Johnson did not want a war loss on his watch, so he surged in Vietnam. After the surge was over, we added 34,000 to the 24,000 who died in Vietnam," Reid said.

Apparently, Reid tried to backtrack from his comments later saying that he was talking about the present strategy. The present strategy which has seen death squad murders drop by over 50%, which has helped us clear previous terrorist strongholds such as Sadr City, which has helped us find weapon making facilities around Baghdad as well as Iranians helping the insurgents kill our troops and innocent Iraqi civilians. And this is without the full contingent of troops to be sent in the surge.

Democrats campaigned in 2006 that we needed a course change in Iraq, and for much of the war criticized Bush that we didn't have enough troops. In January, President Bush obliged by deciding to send more troops to help secure the country. But the Democrats likewise changed course, because now they didn't want to send more troops. Instead, they want to "re-deploy" our troops out of Iraq, and they want a timetable telling the enemy when precisely we will do this. It seems as if their strategy for Iraq is whatever is opposite of President Bush's plan.

This isn't just a slip of the tongue on Sen. Reid's part. It has to be obvious to everyone now that the Democrats want nothing other than defeat in Iraq. I truly wonder sometimes if they ever realized that by failing to see the consequences in effectively ignoring the attacks on the USS Cole, our Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, our barracks in Saudi Arabia, on the World Trade Center in 1993, and so on, we failed to fully grasp what we were facing until it was too late, and we lost 3,000 citizens on 9/11?

Have they taken a look now at the possible consequences of just pulling up and leaving Iraq? How easy will it be to get allies in different regions of the world if we have no credibility of sticking with them? How much will we encourage further terrorist activity by showing that their tactics achieved their desired results? How many regions of the world will we loose to the spread of radical Islamic terrorist influence? How many of these terrorist groups will decide it is now time for attacks on US soil? What effects will it have on Iran, and their seeking nuclear weapons?

General Petraeus was confirmed by the US Senate with a vote of 81-0. It is only proper to give him the time he needs to do the job he was given.

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