Wednesday, June 21, 2006

"We support our troops"

I am getting tired of listening to the old, tired mantra of the cut and run crowd who love to tell us "we support our troops."

Once agin, it's important to make the following point crystal clear: You CANNOT support the troops without supporting the MISSION".

Here's what Podhorertz has to say about the subject.

Key point:

"Will they show support for our troops at the moment they most need it - real support, as opposed to crocodile tears and the displays of profound disrespect for their mission? Or will they continue to use any means possible - including harsh judgments of the horrifying split-second choices made by young men in a dangerous situation who have put their lives on the line for the rest of us - to get at the president whom Sullivan, with his typical tone of reserved understatement, yesterday called 'shallow, monstrous, weak and petty'?"

5 comments:

  1. Thanks Stew. Now Ed can't tell me to "get my own blog" anymore.

    As far as Kosovo goes, it's no comparison. Republicans knew the following, as detailed in a post by "A-10" on Blogs for Bush recently.


    "The hypocrisy of the left is perfectly exhibited with Kosovo. President Clinton did not have 17 UN Resolutions to back his actions. In fact, he had none. President Clinton did not have a Congressional Authorization for the use of Military Force (President Bush had two Authorizations), yet he bombed Kosovo anyway. Did you know that the "mass graves" didn't exist? The hundreds of thousands Clinton claimed to have died before our "intervention" didn't? Did you know that about 2,500 innocents died in our bombing campaigns, more than had died at the hands of Milosevic?

    When you say that the President either lied about the intelligence, cherry-picked intelligence, or was given bad intelligence, you could be talking about Clinton and Kosovo. Yet the left never says a word about him lying to start a war, or being responsible for the deaths of 2,500 innocents.

    We intervened to stop a slaughter that wasn't happening. But the MSM and the left ignores the fact.

    In Iraq, we know that Saddam had used WMD to murder the Kurds and Iranians. We know that he had attacked two neighboring countries. We know that he had produced and possessed WMD. We know that he was playing games with the UN Weapons Inspectors. We know that he tried to assassinate President George H. W. Bush. We know that he was in Material Breach of the 2001 Ceasefire and 17 UN Resolutions. We know that he had harbored, financed, and trained terrorists. We know that he had raped, tortured, and murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. We know that he was a mad-man, had WMD, and had terrorist ties. That is a deadly trio that would have dire consequences if he provided some of his WMD to the terrorists.

    We actually are wrong to compare Clinton/Kosovo and Bush/Iraq. Clinton bombed Kosovo without Congressional Approval, killed 2,500 innocents, and US troops are still there without an exit strategy.

    Bush had two Congressional Authorizations and the Iraqi Liberation Act, liberated 25,000,000 Iraqis from a mad-man and his sons, sowed the seed for democracy in the Middle East, and has a plan to withdraw the majority of US troops once the Iraqi Security Forces can assume responsibility for the whole of Iraq. I will assume that we will retain troops in Iraq as long as Iraq wants us there, just as there are still troops in Japan and Germany, 60 years after WWII, and troops in Korea, 50+ years after the Korean War. We even have troops in the Phillipines, over 100 years after the Spanish-American War, and troops in Great Britain, over 225 years after we defeated them in our War of Independence."

    The other difference is that Republicans opposed Kosovo BEFORE it started, unlike the Iraq War bandwagon the Democrats jumped off when it was safe to do so.

    I do not recall any Republicans not supporting the MISSION once the troops got there.

    Then there's thisfrom Pew Research Center, back in '99, BEFORE the Kosovo excursion.

    Noteworthy:

    "Few Americans (38%) see the conflict in Kosovo as a very serious problem for the U.S. In contrast, nearly twice as many (58%) think the continued rule of Saddam Hussein in Iraq is a top problem."

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  2. The Daily Kos? I don't think so, Stew.

    Republicans were not actively wishing for an American defeat in the mission in Kosovo.

    However, the Delay quote is interesting:

    "You can support the troops but not the president"

    -Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

    And you don't have to support the President to support the mission.

    In the Iraq War, our "Loyal" Opposition to the current President does neither.

    Excellent points on the direct national interest and the policy, Joe.

    Almost EVERYBODY was on board the bandwagon before the Iraq invasion, but it sure didn't take long for the Lefties to jump off as soon as it was politically safe to do so.

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  3. I agree there is no comparison between Clinton/Kosovo and Bush/Iraq. The Kosovo thing was not in any way a concern of the United States. Clinton's intervention was a humanitarian effort while the rest of the world did nothing as is usual. However, I disagree with you that there was no slaughtering going on or mass graves Bubba. Being a military family I have first hand knowledge thru relatives that our soldiers found mass graves and saw much ethnic killing (cleansing). You know, Conservatives can be as rabid and blinded to the truth as Liberals. The TRUTH lies somewhere in between as it always has. BB

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  4. "Which of the quotes from the Kos link are you disputing?"

    It was a general comment on the content of the blog and the motivation of its creator.

    How much bandwidth does Blogger give me?

    If I were to answer a question like you posed, and give my analysis, I suspect the end result would make War and Peace look like a casual vignette by comparison.

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  5. I have no respect for the Daily Kos, or its creator. The Kos thread elsewhere on this blog is just one example for my belief.

    My comments were entirely appropriate but it was all just a few throw away lines in the first place. The Kos comments are immaterial, especially in light of the fact that comparing the Kosovo and Iraq situations are like comparing apples and oranges

    The interesting thing about your rejoinder is that it allowed you to deflect from the point of this thread to criticize me, not my information.

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