Now, I get dinged for writing too much about Senator Obama or politics in general sometimes. However, there are just somethings that I cannot let go and have been weighing on my mind for a week.
Every time I turn around either Senator Obama or one of his fellow Democrats are saying that, while our troops performed "magnificently" it was not they nor the surge that won the battle for Iraq, it was the Sunni Awakening or Muqtada al Sadr calling a cease fire (for the fourth time) that won Iraq. They are desperately trying to continue to undermine the strategy and, by default, the people who designed, ordered and supported that strategy: the surge.
That's called "damning with faint praise."
By claiming that the surge was not only not necessary, but really didn't work anyway, they are basically saying that all of that hard work by our service men and women, all of the sweat, blood and tears, the sleeping in dirt, walking in 120 degree heat in 70lbs of body armor, living 15 months away from their families under the threat of death and serious maiming was not worth it.
In short, "Thanks, but no thanks." Let me say clearly that, indeed, all of that hard work and effort wasn't just for Republicans. Nor was it to disprove Democrat policies. Any American worth their salt (and every damn politician up on the Hill) knew that Iraq as a failed state with unmitigated violence was a disaster for the Middle East and the United States in the end.
As a United States' soldier once pointed out, there is no place for political affiliation on our soldiers' dog tags. They had a mission and they were intent on completing that mission. Five years of war covers a lot of enlistments and re-enlistments in an all volunteer army. These people did so for their own reasons, but, in the end, to do so during a war can only re-emphasize the belief in that mission and the overwhelming desire to complete it.
We here at home believe we have the luxury to quit whenever we feel like it; whenever things get tough, whenever something doesn't seem worth the time or effort or when we are just tired of doing it. These men and women were not quitters. They have seen it through thus far and the end is right around the corner. For them, the end of the mission comes when Iraq can stand on its own and is not in danger of falling back into sectarianism, terrorism and general violent failed state.
For them, that is the end state of their mission. It is so close they can almost reach out and touch it.
But, what are they getting from some of our politicians? "Thanks, but no thanks." You saw your buddies die or lose an arm or leg? You were wounded three times? You spent days eating crappy food out of a box accompanied by gritty dirt and swarming flies? You slept on a concrete slab with your body armor as a pillow in hellacious heat or frigid night air? You flew in to a hail storm of bullets and RPGs to protect troops on the ground surrounded by enemies or to rescue the wounded who had minutes to live? Crash landed in enemy territory? Had to hide in a ditch with a broken arm, an M-4 and four magazines to defend yourself for 45 minutes until rescue came?
Forsook your own safety to pull your fellow soldiers out of harms way? Or, grabbed wounded men, women and children, blown apart by a terrorists bomb, threw them in your Hum Vee and drove without consideration for your own safety just to save their lives? Went back to base, washed the blood out of your truck, ate some more crappy food, caught four hours of sleep, brushed your teeth with a bottle of water, washed your face with the same and then went out and did it again for another 16 or 18 hours?
Apparently, for some folks, these men and women were "suckers" for fighting in "the wrong war."
If there is one thing that makes me angry, it is disrespecting our troops. Because, in this country, these troops are our families, our friends, our neighbors. They are United States citizens who served their country, not just magnificently, not for the wrong reasons or the wrong fight, but because it was the right thing to do.
Let me clarify that even further. Without the surge, without the men and women on the ground, doing all of these things I've listed and so much more that cannot be contained in one posting' without them, there was no Sunni Awakening, no al Sadr ceasefire, no demolishing Al Qaeda and no victory in Iraq.
The Sunni's certainly had decided to fight back against Al Qaeda as early as 2005. First in small pockets here and there, then more. But, they were outmatched, out gunned and out financed by Al Qaeda. Any tribal chief or simple farmer who tried to stand up against al Qaeda was murdered along with his family, his friends and anyone else that they thought might be resisting their "cause". Our men and women went out into these places, taught these people how to resist, how to organize, how to shoot a gun, stand a post, build an outpost that could resist suicide bombers and direct attacks.
They trained them, mentored them, gave them food and treated their wounds. They paid them when the Iraqi government could barely wipe their noses. They acted as diplomats, go betweens for these people in Anbar who thought they had no reason to trust the government and a government that saw these people as the enemy. Without our men and women doing the hard, slow, grinding work, these people and the Sunni Awakening would not have survived. Those that resisted would be dead. The remaining would be subjugated and would have had no other alternative but to remain "enemies of the state."
But, Anbar could not stand alone. Nor was it the only place that terrorists roamed or where streets ran red with blood. For Anbar to be the success and a tipping point, it meant that other cities, towns and provinces of Iraq would also have to be pacified; that other "awakenings" would have to be raised up; that other reconciliations and hard diplomacy would have to be instituted. The only way that was happening was for more troops to be on the ground, cover more territory, secure more people, and deny these terrorists every inch of territory possible.
Without more troops we could not secure Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallujah, Samarra, Haqlaniya, Diwaniya, Baquoba, Ahmadiya, Mosul...and the list goes on and on. Without these places being secured, without the denial of territory, al Anbar would not be secured. As long as terrorists had a place to refit, rest, train, plan and act from, every Iraqi who resisted, every American soldier, was in constant mortal danger. The Sunni Awakening, that Senator Obama and his ilk want to credit with winning Iraq, would have died still born in the dirt and heat of Anbar.
These people, the Sunni's, did stand up. They did fight. They did not want to become dominated minions of the horrendous and murderous sect of extremist religion who were willing to do anything to enforce their rule. But, our men and women in uniform were the shield and the rock that that movement was built upon. They were successful because we gave them the time, the tools and the courage to do it.
Al Sadr was no less a murderer or a radical. He did not run because he was strong. He was not strong because our armed forces had set him and his "army" back on his heels three times. We continued to go after them wherever they appeared. Our men and women trained the Iraqi military, built their structure, provided equipment and created an army out of nothing. The same army that went after Sadr and his army over and over until they were nothing but armed thugs barely able to survive a stand up fight.
That trained army was long in the works, but its success really took off after the surge when our military could afford to put training teams (Military Transition Teams) with many more individual units out on the ground, in the fight. When these armed forces of Iraq could augment our own increased forces and, finally, force al Sadr to flee, stay out of Iraq and withdraw his forces. He did that because he had been beaten time and again by our forces and knew he could not stand against us and the Iraqi people.
Right war? Wrong war? We could have left at any time and not suffered the consequences? Those arguments are ridiculous and naive. We have been staring into the abyss that was Iraq for five long years. We have watched the horrendous bloodshed: the suicide bombers who walked into crowds or drove cars into markets; the burning of small children, the beheading of civilians, the rape of women, the execution of journalists and the filling of mass graves.
No one, who was not blinded by political ideology, could not know that such horror, committed by men with the name of Allah, the name of God, on their lips, would never stay in that place. We would have been eating that blood for years to come.
For those who believe that victory does not matter, the blindness is ten fold. When you beat an enemy in the land he claims he owns in every piece of propaganda he puts out with his name and insignia on it, you have won a battle. When they are rejected by the people they claim to be protecting, you have won a battle. When they are ejected from the center of the caliphate, from the capitol of that longed for state, the center of their ideology, you have won a battle. When those same enemies have proclaimed you and your forces "paper tigers" who would give up easily and you grind them beneath the heels of your desert boots, you have won a battle.
These are not the only battles that we will fight with these murderous thugs, but it was a fight that we had to win. It did not destroy them, but it put them back on their heels. Who they believed they were, who others believed they were has now been challenged and they have been found wanting. Had we forfeited Iraq, they would have believed they were invincible and went on to inflict the same on friends and allies. They are finding that harder today and finding that they are relegated back to the wilderness of Pakistan.
That is only because we did not leave. We did not cede one iota of sand. Our men and women continued to fight, to work to make Iraq a success. They gave more than any jet setting senator or ideologically corrupt representative could ever imagine, much less give in ten life times. To say that military was not successful, that they were not the reason for that success or that it was without merit, without cause or without a real purpose, is insulting, denigrating and offensive.
No American who knows these facts, regardless of their political affiliation, should stand for that or for proclaiming their victory empty and useless or no victory at all. Further, any person running for the office of President, who insisted that the United States leave and surrender that central nation to such forces, who refused to support the necessary strategy to win, the strategy that did win, and who continues to refuse and refute that victory for the sole purpose of advancing a political campaign, is worthy of dusting the sand off a buck private's boots, much less be Commander in Chief or the President of this nation.
Finally, Senator Obama insists that he has the experience, the knowledge and the capability to lead this nation as we continue the fight in Afghanistan. He believes that he and his advisers know the right strategy to bring that war to conclusion and end the threat that is Al Qaeda. This is the same man who insisted that the surge would not work, that we abandon Iraq, that we not defeat Al Qaeda wherever it chose to stand up in battle and who now claims to know that it was not our military nor our strategy that placed Iraq on the way to victory.
He surely cannot be capable of creating a strategy able to bring a victory in Afghanistan. He cannot be Commander in Chief. He cannot lead this nation.
Senator Obama is simply not fit to lead.
Every time I turn around either Senator Obama or one of his fellow Democrats are saying that, while our troops performed "magnificently" it was not they nor the surge that won the battle for Iraq, it was the Sunni Awakening or Muqtada al Sadr calling a cease fire (for the fourth time) that won Iraq. They are desperately trying to continue to undermine the strategy and, by default, the people who designed, ordered and supported that strategy: the surge.
That's called "damning with faint praise."
By claiming that the surge was not only not necessary, but really didn't work anyway, they are basically saying that all of that hard work by our service men and women, all of the sweat, blood and tears, the sleeping in dirt, walking in 120 degree heat in 70lbs of body armor, living 15 months away from their families under the threat of death and serious maiming was not worth it.
In short, "Thanks, but no thanks." Let me say clearly that, indeed, all of that hard work and effort wasn't just for Republicans. Nor was it to disprove Democrat policies. Any American worth their salt (and every damn politician up on the Hill) knew that Iraq as a failed state with unmitigated violence was a disaster for the Middle East and the United States in the end.
As a United States' soldier once pointed out, there is no place for political affiliation on our soldiers' dog tags. They had a mission and they were intent on completing that mission. Five years of war covers a lot of enlistments and re-enlistments in an all volunteer army. These people did so for their own reasons, but, in the end, to do so during a war can only re-emphasize the belief in that mission and the overwhelming desire to complete it.
We here at home believe we have the luxury to quit whenever we feel like it; whenever things get tough, whenever something doesn't seem worth the time or effort or when we are just tired of doing it. These men and women were not quitters. They have seen it through thus far and the end is right around the corner. For them, the end of the mission comes when Iraq can stand on its own and is not in danger of falling back into sectarianism, terrorism and general violent failed state.
For them, that is the end state of their mission. It is so close they can almost reach out and touch it.
But, what are they getting from some of our politicians? "Thanks, but no thanks." You saw your buddies die or lose an arm or leg? You were wounded three times? You spent days eating crappy food out of a box accompanied by gritty dirt and swarming flies? You slept on a concrete slab with your body armor as a pillow in hellacious heat or frigid night air? You flew in to a hail storm of bullets and RPGs to protect troops on the ground surrounded by enemies or to rescue the wounded who had minutes to live? Crash landed in enemy territory? Had to hide in a ditch with a broken arm, an M-4 and four magazines to defend yourself for 45 minutes until rescue came?
Forsook your own safety to pull your fellow soldiers out of harms way? Or, grabbed wounded men, women and children, blown apart by a terrorists bomb, threw them in your Hum Vee and drove without consideration for your own safety just to save their lives? Went back to base, washed the blood out of your truck, ate some more crappy food, caught four hours of sleep, brushed your teeth with a bottle of water, washed your face with the same and then went out and did it again for another 16 or 18 hours?
Apparently, for some folks, these men and women were "suckers" for fighting in "the wrong war."
If there is one thing that makes me angry, it is disrespecting our troops. Because, in this country, these troops are our families, our friends, our neighbors. They are United States citizens who served their country, not just magnificently, not for the wrong reasons or the wrong fight, but because it was the right thing to do.
Let me clarify that even further. Without the surge, without the men and women on the ground, doing all of these things I've listed and so much more that cannot be contained in one posting' without them, there was no Sunni Awakening, no al Sadr ceasefire, no demolishing Al Qaeda and no victory in Iraq.
The Sunni's certainly had decided to fight back against Al Qaeda as early as 2005. First in small pockets here and there, then more. But, they were outmatched, out gunned and out financed by Al Qaeda. Any tribal chief or simple farmer who tried to stand up against al Qaeda was murdered along with his family, his friends and anyone else that they thought might be resisting their "cause". Our men and women went out into these places, taught these people how to resist, how to organize, how to shoot a gun, stand a post, build an outpost that could resist suicide bombers and direct attacks.
They trained them, mentored them, gave them food and treated their wounds. They paid them when the Iraqi government could barely wipe their noses. They acted as diplomats, go betweens for these people in Anbar who thought they had no reason to trust the government and a government that saw these people as the enemy. Without our men and women doing the hard, slow, grinding work, these people and the Sunni Awakening would not have survived. Those that resisted would be dead. The remaining would be subjugated and would have had no other alternative but to remain "enemies of the state."
But, Anbar could not stand alone. Nor was it the only place that terrorists roamed or where streets ran red with blood. For Anbar to be the success and a tipping point, it meant that other cities, towns and provinces of Iraq would also have to be pacified; that other "awakenings" would have to be raised up; that other reconciliations and hard diplomacy would have to be instituted. The only way that was happening was for more troops to be on the ground, cover more territory, secure more people, and deny these terrorists every inch of territory possible.
Without more troops we could not secure Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallujah, Samarra, Haqlaniya, Diwaniya, Baquoba, Ahmadiya, Mosul...and the list goes on and on. Without these places being secured, without the denial of territory, al Anbar would not be secured. As long as terrorists had a place to refit, rest, train, plan and act from, every Iraqi who resisted, every American soldier, was in constant mortal danger. The Sunni Awakening, that Senator Obama and his ilk want to credit with winning Iraq, would have died still born in the dirt and heat of Anbar.
These people, the Sunni's, did stand up. They did fight. They did not want to become dominated minions of the horrendous and murderous sect of extremist religion who were willing to do anything to enforce their rule. But, our men and women in uniform were the shield and the rock that that movement was built upon. They were successful because we gave them the time, the tools and the courage to do it.
Al Sadr was no less a murderer or a radical. He did not run because he was strong. He was not strong because our armed forces had set him and his "army" back on his heels three times. We continued to go after them wherever they appeared. Our men and women trained the Iraqi military, built their structure, provided equipment and created an army out of nothing. The same army that went after Sadr and his army over and over until they were nothing but armed thugs barely able to survive a stand up fight.
That trained army was long in the works, but its success really took off after the surge when our military could afford to put training teams (Military Transition Teams) with many more individual units out on the ground, in the fight. When these armed forces of Iraq could augment our own increased forces and, finally, force al Sadr to flee, stay out of Iraq and withdraw his forces. He did that because he had been beaten time and again by our forces and knew he could not stand against us and the Iraqi people.
Right war? Wrong war? We could have left at any time and not suffered the consequences? Those arguments are ridiculous and naive. We have been staring into the abyss that was Iraq for five long years. We have watched the horrendous bloodshed: the suicide bombers who walked into crowds or drove cars into markets; the burning of small children, the beheading of civilians, the rape of women, the execution of journalists and the filling of mass graves.
No one, who was not blinded by political ideology, could not know that such horror, committed by men with the name of Allah, the name of God, on their lips, would never stay in that place. We would have been eating that blood for years to come.
For those who believe that victory does not matter, the blindness is ten fold. When you beat an enemy in the land he claims he owns in every piece of propaganda he puts out with his name and insignia on it, you have won a battle. When they are rejected by the people they claim to be protecting, you have won a battle. When they are ejected from the center of the caliphate, from the capitol of that longed for state, the center of their ideology, you have won a battle. When those same enemies have proclaimed you and your forces "paper tigers" who would give up easily and you grind them beneath the heels of your desert boots, you have won a battle.
These are not the only battles that we will fight with these murderous thugs, but it was a fight that we had to win. It did not destroy them, but it put them back on their heels. Who they believed they were, who others believed they were has now been challenged and they have been found wanting. Had we forfeited Iraq, they would have believed they were invincible and went on to inflict the same on friends and allies. They are finding that harder today and finding that they are relegated back to the wilderness of Pakistan.
That is only because we did not leave. We did not cede one iota of sand. Our men and women continued to fight, to work to make Iraq a success. They gave more than any jet setting senator or ideologically corrupt representative could ever imagine, much less give in ten life times. To say that military was not successful, that they were not the reason for that success or that it was without merit, without cause or without a real purpose, is insulting, denigrating and offensive.
No American who knows these facts, regardless of their political affiliation, should stand for that or for proclaiming their victory empty and useless or no victory at all. Further, any person running for the office of President, who insisted that the United States leave and surrender that central nation to such forces, who refused to support the necessary strategy to win, the strategy that did win, and who continues to refuse and refute that victory for the sole purpose of advancing a political campaign, is worthy of dusting the sand off a buck private's boots, much less be Commander in Chief or the President of this nation.
Finally, Senator Obama insists that he has the experience, the knowledge and the capability to lead this nation as we continue the fight in Afghanistan. He believes that he and his advisers know the right strategy to bring that war to conclusion and end the threat that is Al Qaeda. This is the same man who insisted that the surge would not work, that we abandon Iraq, that we not defeat Al Qaeda wherever it chose to stand up in battle and who now claims to know that it was not our military nor our strategy that placed Iraq on the way to victory.
He surely cannot be capable of creating a strategy able to bring a victory in Afghanistan. He cannot be Commander in Chief. He cannot lead this nation.
Senator Obama is simply not fit to lead.
1) Total Democratic control of both the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
2) Total Democratic control of appointments to the Federal judiciary, including the USSC.
3) Total Democratic control of appointments to Cabinet and upper level Federal bureaucracy positions.
4) A reversion to the "law enforcement" approach to terrorism, which will include more aversion to "legal risk" in targeting terrorist leaders, a return to compartmentalization of domestic and foreign intelligence as Dems rescind provisions of the PATRIOT Act, and more emphasis on the "rights" of terrorist detainees.
5) Increased taxes and attempts to make the "wealthy" and "corporate raiders" to pay their "fair share".
6) Another Democratic push for a universal, single-payer health system like the ones "enjoyed" in Canada and Europe.
7) Increased attempts to expand the "rights" of illegal aliens ..... sorry, "undocumented immigrants".
8) Expansion of entitlement and social assistance programs.
It may not be the death knell of the Republic, but the damage will be far-reaching and long-lasting.
Don't let things like that build up, Kat. I, personally, would like to hear all about it.