Playing politics with the war

I posted this on a message board I frequent this morning and wanted to repost it here (with minor alterations so it makes more sense):

It’s one thing to play politics when there are no lives at stake but when there ARE lives at risk, playing politics by claiming “Bush lied” (IOW, telling the troops they are fighting for no reason) is reprehensible in the truest sense of the word – especially when the people making the claim in Washington DC KNOW that the “lying” accusations are bogus.

I have had discussions in the past with people about how certain types of dissent emboldens the enemy. Those people have agreed that yes, that dissent does embolden the enemy, but that dissent is a product of a free society and that it’s our duty to dissent. I agreed with that, but also pointed out that certain types of dissent are flat out wrong – and this is one of those times. This isn’t dissent based out of any real belief that the President “lied” because I’d bet you every Democrat in Washington making this charge reviewed similar evidence back in the mid to late 90s when Clinton was President and deemed it credible, and did NOT deem it as “misleading” or “lies.” What’s happening now is that the DNC is trying to capitalize on the President’s low approval rating in an attempt to gain advantage ahead of the 2006 elections, and they are doing it on the backs of the men and women serving our country in Iraq by making KNOWINGLY false assertions that the President – their Commander in Chief – lied about the reasons he sent them there.

I’ll say again: playing politics is one thing, and you expect a heavy amount of it; after all, we’re talking about politicians here. But to do so in such a disingenuous fashion while we still have troops in harms way is in so many ways wrong I can’t even put it into words. Do we need to continue to question and reform our intelligence gathering capabilities? Yes. Does the administration deserve criticism for what’s happened since the fall of Baghdad in terms of post-war planning? Absolutely. Does the President, as our Commander in Chief who acted on not only recent intelligence but intelligence that went back to the days Clinton was in the WH (intelligence Clinton himself used to justify aggressive US policy towards Iraq) deserve to be accused of “lying” when he gave the reasons why he wanted to send 150K of our young men and women to die – reasons that most of the same crew who are accusing him of lying now went along with when they were given by a Democratic president? I don’t think so.

This is why what’s happening in DC right now totally disgusts me – the DNC are playing politics with this war for political gain while our men and women are still trying to complete the mission and they are doing it making knowingly bogus claims about the reasons our men and women were sent there in the first place. It makes me sick. And guess what? The propaganda campaign is working. A majority of Americans now think the President “intentionally misled” them on the reasons for going into Iraq. We can “thank” our liberal media and lying Democrats in Congress for that.

(Cross-posted at California Conservative)

PM Update: Read this post by Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive’s blog: “Pushback- I was for the war before I was against it“. Total must-read!

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