Random thoughts on the anti-war left, their rhetoric and how some would rather see us lose

I’ve written about this issue before, but wanted to expand on my thoughts some as I read some comments at a political forum today that suggested that the Bush administration’s supporters were deliberately ‘blaming Democrats’ for how things were going in Iraq and for the erosion in support for the war because they ‘don’t want to put the blame on Republicans. My slightly modified (for clarity) response to one post is reposted below:

The fact of the matter is that there IS truth – a great deal of it – to the statement that there are some Democrats who would rather see us fail in Iraq than to see us win, because us losing in Iraq means Bush loses, make no mistake about it. Never forget that. Funny thing about it is, though, is that the left has consistently said from the start that this is “Bush’s war” but when you assert to the left that if we lose in Iraq that it means Bush loses too, they get indignant and all of a sudden start claiming that it wouldn’t be Bush losing but America losing. Funny, the little inconsistencies which fly off the lips and fingers of the left, eh?

Bush has taken responsiblity for his Iraq policy. I have respect – not much, but some – for some of the Republicans who are coming out now and saying “I can no longer support this, it’s gone too far”, because at least they were willing to give it a chance. OTOH, some of the same Dems who voted “yes” on the use of force in Iraq resolution have done whatever they can to hammer the President ever since the first shot was fired, before things in Iraq started going lopsided. It’s very, very clear the agenda of some of the louder b-tchers in the Democratic party, and that was/is to bring down the President, even if it comes at the expense of exaggerating or outright lying about what he’s said, and what our troops have and have not done in Iraq.

The assertions I’ve made in this post might be painful for some of the perpetual anti-Iraq war whiners to handle – so be it. The fact of the matter is that both sides have a role to play in how this war has played out both on the frontlines and in the information ‘war’: the President for not listening to people he should have when things started going south, Republicans for assuming we were going in the right direction1, and Democrats (Congressional and otherwise) who have treated the President as though he was/is the bigger enemy than Al Qaeda – even before the Iraq war. The first two have taken responsibility for their actions, but the third one never will. They will continue to deflect and lay every single bit of blame for the erosion of support for this war at the President’s feet, rather than take a shred of responsibility for how their actions and rhetoric influences people here, our troops, and the enemy.

The left simply cannot accept any responsiblity for their words and actions because that would mean that they’d have to admit their share the blame, and oh no – we can’t have that. Anyone who asserts things like these is, of course, automatically thought of by the anti-war left as a “Bush shill” “Kool Aid drinker” even after it’s clear that many of the people who make the assertions about the far left have also admitted that our policies in Iraq have been flawed and that we have to shift gears if we want to win because what we are doing isn’t working. Many of them just don’t air their criticism of the CIC in the same manner that the anti-war left does – apparently they only way a conservative can be viewed by the anti-war left as a ‘credible critic’ of the President’s policies in Iraq is if, instead of saying that Bush clearly made mistakes, went down the wrong path, and needs to change strategies, the ‘credible conservative critics’ have to call him an ‘incompetent liar who sent young men to die for oil’ and so many other other of the lame-a$$ed excuses we hear routinely from the anti-war left when criticizing the President’s Iraq policies. Sorry, this Bush supporter won’t criticize the CIC in that manner, because I know that at least the President wants to win in Iraq because he understands what will happen if we don’t.

I save my most vocal criticism for 2 groups: 1) Islamofascists and 2) certain Democrats who apparently still, after all these years, would rather view and treat the President as the biggest threat to our safety and security rather than the actual enemy who was around long before President Bush was ever “selected.” The left, on the other hand, saves their most vocal criticisms … for the President.

It’s all about ‘priorities’, you know.

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  1. See comments section for my clarification on this point. [back]

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