January 25, 2007 7:15 AM

Another DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener

Retreat Isn’t an Option

DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener #513: Elizabeth Cheney

Sen. Hillary Clinton declared this weekend, “I’m in to win.” Anyone who has watched her remarkable trajectory can have no doubt that she’ll do whatever it takes to win the presidency. I wish she felt the same way about the war. In fairness, Clinton, with her proposal for arbitrary caps on troop levels and hemming and hawing about her vote for the war resolution, has company on both sides of the aisle. Sen. Joseph Lieberman is the only national Democrat showing any courage on this issue. We Republicans — with help from senators such as Chuck Hagel — seem ready to race the Democrats to the bottom.

I imagine it’s tough being the child of one of the most joyless, hateful Republicans in official Washington…though Daddy sure can pull some strings, eh? I don’t begrudge Ms. Cheney her political views- this is, after all, still a free country- but coming out strongly in support of an illegal and immoral war is just plain wrong and proves how little the rich and powerful understand what’s at stake. After all, it’s not their sons and daughters doing the fighting and dying, eh?

One would expect someone who sprang from the loins of the Torturer in Chief © to share some of his draconian view. I can understand blood supporting blood, but what concerns me here is her aggressive support for Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s © never-ending War on Terror © and it’s current iteration in Iraq. (My apologies; I initially confused Elizabeth Cheney with Mary Cheney, the Torturer in Chief’s pregnant, Lesbian daughter. Oops…mea culpa. Thank to Bryan for setting me straight.)

In attempting to justify her argument, she unfortunately makes several points that are surprisingly easy to debunk. To wit:

1) We are at war. Well, duh…. I suppose that would explain all the flag-draped boxes that keep being arriving at Dover Air Force Base, eh? Yes, we’re at war, but the war in Iraq, no matter how much you wish it to be true, has nothing to do with the war on terror…except for a cheap propaganda connection. The terrorist threat we now fight in Iraq is the threat that we created. Yes, Ms. Cheney, there was no terrorist threat in Iraq until we created one. Nice job, eh??

2) Quitting helps the terrorists. This is perhaps one of the most tiresome, overworked canards that Conservatives keep flogging. The reality is that our continued presence in Iraq on continues to exacerbate the situation. Perhaps if this Administration had actually had a workable plan in place for winning the peace, things might be different. Sadly, they’re not, and at some point we have to let Iraqis determine what will become of Iraq. It is, after all, their country.

3) Beware the polls. Yes, it’s true, governing by polls is a recipe for disaster, but no one is advocating that. What Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s © polls DO tell us is that the American people are tired of a pointless, drawn-out war that after four years still has us no closer to “victory”…whatever the Hell that means. In a democracy, the consent and support of the governed matters…and it’s clear that the American people are deeply concerned about the mismanagement and rank ineptitude that characterize that conduct of the war in Iraq and sends far too many of our sons and daughters home in boxes.

4) Retreat from Iraq hurts us in the broader war. Sadly, what hurts us in the broader war (and by “broader war”, I’m assuming that Ms. Cheney means the “broader” War on Terror © ) is the perception that America is an international bully who expects other to play by the same rules we obey selectively and flaunt to our advantage. We are now almost universally despised abroad, and should that really come as a surprise? Can we blame other countries for resenting American “cowboy diplomacy”?

5) Our soldiers will win if we let them. On this point, I largely agree with Ms. Cheney. The problem, though, is that the Administration began this war by trying to win it on the cheap, and the current state of affairs in Iraq is the price we’re paying for trying to win a Tiffany war on a WalMart budget. If Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of the Chickenhawks in the White House had listened to officers like Gen. Eric Shinseki, who counselled that to win in Iraq would require something like 350,000 troops, things might well be different. You wouldn’t expect soldiers to create economic policy, so why did the Chickenhawks think they knew more about fighting a war than professional soldiers?

America deserves better. It’s time for everyone — Republicans and Democrats — to stop trying to find ways for America to quit. Victory is the only option. We must have the fortitude and the courage to do what it takes. In the words of Winston Churchill, we must deserve victory.

I wholeheartedly agree that WE DESERVE BETTER. Sadly, this war has been so thoroughly and completely mismanaged that it has turned into an unwinnable, Vietnam-like quagmire. Iraq, in military terms, is completely FUBAR, and that seems unlikely to change…unless we plan on paving the country and turning it into a parking lot.

I appreciate Ms. Cheney’s commitment to her father and his mean-spirited, joyless Amerika uber Alles philosophy, but her familial love seems to be blinding her to the reality that most Americans now recognize. Iraq is FUBAR, and Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © seems spectacularly ill-equipped to fight this war. He has cast aside all counsel from professional soldiers, competent military experts, and career diplomats (remember the Iraq Study Group??), making the decision that he wanted to all along. Of course, that’s an easy thing to do when someone else’s sons and daughters are doing the fighting and dying.

NOW CAN WE IMPEACH THE LYING, MURDERING BASTARD?

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on January 25, 2007 7:15 AM.

If you can't stay awake past 10pm, do you really deserve to be President (and yes, this would disqualify me, Adam) was the previous entry in this blog.

PETA's State of the Union is...well...nekkid is the next entry in this blog.

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