Joe L. is an old time Democrat. Liberal regarding government and policies, but still a hawk when it comes to protecting our country, our troops, and putting up a strong front internationally. He would make folks like Wilson, JFK, and Truman proud. No wonder the Left hates him.
Today, he has a long editorial in the Washington Post, which starts out thus
Last week a series of coordinated suicide bombings killed more than 170 people. The victims were not soldiers or government officials but civilians — innocent men, women and children indiscriminately murdered on their way home from work and school.
If such an atrocity had been perpetrated in the United States, Europe or Israel, our response would surely have been anger at the fanatics responsible and resolve not to surrender to their barbarism.
Unfortunately, because this slaughter took place in Baghdad, the carnage was seized upon as the latest talking point by advocates of withdrawal here in Washington. Rather than condemning the attacks and the terrorists who committed them, critics trumpeted them as proof that Gen. David Petraeus's security strategy has failed and that the war is "lost."
Joe, it has to be "lost," otherwise so many folks in your party have spent years rooting for the wrong side.
And today, perversely, the Senate is likely to vote on a binding timeline of withdrawal from Iraq.
This reaction is dangerously wrong. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both the reality in Iraq and the nature of the enemy we are fighting there.
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Al-Qaeda's strategy for victory in Iraq is clear. It is trying to kill as many innocent people as possible in the hope of reigniting Shiite sectarian violence and terrorizing the Sunnis into submission.
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But if tomorrow Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds were to achieve the "political solution" we all hope for, the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq would not vanish.
Al-Qaeda, after all, isn't carrying out mass murder against civilians in the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenue. Its aim in Iraq isn't to get a seat at the political table; it wants to blow up the table — along with everyone seated at it.
Please read the whole editorial in full.
Watching C-Span 2, Joe said the same things, followed on by awhile later by Senator Drunken Kennedy in full "let's repeat Vietnam" regailia and red face. Also, several others who are trying to equate a timetable for withdrawl with supporting the troops.
