The Democrats and Iraq

The Democrats have been wrong on everything about Iraq. Everything. Sadly, they think that they should be put in charge of ending the war. Given their abysmal track record on Iraq, the Democrats have no business running any part of the war.

The Democrats started their embarrassing string of poor predictions when they jumped on the "Iraq is an immediate threat" bandwagon. While almost everyone in Washington agreed, it still doesn't speak volumes about the Democrat's superior competence regarding the war. They were just as incorrect about the state of Iraq's WMD program as the Republicans were.

Soon after the initial invasion ended, the Democrats and mainstream media warned of a Vietnam style quagmire. (Now you tell us). Since we were fighting a guerrilla war in Iraq, this line of "reasoning" (such as it was) went, that pretty much close enough to Vietnam, and the war was therefore unwinnable. There are a few gaps in that logic, the most obvious being that in Iraq, there is no draft, which brought Vietnam to its end.

The Democrats also suggest that the war in Iraq is creating more terrorists, and pulling out would would cause a warm feeling of goodwill to flood the Middle East, and those who are bearing arms against would... probably go attack Israel, but at least they wouldn't be hitting us.

These folks seem to be forgetting Somalia. After we withdrew from Somalia, Osama bin Laden said: After leaving Afghanistan, the Muslim fighters headed for Somalia and prepared for a long battle, thinking that the Americans were like the Russians. The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized more than before that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat. And America forgot all the hoopla and media propaganda ... about being the world leader and the leader of the New World Order, and after a few blows they forgot about this title and left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat."

If we assume that the school of thought that says we are creating more terrorists is correct, then the United States is in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-don't-position.

However, this view, is likely only half correct. The Iraq War is probably creating more terrorists. If we leave Iraq, though, we have no guarantee that Al-Qaeda will end their attacks, quite the contrary. Al-Qaeda is not happy with the fact that we are in Iraq, but their main problem is with our culture, specifically the fact that we are not Islamic. Pulling out of Iraq will not pacify them.

Of course, the liberals also famously (and infamously) predicted that the surge will be a failure. While this misconception has been debunked in enough places to render a point by point debunking unnecessary, it is interesting to note that the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq in September has reached the lowest level in fourteen months.

The latest incorrect liberal opinion is the idea that the fact that their constant calls for surrender do not influence Al-Qaeda. Of course, they are wrong on this, too. Osama bin Laden chided the Democrats for not pulling out of Iraq. And it may be nothing more than coincidence, but the second and fourth deadliest months in 2006 were September and October, the months immediately preceding the election. These months represented the highest two month casualty rate of that year. This violence of course, played into the Democrats Iraq rhetoric.

The Republicans have not been particularly competent on the issue of Iraq. But the Democrats have been much, much worse. If a Democrat wins the Presidency, his or (more probably) her handling of Iraq would almost certainly be disastrous.