The Democrats Are Selling Us Out In Iraq

By: Rob Casapulla

Posted: 9/7/07

According to news reports, Osama Bin Laden is set to release a televised statement in the upcoming days. When the video airs, it will be the first time the world sees the terrorist in three years. In upcoming days General David Petraeus is supposed to testify before Congress about the status of the Iraq War. Thursday, leading Democrats took a break from chastising Republicans about being intolerant, to speak out against Petraeus's report.

I thought Democrats were the ones that were against pre-emptive attacks. Aren't these the people that tell us to wait for all the evidence to come out before we rush to any conclusions? After all, these are the people that say we shouldn't have gone into Iraq when both United States and international intelligence showed that Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, have all cutely referred to the report that Petraeus is due to give as the "Bush report." This is their way of intelligently portraying the fact that they believe Petraeus to be Bush's lapdog and say whatever the president tells him to say.

Pelosi believes that progress may have been made in one or two areas but in the majority of Iraq is in turmoil. Is it me or does she have this all backwards? Every report that comes in from Iraq says that the majority of the country has been secured and the violence is rampant in a few isolated parts of the country. But apparently this is beside the point.

Even if Petraeus is Bush's lapdog and is going to tell Congress exactly what Bush wants them to hear, let's look at a what some other people have been saying about the troop surge and the status in Iraq just in the past month.

On Aug. 20 Hillary Clinton, clearly an avid Bush supporter, said "the surge is working," then went on to praise progress in Iraq. Since then, of course, the Senator has moved on to gin up the leftist base by saying she would still bring home the troops if she takes the White House in 2008.

Another one of Bush's lap dogs, Katie Couric, who is in Iraq, also appears to disagree with Durbin, Reid and Pelosi.

"We hear so much about things going bad, but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability," Couric reported on Sept. 5. She went on to say that "The spike in police has really been significant. The incidents in Iraq have dramatically gone down." Couric was reporting from Fallujah, which used to be the most dangerous city in Iraq and is now being held up as a role model for operations in Iraq.

Granted, Clinton will say anything to get elected, but to come out for the surge at a time when every other Democrat that wants to be president is attacking Iraq on a constant basis, says something about the progress going on over there. Couric, unlike Clinton, has no election to win. And unlike Durbin, Pelosi and Reid, Couric has been to Iraq lately.

The same point seems to keep coming up lately - Democrats are always rooting against America. Everyone knows the far left hates America with a passion and wants nothing more than for America to be humiliated. The scary thing is the leaders of the Democrats see these crazed extremists as the people they have to impress.

Although I have to say, if I was a Democrat, I would probably be acting in the same way. Democrats are terrified that the surge in Iraq is working. They have spent the last four years viciously attacking President Bush on the war. Four relentless years of "Bush lied - kids died!" "No blood for oil!" and "Halliburton!" has worn down the American public. The Democrats took Congress back last fall and subsequently declared their victory to be a referendum on the war in Iraq. They want to cut and run away from Iraq. They need America to fail in Iraq. Everything hinges on Iraq for the Democrats. If Iraq is accepted as success, then the last four years of press conferences, caterwauling and general hysteria will have done Democrats no good. Likewise the last year of campaigning about the war - and only about the war - will leave the presidential hopefuls with nothing to talk about during their debates. They may even be reduced to answering questions from snowmen during their debates just to fill the time.

If the War in Iraq fails, Republicans will be horrified and rightly so. It will be a bigger embarrassment than Vietnam and will most likely result in the sharpest rise of terrorist activity ever. The Middle East will quickly dissolve into chaos. Meanwhile, Democrats will cheer. They will take the war's failure as a chance to hold Bush up as the worst president ever, not that they have been hesitating to do so. They will be elated because, like when Vietnam failed, failure in Iraq will probably result in the Democrats gaining seats in Congress - at least until America is attacked again.

It always seems to come down to that. Democrats just want to get in power and stay in power but to do so they have to undermine America's security. They scoff at Americans that display yellow ribbons to support their family, friends, and neighbors that serve overseas, claiming the really support the troops because they want to bring them home. If Democrats really want to support our troops - which they don't because it gains them nothing - they would at least wait to hear the report from the troops commanding general before they begin their latest round of hysterics.

Associate Commentary Editor Rob Casapulla is a 7th-semester political science major. He can be contacted at Robert.Casapulla@UConn.edu.