Uh-Oh! Baker Commission

[Annie]

If this comes, bye bye GOP:

http://americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=6585

Baker: A face-saving disaster?

The Baker commission seems to be doing a lot more than just re-thinking Iraq. It appears to be copiously leaking a Vietnam-type cut-and-run plan that will leave the Gulf far more dangerous than it is now. The Vietnam model looks like a “face-saving” retreat by the United States—just like that one that left Vietnam a Stalinist prison state with tens of thousands of boat people fleeing and dying, and next door in Cambodia, two or three million dead at the hands of Pol Pot.

Baker’s press leaks seem designed to test public reaction to the cut-and-run plan.

Conservatives have lost Congress for the next two years, but acquiescing in a disastrous retreat from Iraq would be the worst of all possible worlds. It would empower all the most destabilizing actors: Ahmadinejad, his dangerous guru Ayatollah Yazdi, and Moqtada el Sadr, who wants to turn Iraq into another Khomeinist state.

Withdrawal would embolden Hamas and Hezbollah and weaken Iran’s natural enemies—the Sunni Arab countries, including the Sunni Gulf states. In Afghanistan, the Taliban would be reinvigorated, and in Pakistan the Al-Qaida-supporting elements in the military and secret services might try—again—to launch a coup. A successful Al Qaida coup in Pakistan would give Islamofascists not just one, but two nuclear-armed states.

The US held on in Vietnam for fourteen years. We gave Vietnamization a chance. The 12 million Iraqis who voted for parliamentary parties deserve a chance to see their elected government work.

James Lewis 11 12 06

 

[Annie]

Perhaps enough pressure will be brought to bear?

http://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=166873

Faint-hearted Dems have plan for (terrorist) victory
By Jules Crittenden
Boston Herald City Editor
Sunday, November 12, 2006 - Updated: 09:13 AM EST

First, let me congratulate my Democratic friends. We’re Euro-stylin’ now!

The . . . whatever it is in Iraq . . . is no longer a war, it’s a “problem,” House Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi says. Abandonment enthusiast John Murtha, in the running for majority leader, is less ambiguous about it. George Bush “is not going to go on with this war in Iraq.” Murtha wants a Vietnam in Iraq. Chaos and mass murder in Iraq. A victory for terrorism in Iraq. An end of America’s relevance in the world, compliments of Iraq.

So much for the party of FDR, Truman and JFK. This is the party of Jimmy Carter.

Bush, meanwhile, is moving toward appeasement. With the cautious choice of Robert Gates for the Pentagon, Bush wants to work with the Democrats for success in Iraq. He’s waiting for the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which has signalled it wants talks with Iraq’s terrorist-backing neighbors in Iran and Syria.

For all the complaints that Donald Rumsfeld took us to war with insufficient forces, we have yet to hear our leaders express a desire to correct that with sufficient forces. A big stick to carry while speaking softly in Tehran and Damascus. To influence Iraq’s meddlesome neighbors by inflicting defeat on their proxies in Iraq. To give Iraq’s elected government some breathing space.

So much for the party of Ronald Reagan. We’re back to Gerald Ford.

Tell me I’m wrong about this. I remain optimistic, despite 1972 abandonment enthusiast George McGovern’s new popularity, that the Democratic leadership will recognize America’s place in the world and stiffen its spine. Barring that, that Bush will remember he is still president, develop a robust strategy for Iraq and give the Democrats enough rope to hang themselves in 2008.

America is unique in history, a world power that spent precious blood and treasure not to subjugate but to liberate. The United States is the standard bearer of liberty, democracy and free enterprise - the greatest nation the world has ever seen.

How many times can a great nation retreat from inferior forces and remain great? If its people won’t fight for what they believe in, then of what worth are that nation’s values?

Saigon. Who rules that place now, with what values? Teheran. Beirut. Mogadishu. What lesson did the world learn from those places? Whose values dominate there today? Baghdad. Islamofascists everywhere are waiting for us to lose there. Not even to lose, but to quit.

When the United States surrenders its place in the world, who, with what values, will step forward? Brutal, dictatorial China is actively engaged, obstructing efforts to curtail Iran’s nuclear program and buying favor in the Third World - a model of cut-rate economic success admired for thumbing its nose at us.

Islamic extremists are ascendant among the world’s 1 billion Muslims thanks to their successes, which are nothing more than our failures. American voters, whether they realize it or not, have chosen the path of Europe, of Canada - wealthy, smug democracies that profess concern for the oppressed but will do little for them, little even in their own defense.

The Democrats have a lot of work ahead of them in Congress. Appearances are important, so they may want to start with the name “United States of America.” Too imperialisticky and warmongery. Dated. How about, “The United States of North America”?

Or better yet, “The United Nations of Lower Canada.”