Democrats and Iraq

Over the last several days, a lot has been made of Democrats and Iraq.

This is a new and interesting article from Noemie Emery at the Weekly Standard.

Apparently there are some Democrats that are worried that they will be blamed for the failures in Iraq.

Well, what did these Democrats expect?

At every single turn they have undermined the war in Iraq.

In less than a year's time, they have written 41 resolutions or amendments undermining the war in Iraq, including cutting off the funds to American soldiers in Iraq.

Emery states:

In the course of the past year, they have gone from attacking a plan that had not been effective to attacking one that hadn't been tried yet, to attacking one that exceeded all expectations, while in the process ignoring reality, slandering a commanding general, and denying American forces in battle due credit for what they had done.

Emery then proceeds to call out the step by step strategy that the Democrats used to insure failure in Iraq. It's a long read, but well worth it- I will only post part of it:

When our tale opens, it is the last month of 2006, Democrats have just scored a blowout in Congress, Iraq is in shambles, and the country is calling for Bush to change course. He does. But he changes course in the other direction, radically revising his Iraq strategy, adopting aggressive new rules of engagement, and sending in 30,000 more troops. Even before the plan was announced to the public on January 10, 2007, Democrats launched their assault. Senator Christopher Dodd declared the plan useless: "A 'surge' of American troops will do nothing." Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrats in the new Congress, released an open letter to Bush on January 5, decrying his redoubled effort as futile: "Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried, and that has already failed." The surge was "a sad, ominous echo of something we've lived through in this country," according to Illinois senator Richard Durbin. "I'm confident it will not work," said John Kerry at a Senate hearing, a sentiment echoed by Barack Obama. "Verdict first, trial afterwards," said the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, unaware of her future as a role model for America's congressional Democrats. And then it really got strange.

Senate Democrats joined the Republicans in late January in unanimously confirming the appointment of General David Petraeus, a counterinsurgency expert and coauthor of the new surge proposal, sending him off with godspeed and good wishes to the front. Then they began to try to kneecap his efforts, seeking to deny him troops and/or money in an ongoing series of votes of no confidence, coupled with predictions that he would not succeed. Lest anyone at home or abroad not get their message, they rapidly passed two resolutions declaring their profound lack of faith in his mission. One, from Carl Levin on February 5, declared the Senate's disagreement with the "plan to augment our forces"; the other, from Harry Reid two weeks later, declared it the sense of Congress that "Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq."

Afraid of moving directly to defund the armed forces, Democrats decided on a series of steps that would have the same effect without saying so, i.e., putting so many restrictions and regulations on troop deployments that the number available would in effect be greatly reduced. These would be sponsored by veterans (James Webb and John Murtha), and the stated goal would be to help the armed forces. The real goal, however, was to strangle the surge in its crib. "Top House Democrats, working in concert with antiwar groups, have decided against using congressional power to force a quick end to U.S. involvement .  .  . and instead will pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration's options," Politico reported on February 13, adding that the "goal is to limit or sharply reduce the number of U.S. troops available for the Iraq conflict, rather than to openly cut off funding for the war itself."

At the beginning, it had been made abundantly clear that the surge would take place in stages, that it would build gradually over a three- to five-month period, and would not begin to take full effect until June. This did not stop Reid from declaring in April that the surge had been tried, and had failed. "I believe myself that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense--and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows--know that this war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything," he said April 19.

continued...

To be certain, if Iraq fails- the Democrats will be blamed because they have done nothing to assure victory in Iraq.

Democrats have made it very clear, they do not want victory in Iraq, they want failure in Iraq. They will do everything in their power to fail in Iraq as they have shown through resolution after resolution.

Let's be honest, Democrats have promised failure to the anti-war zealots now controlling their party. Any success in Iraq means that the Democrats have failed their hard core constituents.

To those folks who think I am just being mean to the Democrats, consider this statement made by Senator Harry Reid:

"Senator Schumer has shown me numbers that are compelling and astounding," a gleeful Harry Reid said on April 12, 2007, to reporters. "We are going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war."

Clearly you can see from this statement, that Democrats are rooting for failure in Iraq and hoping they can use it to pick up seats in the Senate as a result.

Read the entire article- it is astounding.