the Centrist

The all night charade sponsored by the Democratically controlled Senate was all but a bust … in no small part because of a group of combat veterans called Vets for Freedom.  They are a group of combat Vets from the War on Terror.  Vets for Freedom was initially founded to repudiate fallacious comments about the troops and the war by Congressman John Murtha’s (D-Penn) (As a matter of disclosure my son David is one of its founders.)  These bi-partisan Vets feel strongly that they have firsthand knowledge and understand the barbarity of this enemy better than any.  In my opinion the best questioned asked by this group was: “What do we do if we lose in Iraq?”  It seems the anti-war liberals have not addressed that issue.  These men simply asked: since al Qaeda is there (in Iraq), since they claim they want to kill as many Americans as possible in any manner they deem necessary, and since we are winning the war, why would we want to leave and give them safe haven in Iraq?   This would grant them a base of attack.  After all al Qaeda has stopped its pitched battles and are fighting the dirty cowardly war … almost exclusively targeting citizens in road side and homicide bombings.  Al Qaeda’s only hope is that their cowardice is overshadowed by that of the myopic liberals in Congress.
Vets for Freedom represents a military which has done all the Congress and Administration has asked of it.  Yet the media and liberals disregard the fact that our military has won unprecedented victories literally pushing these terrorists out of Afghanistan and into the mountainous regions of Pakistan.  Moreover, they defeated the strongest fascist government in the world (Saddam).  Since the surge, this same military is successfully holding and policing territories previously fraught with sectarian violence.  But the Vets assure us, as do the Iraqis, that American presence is needed until these the Iraqi government is strong enough to accomplish these tasks themselves.
Rather than give credit to these heroes most of the anti-war Senators refused to meet with them.   These same Senators assure us they are “for” the soldiers, but refused to meet with men who they sent to the very war they now oppose.  These Vets represent a military which has done all they have asked of it.  Some of the anti-war Senators have been irrational enough to suggest that we invade Pakistan (an ally) and fight al Qaeda there, on the most difficult terrain in the world, rather than on the friendlier terrain of an already defeated Iraq.  These are the same pundits that insisted our soldiers take the mountainous regions of Afghanistan via conventional infantry methods.  These would have been the same tactics which led to the downfall of the Soviet Union, not to mention a tactic which would have resulted in thousands upon thousands of American casualties.  It seems obvious to this columnist that the anti-war pundits   in Congress are not really concerned about anti-war or the safety of our fighting forces.  Rather they major in confusion and deception.  Moreover, while nobody should contend that the Iraqi government is not having political problems, the surge is not. Gen. Petraus has a reasonable solution, and one, I might add that not only is working, but should have been taken earlier. 
       As General Peter Pace, Head of the Joint Chiefs stated: “We can vote to fight it in one place or another. We can do whatever it is we want to do to have a dialogue about how to fight this enemy … But the bottom line is that as long as our enemy is sworn to destroy our way of life, we are going to be in a war.”  And that is what the anti-war pundits in the press and Congress do not want the public to understand as they go about taking advantage of all that this great nation affords, yet refuse to fight for it.