This is from the FA thread and sounds right to me.
What the Dems are really up to
by Donald Sensing
The attacks on the administration by the Democrats have consisted of two prongs. First the accusations that the president lied about the prewar intelligence in order to game the country into war. I wrote about that here.
The other prong is to demand that the troops be brought home immediately. Rep. John Murtha was not the first Democrat to demand it, but he has gotten the most attention.
Both factions insist that “staying the course” is unacceptable. Murtha, incredibly for someone of his experience, insists we are actually losing in Iraq and that there is no recourse but to skedaddle.
But Murtha isn’t that stupid. He’s talked to too many senior military officers not to know what staying the course really means. More and more I see Murtha’s impassioned speech as less passion and more stage acting, part of a deliberate effort to promote his party in the coming year leading to the mid-term elections.
Because staying the course means withdrawing the troops.
Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade “on call” in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly, several senior military officers said.
Pentagon authorities also have set a series of “decision points” during 2006 to consider further force cuts that, under a “moderately optimistic” scenario, would drop the total number of troops from more than 150,000 now to fewer than 100,000, including 10 combat brigades, by the end of the year, the officers said.
Folks, you are dreaming if you think this plan was a midnight-oil project since Murtha or his fellow attacks dogs began biting. As I have said since at least 2003, the administration’s management of post-conquered Iraq can be fairly criticized. But the idea that this administration ever envisioned a permanent, or even enduring, presence in Iraq of 150,000 or so troops in Iraq is simply hysterical. (I personally doubt that Bush & Co. ever thought there would be this many troops still there today, which is another fair point of criticism.)
Its no coincidence that the Democrats have raised their voices so loudly just before the Pentagon was ready to announce these withdrawals. (Whether DOD actually wanted to announce this soon is open to conjecture.) All members of the Congress who are on the concerned committees receive detailed, classified briefings and information about the progress of the war and the overall strategy, of which this is a pretty good summary:
The war plan, for good or ill has never been to occupy the country. It’s always been the plan for the Iraqis to provide security in their own country. ...
Instead of installing a puppet government, we’ve spent 2.5 years building up an Iraqi one. ... In other words, instead of going into Iraq and trying to run the country … we’ve done the minimal amount of work to keep Iraq in a holding pattern until the Iraqis could run it.
[Quoting a DOD source:] We can confirm that the plan is, in fact, to reduce the size of Coalition Forces in country in 2006. It’s big news inasmuch as the Iraqis are increasing the size and strength of their footprint and, by the same token, we’re reducing ours.
So, knowing that the plan was to redeploy troops beginning next year, the Democrats decided to get in front of the wave: Demand the troops be sent home NOW and then when the Pentagon announces the plan to redeploy, take credit for it.
The two prongs of the attack serve two purposes. The “Bush lied us into war” wing satisfies the huge numbers of the party’s base suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome. The “declare victory and go home” attack preserves, however weakly, the party’s appeal to traditionally patriotic Democratic voters, of which there are also huge numbers. Doubtless the Dem leadership sees the attacks as a two-fer.
The appeals to both wings are intended to garner huge dividends in November 2006.
....
donaldsensing.com |
