Quitters Never Win

I keep hearing politicians and talking heads say that 20,000 additional troops won't work. Why? Supposedly because the tactics will remain the same.

But who said our methods and techniques are staying the same? I thought I heard of several changes to our strategy in Iraq, including a change of command and (most importantly) the application of force against Shiite militias like Al-Sadr's. Isn't that huge? Didn't President Bush eat all kinds of (unnecessary) crow and altar his plan? Didn't he (needlessly) admit to all kinds of "mistakes" and didn't his detractors dance with glee? I seem to remember all of that.

But it doesn't matter. The complainers mocked "stay the course" for months. Now they refuse to give a fair opportunity to the President's new Lieberman and McCain-inspired troop surge. So what options are really left?

Only one: get out and go home. The politicians have wet their fingers, stuck them in the air, and, since November, have decided that the voters want out of Iraq.

But the consequences of going home could mean genocide and a redeployment of Islamist fighters to Western countries. It would be a death knell for democracy in that part of the world and spark a potential refugee crisis. It would sign the death warrant for every Iraqi who was brave enough to help us and guarantee we'd never see that kind of cooperation again. It would destroy our international reputation and our ability to deter future threats – the very things the complainers want restored!

The bitter pill is that, as a nation, we don't seem to have the wherewithal to see something through to the end. If the unpleasantness doesn't end within a three years, we want out. That was true in the Civil War, World War 2, Korea, and Vietnam. The first two we barely won before time ran out. The others we negotiated our way out of victory (to the detriment of the Korean and Vietnamese people). Even our Revolutionary War only had 33% approval. Isn't that about where Bush's ratings are right now?

I keep hearing these malcontents complain that Bush has not caught bin Laden but I haven't heard a single alternative plan to limit radical Islam in the future. I'm just so sick of hearing how bad Iraq is and wrong the President is, when I don't hear any plans on what to do next. And being more popular with Europe or yielding to the ebb and flow of the electorate is not a plan.