March 23, 2007
"Pork and defeat"
Hugh writes:
House Democrats vote for pork and defeat, with the supplemental demanding defeat by March of 2008 passing on a vote of 218 to 212.
It won't get through the Senate. And even if it did, the president will veto it. The Democrats are denying timely funding to troops in the field, troops that in fact winning, and massaging the enemy that half the Congress wants to surrender.
Republican Leader Boehner has wisely decided not to allow any reconsideration motions or other procedural gimmicks that could give the 218 cover. They voted for retreat and defeat plus a mountain of pork. The McGovern-San Francisco Democrats are back....
I've avoided commenting on all this, because everybody else is, and because you all can guess what I think about it. But really, just thinking about Dems running for office on their criticism of Republican pork spending, and then using billions of dollars in pork projects to buy the votes to undermine their own country in time of war....I gotta vent a bit.
Democrats got America into ALL the bloody wars of the 20th Century, and in every one of them the Republicans loyally supported our troops and our war efforts no matter the political cost. And now the Democrats repay us with treason. (You think I'm putting this too strong? Yes, you. I'm talking to you, Mr. Lefty Q. Sap reading this and sneering. I'm happy to debate the issue. Show me I'm wrong.)
One thing that really burns me up is the endless ankle-biting about how the Bush Administration made mistakes in Iraq. Every war we've ever fought has been filled with mistakes!
Including ALL those 20th Century Democrat wars. They all involved calamitous Democrat mistakes that make Iraq look like a picnic for the poor orphan children. Belleau Wood, Peleliu, Anzio, LZ Bitch, Slapton Sands, Chosin. I could go on. Did you know that, right before North Korean Army smashed into South Korea and drove US and ROK forces almost into the sea, our Democrat overlords ordered hundreds of P-38's stored in S Korea to be destroyed? Because they might be "too provocative" in the hands of the ROK?
Sainted Democrat Franklin Roosevelt pissed away 25,000 American casualties to seize a rock called Iwo Jima. Which never yielded any strategic or tactical advantage. And now his pigmy descendants have the nerve to criticize Bush? What a bunch of useless hippie nihilists...
Korean War: 36,516 dead (33,686 combat, 2,830 non-combat), 103,000 wounded, 8,142 MIA. And what exactly was accomplished with these casualties? Hmmm?
Posted by John Weidner at March 23, 2007 01:27 PMThis is exactly what most drives me nuts in these arguments. If you want to find the most mistake-free execution of a war to use as your model, the best place to start looking is here, at the second Gulf War. We have taken over and largely pacified a hostile nation of 25MM+, and we're only 4 years into it, with what, 3K US service member deaths?
And furthermore, I'd love to have some of these nitwits compare/contrast this occupation with the Philippines. Mr. Trump, I'm looking in your direction...
*****
By the way, I assume the Korea question was more rhetorical, but I hate to leave things like that hanging...I'd argue that Korea was a vital front in the containment strategy that saw us through the Cold War - the first major military front in World War III...that our committment helped keep Western Europe free, as well as Greece, as well as keeping the Soviets (mostly) out of our hemisphere, etc., etc...
As you guessed, I agree with all those points about Korea. Simply showing the world that we would fight stubbornly was vital.
As a related point, it often has amazed me how obtuse people can be, not to realize that our overall Cold War mission, which was preventing WWIII, involved two equally vital parts. We had to be convincingly ever-ready to fight the Red Army in the Fulda Gap, including the possible use of tactical nukes—in order to make this unnecessary.
But at the same time we had to be tough and pugnacious at dozens of other crisis moments and hot-spots around the globe, in order to prevent the sort of situation where appeasement and weakness gets us into too deep a trouble to resolve locally.
Both were needed. I remember a criticism of Reagan's rectivating a battleship, because it would be of little use in WWIII. That's true, but the BB's were very useful in places like Korea and Vietnam, and potentially useful in most of our small interventions.
Posted by: John Weidner at March 26, 2007 01:58 PM
