SUPPORT THE TROOPS BY THWARTING THE MISSION?

Just what does it mean to support the troops but oppose the cause they fight for? No loyal Colts fan rooted for Indianapolis to lose the Super Bowl. No investor buys 100 shares of Google in the hope that Google's stock will tank. No one who esteems firefighters for their courage and education wants a four-alarm blaze to burn out of control.

Yet there is no end of Americans who insist they "support" US troops in Iraq but want the war those troops are fighting to end in defeat. The two positions are irreconcilable. You cannot logically or honorably curse the war as an immoral neocon disaster or a Halliburton oil grab or "a fraud . . . cooked up in Texas," yet bless the troops who are waging it.

But logic and honor haven't stopped members of Congress from trying to square that circle. The nonbinding resolution passed by the House last week was a flagrant attempt to have it both ways. One of its two clauses professed to "support and protect" the forces serving "bravely and honorably" in Iraq. The other declared that Congress "disapproves" the surge in troops now underway -- a surge that General David Petraeus, the newly confirmed military commander in Iraq, considers essential to American success.

It was a disgraceful and dishonest resolution, and it must have done wonders for the insurgents' morale. Democrats hardly bothered to disguise that when they say they "support and protect" the troops, what they really intend is to undermine and endanger their mission. The Politico, a Washington news site, reported Thursday that the strategy of "top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups," is to "pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration's options." If they had the courage of their convictions, Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha would forthrightly defund the war, bring the troops home, and brave the political consequences. Instead they plan an agonizing and drawn-out defeat -- slowly choking off the war by denying reinforcements, eventually leaving no alternative but retreat.

That is how those who oppose the war "support" the troops -- they "slow-bleed" them dry. Or they declare that the lives laid down by those troops were "wasted," as Senator Barack Obama did last Sunday. Obama later weaseled away from that characterization ("Well, as I said, it is not at all what I intended to say, and I would absolutely apologize if any of them felt that in some ways it had diminished the enormous courage and sacrifice that they'd shown"), but the gaffe had been committed. And like most political gaffes, it exposed the speaker's true feelings.

But then, why shouldn't Obama feel that way? If an American serviceman dies in the course of a war that toppled a monstrous dictatorship, opened the door to the possibility of decent Arab governance, and has become the central front in the struggle against radical Islam, then his death is not in vain. It is the sacrifice of an American hero, the last full measure of devotion given in the cause of freedom. But if he dies in the course of a senseless and illegitimate invasion -- the Obama/Murtha/Pelosi view of Iraq -- then his life *was* wasted. If that's what you believe, Senator, why not say so? Obama's is merely the latest in a series of senatorial comments that offer a glimpse of the left's anti-military disdain.

Smart people who work hard become successful, John Kerry "joked" last fall, but uneducated sluggards "get stuck in Iraq." Osama bin Laden is beloved by Muslims for "building schools, building roads, [and] building day-care facilities," Washington Senator Patty Murray explained in 2002, while Americans only show up to "bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan." Obama's Illinois colleague Dick Durbin took to the Senate floor to equate US military interrogators in Guantanamo Bay with genocidal mass-murderers: "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or . . . Pol Pot."

It goes without saying that many Democrats and liberals take a back seat to no one in their admiration and appreciation of the US military. But there is no denying that a notable current of antimilitary hostility runs through the left as well. Examples are endless: ROTC is banned on elite college campuses. San Francisco bars a historic battleship from its port. Signs at antiwar protests exhort troops to "shoot their officers." An Ivy League professor prays for "a million Mogadishus." Michael Moore compares Iraqi insurgents who kill Americans to the Minutemen of Revolutionary New England.

America is a free country, but it is not the Michael Moores or the ROTC-banners or the senatorial loudmouths who keep it free. They merely enjoy the freedom that others are prepared to defend with their lives. It is the men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform to whom we owe our liberty. Surely they deserve better than pious claims of "support" from those who are working for their defeat.

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ELSEWHERE

The irreverent Tim Worstall has a very amusing comment up about local markets -- which the Greenies think are the bees knees, of course.

Dick McDonald has a good article here about the vast robbery that U.S. social security payments represent.

Chris Brand has a new lot of posts up on his usual themes of race, IQ and political correctness -- with particular emphasis on the British scene.

Kurds send 3 brigades for surge: "Kurdish troops comprise a significant part of the Iraq Army contingent in the joint counter-insurgency mission in Baghdad. Three Iraq Army brigades from the autonomous Kurdistan region in the North have been deployed to Baghdad as part of the counter-insurgency operation being conducted with the United States. Officials said the brigades, with about 7,500 troops, are already in Baghdad, Middle East Newsline reported. Officials said insurgency strikes have dropped by 80 percent since the Baghdad security operation was launched more than a week ago. They said the biggest drop was in operations by the Iranian-sponsored Mahdi Army in the city. "Kurdish brigades are well-trained to fight inside cities and neighborhoods, and they will contribute vigorously in cleansing Baghdad's suburbs of armed men and outlaws," Kurdistan Defense Minister Jaafar Al Barazani said

EU defeatism: "An internal European Union document has concluded that there will be no way to prevent Iran from enriching enough weapons-grade uranium to develop a nuclear bomb, the British newspaper The Financial Times reported Tuesday. According to the report, the document states that the Iranian nuclear program has not been affected by diplomatic pressure, and has only been delayed due to technical limitations. "At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons program," the Times quoted the document as saying, warning that "the problems with Iran will not be resolved through economic sanctions alone." The document was dated February 7, and was reportedly circulated to the EU's 27 national governments ahead of a foreign ministers meeting Monday."

The usual excuse for black crime crumbles: "The death of the City solicitor Tom ap Rhys Pryce, stabbed for his mobile phone and travelcard as he returned home one night last winter clutching his wedding plans, struck terror into urban professionals. At the time his killers were portrayed as feral youths who grew up without the guiding influence of their fathers. It triggered a debate about the role of fathers in the lives of urban boys. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, wrote of his hope that "the men who left those boys' mothers to bring them up alone are reflecting on their own responsibility". But The Times has discovered that Delano Brown and Donnel Carty had strong father figures whose attempts to play a formative role in their up-bringing were rejected."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody.

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

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