The Redhunter

The Nation magazine, the liberal equivalent to National Review, wants us to pull out immediately:

We will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign. We urge all voters to join us in adopting this position. Many worry that the aftermath of withdrawal will be ugly, but we can now see that the consequences of staying will be uglier still. Fear of facing the consequences of Bush's disaster should not be permitted to excuse the creation of a worse disaster by continuing the occupation

That anyone can actually believe that Iraq under the rule of Al Qaeda and/or a resurgent Ba'athist regime could be no worse than the current situation is truely amazing. Reasoning with such people is simply not possible. To justify themselves, they dredge out the same old "Bush lied" nonsense that we are starting to see from mainstream Democrats.

On the Nation's site today we also find Medea Benjamin & Gayle Brandeis. Benjamin is a founder of Code Pink. I'm not familiar with Brandeis. They offer their suggestions for supporting the troops:

Send care packages to Iraq: books and snacks and toiletries to mitigate some of the harshness of the desert war zone. Donate to organizations, like the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, that provide help for returning soldiers struggling to put their lives together after war. Stand on street corners with candles and signs that spotlight the injustices our troops face. Support groups like Iraq Veterans Against the War, made up of courageous soldiers speaking out against the war. Urge elected officials to end this misbegotten military adventure. Support clean, green energy programs and lifestyles that move us off our dependence on other countries' oil.

I'll certainly agree with sending care packages. I send weekly letters (with half the sports section of the paper detailing the Sunday football games stuffed inside), and bi-monthly packages through Adopt-a-Platoon. But the rest of what they suggest is just the usual leftist tripe.

Benjamin's group, Code Pink Women for Peace, gave $600,000 in money and supplies to the terrorists in Iraq. If you don't believe me, they admit to it on their website.

They're also sending "Friendship Delegation" to Cuba December 27-January 2, 2006. This, too, is on their website.

One anti-American latin dictator not being enough, on January 23- Feburary 4th they'll be in Venezuela attending the World Socialist Forum. You guessed it, this is on their website too.

The President Strikes Back

Yesterday, during a Veteran's Day speech, President Bush stuck back at his antagonists:

While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. (Applause.) Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. And many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: "When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security." That's why more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate — who had access to the same intelligence — voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.

The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.

Exactly Right.

Peter Fleming, writing on my other blog site, says "About Time!", to which I say, "Amen!"

Meanwhile, Norman Podhoretz has a devastaging critique of those who persist in "Bush lied!" nonsense. His conclusion is that

...so long as we are hunting for liars in this area, let me suggest that we begin with the Democrats now proclaiming that they were duped, and that we then broaden out to all those who in their desperation to delegitimize the larger policy being tested in Iraq—the policy of making the Middle East safe for America by making it safe for democracy—have consistently used distortion, misrepresentation, and selective perception to vilify as immoral a bold and noble enterprise and to brand as an ignominious defeat what is proving itself more and more every day to be a victory of American arms and a vindication of American ideals.