What winners?

[DesertFox]

Jonah Goldberg

Americans are torn between two irreconcilable positions on the Iraq war. Some want the war to be a success — variously defined — and some want the war to be over.

Conservatives are basically, but not exclusively, in the “success” camp. Liberals (and those further to the left) are basically, but not exclusively, the “over” party. And many people are suffering profound cognitive dissonance by believing these two positions can be held simultaneously. The motives driving these positions range from the purely patriotic to the coldly realistic to the cravenly political or psychologically perfervid.

Parsing motives is exhausting and pointless, but one fact remains: “End it now” and “win it eventually” cannot be reconciled.

With Wednesday night’s speech, President Bush made it clear that he will settle for nothing less than winning. He may be deluding himself, but he at least has done the nation the courtesy of stating his position, despite an antagonistic political establishment and a hostile public. What’s maddening is that the Democratic leadership cannot, or will not, clearly tell the American people whether they are the party of “end it” or “win it.”

More (http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjE5NQ==)

[Maggie_T]

It may be the wisest political course for them (democrats), but it does a disservice to the nation

The story of the American democrat party: disservice the nation in order to service themselves.


One moral argument against the Iraq war in 2003 was that it would create an enormous humanitarian crisis in the form of refugees spilling over the borders, which in turn would destabilize the region. That didn’t happen. But it would be the most likely result of a U.S. withdrawal now. Yet that’s a risk the antiwar crowd is suddenly willing to take.


Naturally! That will enable them to cry - yet again - that it's all Bush's fault, that Iraqis are killing each other because of Bush.

Of course, liberals want Iraq to become a blood bath. Nothing could service them better than that.

[Naturalized-Texan]

Correction: Americans are torn between two irreconcilable positions on the Iraq war. Some want the war to be a success — variously defined — and some want to lose the war.

[DesertFox]

What Tex said.

[RED]

Jonah Goldberg
What’s maddening is that the Democratic leadership cannot, or will not, clearly tell the American people whether they are the party of “end it” or “win it.”

More (http://author.nationalreview.com/latest/?q=MjE5NQ==)

I'm not puzzled at all. The DIMs haven't changed their tune since the first days our armed forces rolled into Iraq. "It's a quagmire" has simply debilitated into "cut and run". I think they voted to take action in Iraq because they knew, as anyone would, that there would be setbacks in progress, and they knew they could use these setbacks to undermine Bush for their sole purpose in life ... political advantage. Don't forget ... leftists only aim is to be in power, and American honor, American deaths, losing a war or anything else, doesn't matter, as long as they can blame it on their opponents.