Iraq - Democrat Meltdown? -

Iraq - Democrat Meltdown? - We've all heard House Minority Leader Nancy "Facelift" Pelosi and her remark that "...We could have probably brought down that statue for a lot less".

As usual, she doesn't say exactly how, which continues a Democrat pattern of passive-aggressiveness on these sorts of issues.

Here's the part I find encouraging about this article:

Mrs. Pelosi also praised the troops at the rally. But she didn't address the war itself at the event. Later, in her news conference, she told reporters she is not convinced the war in Iraq has made Americans safer.
"That remains to be seen," she said. "I certainly would hope so, and I think we have to think in a very positive way about it, but we don't know."
That put her at odds with House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, who said to some U.S. troops present at the rally: "Your cause is noble and just. You are disarming a dangerous despot and ending his ruthless regime."
He also said he believed the war was "strengthening the security of our nation, as well as the nations of the Middle East and the nations of the world."

Even Tom Daschle is laying low on this one; Iraq has burned him badly, even scuttled his presidential ambitions.

So we see Pelosi and the far left (Moseley-Braun, Dean, Nadler, etc) splitting from the more sensible moderates, just as the presidential campaign season gets underway. this is very good.

More Pelosi - From the same article, Pelosi said:

As Mrs. Pelosi praised the troops, she also said their success was owed "in large measure" to former President Bill Clinton.
"This best-trained, best-equipped, best-led force for peace in the history of the world was not invented in the last two years. This had a strong influence and strong support during the Clinton years," she said.

This part almost made me gag up my sugar pops.

Where does one start refuting this lunacy (which I've been hearing from Democrats ever since Afghanistan didn't turn into a quagmire)?

With serving soldiers who've been through several administrations? I know that my friends who are in the service can testify; the Clinton years were almost as bad as the Carter years, and had we not had the Reagan years in between the two, they shudder to think of how awful things would be. The Reagan years brought some things to the military that were as important to the military as money (as we found during the Clinton years): Pride, esprit de corps, a sense of deep-rooted professionalism that keeps a military together even when its tanks lack spare parts, a fifth of its planes are "hangar queens", where there was no money for the kind of training the saves soldiers' lives in combat.

This story was not atypical in showing the military's situation during the Clinton Administration:

Anyone who subscribes to Elaine Donnelly's Center for Military Readiness newsletter can give you a convincing disquisition on how the last decade saw Bill Clinton and his civilian appointees turn the Army into a Nerf version of its former self. From the assistant secretary Sara Lister, who was run out of town for calling Marines "extremist," to former Army secretary Togo West, who launched programs like COO ("Consideration of Others Training"), the leadership saw to it that troops were sensitized as often as they got haircuts. And as recruiting got harder (the Army missed its goal three out of the last five years), the culture grew softer. Even former defense secretary William Cohen—whose military career consisted of one day in ROTC—admitted that coed basic training lacked rigor. Meanwhile, after downsizing from 18 to 10 divisions, money is still scarce. As one angry Ranger tells me, "Because you have no money, you can't train, can't go on deployments, can't even afford to buy bullets. But because you have no money, you have plenty of time to do more Consideration of Others Training—because we've got to feel good about things. Hey, you know something?" he thunders. "The time for feeling good is over. We've got problems."

Yep, the military performed well in Iraq. You'd have to say it did well in spite of Clinton's efforts, not because of them.

Posted by Mitch at April 12, 2003 09:00 AM