{"id":405,"date":"2007-01-31T16:16:57","date_gmt":"2007-01-31T22:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/01\/31\/the-suicide-commences\/"},"modified":"2007-01-31T16:16:57","modified_gmt":"2007-01-31T22:16:57","slug":"the-suicide-commences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=405","title":{"rendered":"The Suicide Commences"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lefties are commencing their Vietnam-fantasy foreplay<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Barack Obama is introducing binding legislation mandating the phased removal of combat brigades from Iraq to start in a few months, with the goal of getting “all” — we repeat, “all” — removed by March 2008. From a release just sent out by his campaign:<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today introduced binding and comprehensive legislation that not only reverses the President\u2019s dangerous and ill-conceived escalation of the Iraq war, but also sets a new course for U.S. policy that can bring a responsible end to the war and bring our troops home.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur troops have performed brilliantly in Iraq, but no amount of American soldiers can solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else\u2019s civil war,\u201d Obama said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I have introduced a plan to not only stop the escalation of this war, but begin a phased redeployment that can pressure the Iraqis to finally reach a political settlement and reduce the violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Obama plan offers a responsible yet effective alternative to the President’s failed policy of escalation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I entitled this post “The Suicide Commences” for a reason.\u00a0 I’m not sure whose suicide it is.<\/p>\n

If the nation keeps its head about itself – if it heeds its troops in the field, follows a sensible (read: hands-on, dead-terrorist, whether-Shi’te or Sunni-focused) course, and focuses its efforts on protecting the vast majority of Iraqis who do <\/em>want a peaceful, stable, vermin-free country, then it’s the beginning-of-the-electoral end for Obama.\u00a0 If the GOP can refocus the national agenda on what matters – the war on terror – among the many cleanups,\u00a0and getting-back-on-messages they need to do (and yes, that’s going to be a tall order), and appeal to the common sense and lingering social memory of the American people, then this is a total loser after the Democrat convention.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if the GOP doesn’t present the people a solid alternative <\/em>to the Democrat agenda – if we continue to appear like Democrat Lite, as we do right now – then it’s the suicide of the nation as a whole that I’m most worried about.\u00a0 If you accept that we are in a war against a terrorist movement – a real, hot war, as opposed to an ongoing investigation, like some distended RICO manhunt – then, for all the double-talk about “responsible effectiveness”, this would be vastly worse than the disengagement from Vietnam.\u00a0 The North Vietnamese Army didn’t follow us home in 1975, after all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Being ever the optimist, I choose to work for the former, and against “Neville” Obama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lefties are commencing their Vietnam-fantasy foreplay: Barack Obama is introducing binding legislation mandating the phased removal of combat brigades from Iraq to start in a few months, with the goal of getting “all” — we repeat, “all” — removed by March 2008. From a release just sent out by his campaign: WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}