Iraq and democrats (small 'd' intentional)...
Benchmarks. Timetables. Metrics.

Amazing how the party that typically pooh-poohs things like "accountability" and "evidence"
suddenly wants both, post-haste, huh?

Look, I'm not going to defend the Bush Administration on the Iraq fiasco (and that's exactly what it is). I've probably posted this before, but there's a host of reasons why Iraq has not been a glowing success for the Administration to date. They are:

1. No actual "war" was fought. The Iraqi army was not defeated on the batlefield, bayonet-to-bayonet; it was allowed to run away.

2. The rather simplistic plan (i.e. bumrush Baghdad, get Saddam, open a Stock Exchange, poof! Instant Democracy!) wasn't exactly realistic. It neglected an awful lot of cultural and religious issues, and took it for granted that Iraqis not only knew what freedom meant, but would understand what to do with it once it was provided.

3. Neglected to remember that after every dictator has been deposed there is a host of would-be dictators who would love to take his place, and are willing to fight for it, too.

4. the American government is far too easily persuaded by small groups of expatriates that their homelands are fairly screaming for democracy and that the population is straining at the leash to try MTV and free-market economics.

5. Democracies are not created in a few months. Purple fingers do not a deocracy make. They are the end result of a complex process of cultural, legal, and political amalgams that requires time to work themselves out. What works stays, what doesn't gets chucked, but everything typically gets a try.

Now, as to the democrats and all this blather of not funding anything if they don't get their checklist of "prerequisites for surrender by other names"; umm, you all voted for it (this war) at some point, did you not? You can forget about the semantic arguments of 'giving the president the authority to use force, if necessary' and then making the case that Iraq was not necessary. Doesn't hold water. The American public was behind this effort when it was a three-walk cake walk, and you voted accordingly. Some democrats claim there wa sno time to debate military action; I seem to recall 18 months of debate, including a large portion of it in front of the United Nations.

Get this through your skull; the United States, for better or worse, broke Iraq (or made it even worse than it was). We (and that includes YOU) are responsible. You moreso --- you voted for the war and you voted to pay for it. Repeatedly. You can't run out on the Iraqi's and if you do, you will be rightly accused of cheapening the sacrifice of 3,500 Americans. You don't have the right to have a clean slate for your presumptive president in 2009, which is what all this crap is about. God forbid President Hilary has to actually handle a war! That's not the Clinton M.O. ---Clintons like it nice and quiet, so that they can do nothing and then take credit for everything.

Then again, Mrs. Clinton will only see the inside of the White House again when her Senate days are over and she has to take a job as a chambermaid because the Social Security money ran out, so I guess that's all wishful thinking on your part anyways.

As for the present occupants of the White House; how come you haven't made this case? How come you haven't fessed up to the mistakes you've made? How come you haven't put the case before the Iraqis that they should get off the stick? You know, you can sit here and cry that democrats beat you on an issue that should have been ironclad for you (national security and war), but you're not exactly instilling confidence in anyone, either.