For three election cycles in a row, at least, somebody has attempted to use the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as a way of scoring political points for the Democrats, just before an election. It's gone from the silly to the absurd-from panties on the heads of prisoners of war to alleged Guantanamo Bay abuses; from memos leaked from the British foreign office to the Lancet study and its wildly inflated casualty count.
Now we have the recent Wikileaks affair, which demonstrates the fanaticism of the Left to a remarkable degree. So cock-sure was Wikileaks that they were providing explosive ammunition to the anti-war, anti-Republican forces, they evidently didn't even bother to read the documents before they dumped them. Had they done so, they might have decided their time would better be spent hunting down Satanic grottoes in Delaware, or membership lists of Outlaw motorcycle gangs in Florida.
As it was, Wikileaks contained one major "revelation". American troops turned a blind eye to abuses of detainees by Iraqi police forces and Iraqi government officials.
Otherwise, the Wikileaks document dump did more harm than good. It revealed sources and methods that might result in lives of being at risk. It also revealed that, yes, there was some degree of WMD in Iraq after all, in the form of chemical weapons, including but not limited to canisters of mustard gas. And this is only what has so far been found in a vast country roughly the size of Texas, and doesn't even take into account others that might exist that are either yet to be found, or might have been surreptitiously transferred to someplace like Syria.
In other words-yes, people died, but Bush never lied.
More damning of all though was the infamous Lancet report that detailed the number of deaths due to the invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation at being somewhere in the neighborhood of 650,000 to possibly as many as a million.
In reality, the number of deaths, according to the reports dumped by Wikileaks,was somewhere in the neighborhood of 165,000. This by the way is including combat insurgents, as well as American and allied forces. In other words, the number of deaths alleged by the Lancet Report are greatly exaggerated.
So in a sense, Wikileaks, for all the damage it did, at the same time performed what might yet turn out to be the most legitimately valuable service of it's checkered history yet. It pointed out the tendency of the Left to lie and exaggerate for political gain, even regarding subjects of important national security concerns. Is it any wonder the Wikileaks founder was so hard-pressed during a recent CNN interview that he walked out?
My own analysis-no one should ever volunteer for active duty in the military as long as there's a Democratic Party with any degree of power or influence. I know there are many who will question such a statement, and they are not just Democrats. Most Republicans would probably excoriate such a position as well. After all, in time of war, you're not fighting for the Democrats, or for the Republicans. Technically, you are not even fighting for "the government". You are fighting for your "country". You are fighting for mom and apple pie.
Unfortunately, such appeals to patriotism aside, you are not fighting for any of that, in reality. So then, what are you fighting for? Well, to begin with, the question is ill-phrased, because the fact is, you are not fighting at all. You are merely a part of an attempt to maintain a new status quo, and in so doing, sometimes you find yourself in combat situations where you have to defend yourself and your comrades. But there's no end-game in sight beyond some stated withdrawal point at some point in the clearly defined, yet all too nebulous future.
There is no end-game beyond that because, clearly-you are the end game. You just can't see that forest for all of those trees.
And that brings us back to the Democrats, who have hamstrung every war we have been involved with since at least the days of the Korean conflict. They do this by trying to impose some surreal battlefield version of Robert's Rules of Order. In this game of mortal combat, we are not so much trying to kill the enemy as we are trying to teach them proper etiquette. When they act rudely from time time, we unfortunately have to scold them, but only on those occasions when they really cross the line. Then, sure that we are on the right track and that given enough time the lessons will sink it, we go about the business of winning hearts and minds, secure in the knowledge that everybody in the world wants peace so badly, all we have to do is patiently point the way and set sterling examples of tolerance, understanding, and above all, patience.
As for the leader's enemies, the ones that call the shots, we look for the moderates among them, even among groups that by their natures are composed primarily of, and dominated wholly by, fundamentalists of the most fanatic stripe.
When we take them prisoner, we are further hamstrung in our interrogation efforts so much to the point that it seems as though the order of the day is "kill them with kindness". Unfortunately, while this might have once at least served to throw enemy combatants off balance to a limited degree, we very kindly help them cross that road, like the good Boy Scouts the military seems to have become these days.
After all, as we have been told by the Left for years, "we are better than them". Yes, the same Democratic politicians and leftist activists who insist that all cultures are equal and that there is no true good or evil-only cultural differences that should be met with tolerance and respect-insist out of the other side of their mouths that our own culture and values are superior, if only in this regard. How convenient.
Now of course Iraq is at best a very minor concern, relatively speaking, and we are now concerned mainly with Afghanistan, that "war of necessity" that the left used to insist we should have devoted our time and resources to instead of diverting our attention to Iraq.
Now of course they are changing their tune to the same old song and dance they used to sing about Iraq. And they wonder why so many people are leaving the dance early.
Ironically, Obama is caught in the same vise in Afghanistan that George W. Bush was caught in, in Iraq. He would like to withdraw, but can't, but he can't fight the war as he should, thanks to the Left, and to liberal Democrats in Congress.
All he can do is hope that somewhere, somehow, he can turn up some moderate Taliban members he can talk to. He's pretty sure he can make progress. After all, everybody wants peace, and will do or say anything to get it, right?
