COWARDS AND LIARS

The U.S. Senate today confirmed General Petraeus to be the Chief Warrior, Head Honcho, and the Biggest-Baddest American in Iraq. He's highly regarded by all parties, so far as is known, and apparently he is honorable, brave, and intelligent; all the stuff that we want in such a person. He has devised a plan, proposed by the President, to turn around the Iraq mess.

Several weeks ago, the same Senate almost instantaneously confirmed a new Secy. of Defense, Robert Gates, who has multiple positive attributes, but chief among them was that he isn't Donald Rumsfeld. As General Petraeus' immediate superior, he has also approved the plan, now known as the Bush Plan.

Having confirmed and lauded both these men, the same U.S. Senate is now devising a series of "non-binding resolutions" calling for the defeat of the plan devised by the selfsame people. The degree of defeat the honorables of the Senate are willing to accept varies with different resolutions, but it is clear that the supporters of these resolutions are willing to see the United States lose the war.

Mr. Gates puts it this way: "It's pretty clear that a resolution that in effect says that the general going out to take command of the arena shouldn't have the resources he thinks he needs to be successful certainly emboldens the enemy and our adversaries."

Just what else needs to be said than that?

Here's what. The Senators of the disloyal opposition, all the Democrats to put a fine point on it, and a few Republicans who lost their final vestige of courage after the recent election, are willing to see America lose, but they are unwilling to accept responsibility for creating that event.

There is universal understanding that the U.S. Army cannot be defeated on the ground, and that the battleground has shifted to the U.S. domestic political arena. This is precisely so because our enemies know where is located the seat of American cowardice. The Senate is about to confirm this.

IF there are brave opponents to the Petraeus/Gates/Bush plan, they should call for immediate withdrawal, defund the war now (which is their constitutional right to do), and vote to relieve Mr. Gates and General Petraeus of responsibility for carrying out the plan they have created. The "honorables" refuse to do what they claim is their "duty," knowing that the American people will not support them in this, and fearing for the consequences TO THEMSELVES.

By refusing accept this responsibility, these Knights of the Limp Wrists make manifest to anyone paying attention just what they are. They are cowards and liars; in the interest of their own political ambition they are selling out America.

Cowards and liars. That's what remains to be said. I just said it.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that after many months of knowing the Iranian contribution to killing our people, having caught several of them red handed last week, and having released them, the President has decided that it's now OK to capture and kill new ones. That's got to be good news. But more bad news is that we should have been doing this all along. And the same should be said for a lot of other malefactors that we'll now have to catch again before we can kill them....if Mr. Malaki will let us.

With Rules of Engagement like these that have constrained our soldiers, we're lucky we're not yet fighting them here. I suspect that The Bubbas, armed Americans, will refuse to honor those rules when that time comes. That's the good news.