TWO FACED

One of the most literate and beautifully artistic blogs to be found on the Net is "All Things Beautiful." It deserves a daily read. Today she's nailed it down tight.

This may become the first time in the history of the United States Congress that it has voted to send a new commander into battle and then voted to oppose his plan that is necessary to succeed in that battle.

...Only last week did the Senate unanimously confirm General Petraeus as the top U.S. commander in Iraq, full well knowing that his appointment "marks the real start of the new US strategy in Iraq, but is also seen as a last chance to turn things around".

And the new US strategy is what? Is it just more troops -- 21,500 extra U.S. troops, to be precise? Does it mean, that these extra "troops are now going to run out and look for gun battles with insurgents in back alleys", as critics immediately after the President's State of the Union address had us believe?

Of course not....When both Democratic and Republican Senators unanimously confirmed General Petraeus, they knew that "it will mark the start of an historic turn in military strategy in Iraq and perhaps in U.S. war-fighting doctrine".

What was done yesterday by the US Congress....nearly all the Dems and a handful of loose boweled Reps...was simply beyond forgiveness.

The abandonment of the Army in the field by repudiation of the Commander whom they just ordered to battle, with his newly approved plan, is not to be forgotten. These cowards will embolden our enemies, frighten those friends we have left, and make the world incomparably more dangerous.

Their strategy, a "slow bleed" of the Army's ability to fight....a tactic that will create another Somalia...is too bizarre to account for in a rational world. Either de-fund the war, and end it now, or support our men and women in the field.

Even today’s Washington Post gets it.

Mr. Murtha has a different idea. He would stop the surge by crudely hamstringing the ability of military commanders to deploy troops. In an interview carried Thursday by the Web site MoveCongress.org, Mr. Murtha said he would attach language to a war funding bill that would prohibit the redeployment of units that have been at home for less than a year, stop the extension of tours beyond 12 months, and prohibit units from shipping out if they do not train with all of their equipment. His aim, he made clear, is not to improve readiness but to "stop the surge." So why not straightforwardly strip the money out of the appropriations bill -- an action Congress is clearly empowered to take -- rather than try to micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional? Because, Mr. Murtha said, it will deflect accusations that he is trying to do what he is trying to do. "What we are saying will be very hard to find fault with," he said.

Mr. Murtha's cynicism is matched by an alarming ignorance about conditions in Iraq. He continues to insist that Iraq "would be more stable with us out of there," in spite of the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies that early withdrawal would produce "massive civilian casualties." He says he wants to force the administration to "bulldoze" the Abu Ghraib prison, even though it was emptied of prisoners and turned over to the Iraqi government last year. He wants to "get our troops out of the Green Zone" because "they are living in Saddam Hussein's palace"; could he be unaware that the zone's primary occupants are the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy?

It would be nice to believe that Mr. Murtha does not represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party or the thinking of its leadership. Yet when asked about Mr. Murtha's remarks Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered her support. Does Ms. Pelosi really believe that the debate she orchestrated this week was not "the real vote"? If the answer is yes, she is maneuvering her party in a way that can only do it harm.

"Slow bleed" is what enemies would do to our country, but that is what the Dems have become.

It’s unfortunate that the Washington Post is more concerned for the harm to the Dems than the harm to America, but the infamous bastards will deserve what they get. Let's hope they get what they deserve.

There are still those who attribute all this to heartfelt differences of opinion and interpretations of patriotism. Today Senator Lieberman called for "reasoning together," and fears a constitutional crisis. Fat Chance, Joe.

Personally I cannot support a benign view any longer. These maneuvers look like cynical actions which provide aid and comfort to our enemies in time of war. It looks like treason.

There is another possibility. And I'm not intending to be facetious here....but it's possible that our Overlords, as a class, are simply unbelievably stupid. I've previously referred to the doltish comments of Boy-John Edwards. Could it be...could it be that MOST of them are just too dumb to do anything else?

UPDATE: Readers of this blog are familiar with Ralph Peters. I just came upon his opinion of all this.

February 17, 2007 -- PROVIDING aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime is treason. It's not "just politics." It's

And signaling our enemies that Congress wants them to win isn't "supporting our troops."

The "nonbinding resolution" telling the world that we intend to surrender to terrorism and abandon Iraq may be the most disgraceful congressional action since the Democratic Party united to defend slavery.

The vote was a huge morale booster for al Qaeda, for Iraq's Sunni insurgents, and for the worst of the Shia militias.

The message Congress just sent to them all was, "Hold on, we'll stop the surge, we're going to leave - and you can slaughter the innocent with our blessing."

We've reached a low point in the history of our government when a substantial number of legislators would welcome an American defeat in Iraq for domestic political advantage.

This troop surge might not work. We can't know yet. But we can be damned sure that the shameful action taken on the Hill while our troops are fighting isn't going to help.

And a word about those troops: It's going to come as a shock to the massive egos in Congress, but this resolution won't hurt morale - for the simple reason that our men and women in uniform have such low expectations of our politicians that they'll shrug this off as business as usual.

This resolution has teeth, though: It's going to bite our combat commanders. By undermining their credibility and shaking the trust of their Iraqi counterparts, it makes it far tougher to build the alliances that might give Iraq a chance.

If you were an Iraqi, would you be willing to trust Americans and risk your life after the United States Congress voted to abandon you?

We've come to the point where there's simply nothing more to be said. I'm beyond discussing this again.