Yes Mark, I would say that you have to add Al-Qaeda to the mix. Al-Qaeda has now become one of the Democrat's constituencies. It is just unfortunate that education in this country is such, and that political blinders are turned on with most voters that they are not going to see that the Democrats have now sided with our enemy. They've made their choice of who to give victory to, and it is not the US... it is the terrorists.

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"We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities." ~ Thomas Paine

I don't know about anybody else, but I didn't detect any real anti-insurgency tone in Mr. Burns' voice.  It's almost as if they have hope for the insurgency!  Like, hang in there guys, the tide is turning in your favor over here..  just be patient, we're going to cut and run eventually..  then the whole damn place is yours to do with as you wish..  

Any positive reporting on the surge is looked on as being..  well, it's not considered at all!  The MSM could just as easily sway public opinion in favor of a victory in Iraq and in general in the WOT, but they very conciously choose to do the exact opposite.  To me this is high treason.  God help me, I don't think I could loathe these people (MSM) more.   

Following up on my previously stated opinion what the Dems are up to, the libs are divided between two groups, the raving ultra left loons and the power hungry salesmen.  Sorry Joe Lieberman, while you are a liberal Democrat which one can have an honest difference of opinion, your kind has become so insignificant in the party that you have become the fringe group. 

The power hungry libs like Pelosi, Reid and Dean sold the ultra left loons to get their vote. When Howard Dean tried to renege on the campaign promise (which he had no intention of keeping) to pull out of Iraq, he found himself facing a tough situation.  He like Pelosi and Reid know full well the results of such a pull out, a massacure.   Now when the chits are being called by the likes of Sheehan and Moore they have to play the game of chicken with George W Bush.  On one side of their mouths they utter their their contempt of Bush, but on the other side they are praying fervently that Bush will stand his ground.  Why? So he can take the blame thus they don't have to from the loons for not trying or lying to them and at the same time they get to take pot shots at the POTUS and Repubs.  It's all a very Machiavellian game, a selfish power hungry game to discredit the POTUS and at the same time get kudos for themselves. My opinion of the Dems could not get any lower.

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” – Marcus Aurelius

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is all about how the observer changes the event being observed. The terrorists count on the media and Democrats to react to staged violence. Terrorists stage these bombings for the media's sake, and the MSM responds on cue. Then the Democrats run to the microphone, on cue, to pretend that the horror is too much to bear any longer. The terrorist strategy is to start a media itch and let the Democrats scratch.

What's infuriating is that the Democrats know what they're doing. But they don't care, because they want to win the political game at home, even at the expense of the war. Reporters were beginning to report progress in the surge. So what happened? The terrorists staged a wave of bombings. Harry Reid, on cue, sprinted to a microphone to declare that the war was lost. The full complement of soldiers to carry out the surge hasn't even deployed yet, but Reid couldn't help himself.

The disgraceful part is that these Democrats know that the only way to defeat terrorists is patience and endurance. Instead, they exploit this treason theater. Why? For a couple bucks added to the minimum wage? To pass more taxes? To preserve partial-birth abortion? It is a disgrace.

What the charge and penalty for such activity?  Didn't we use to hang people for this?  Let's start with Reid and Pelosi!  We can see the Enemy and he is us!

Back in Nov 2002, I spoke with a representative from the UN Iraq Survey Group, who was responsible for making sure Iraq didn't arm themselves again with things that were banned. He said they were sure they had cleaned it up ten years ago. Positive? Yes, checked eight levels down, nothing left. Bad, I thought, this will be found out and the case for taking Saddam out will lose credibility.

The war started, Bremmer took over, made a lot of decisions I thought were short-sighted - dismissal of the Iraqi Army, clean out the Baathists without finding out who they were, centralizing a banking system that was previously under Provincial control, making it harder for local leaders to get money to rebuild. That, and pandering to questionable Iraqi ex-patriots who were out for themselves, instead of engaging the people who the US should have deffered to all along, namely tribal leaders.

I complained to my wife about the mistakes. So much so, she told me to shut up and do something about it, or just shut up about it period.

So I did. I was in Iraq for two years, until a couple of months ago, working for our government to help Iraq rebuild their industry. Saw a lot of people get killed, I made it back okay, it is a hard thing to live with.

We cannot abandon the Iraqi people, the good ones, the ones who believe our promise to help them be a free democratic society. Right now they cannot protect themselves from a whole lot of losers and haters who would like to end it all for them.

The President, to his esteemed credit, has never backed away from the responsibility to follow it though to the peaceful end, never once holding his critics in contempt, never questioning people's right to question him. He is a good man, and many people do not recognize his strength in his humility and forthrightness.

So to war critics out there, if you don't like it, go there and help them out, your criticicsm will carry a lot more weight.

Think about what would happen if you delivered your message, "Impeach Bush! Hang Cheney! This war sucks!!"

in Firdos Square, Baghdad, 1985: "Impeach Saddam! Hang al-Ramadan! This war with Iran sucks!!"

You wouldn't live to see the sun set that day, and nobody in your neighborhood with your last name would see the following week.

And send an especial thanks to the families of the nine US men killed yesteday for your privielege to mouth off