Monday, December 19, 2005

Sen. Reid and his memory hole

A famous guy once said, if you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes the truth. Normally, I would spend 20 minutes on google to find the famous guy and attribute the quote, but I'm pushing the latest time for an LLP'er to be publishing, which is saying something considering we have Perry in our group. Anyway, the topic of my somewhat inarticulate rant tonight was inspired by the President's address to the nation tonight.

First, let me just say that it disgusts me that our President had to go on national TV to basically say, "hey, nation, you know, if we withdraw from Iraq now, before the mission is complete, we'll have basically accomplished nothing." Is our populace really that dumb, that sheeplike, that uninformed that we honestly think that cutting and running is a legitimate strategy? Obviously, based on the reception that Rep. Murtha's remarks got, it would seem that we are. And that's incredibly sad.

So, on to Senator Reid and his memory hole. In this news story on Bush's speech, Sen. Reid is quoted as saying that "The people on the ground said there is one (Iraqi Army) battalion that can fight alone."

Senator, that is a flat out lie. If you took the time to understand military terminology, (yes, I know its hard for you Senators to understand anything that doesn't have to do with getting votes, but bear with me...I know you have the attention span of a 5 year old, so I'll keep it short), but if you took the time to understand the military's reporting, you would know that there is only one IA battalion that is capable of operating completely independent of U.S. forces. Support, logistics, communications, command & control, everything. That is what "tier 1" means. "Tier 2," where most of the IA is, is the next level down, which means that Iraqi forces are in the lead, doing most of the fighting, but that they still depend on U.S. forces for support, for logistics, for some communications, and for coordination in the CP. It's commonly reported fact that in both this election, and in the last election, Iraqi forces provided the security at polling places, with U.S. forces remaining inside the wire to help coordinate and act as a QRF in case any really bad stuff went down.

Now, how were they able to do that if "only one Iraqi battalion" can operate on its own?

Quit lying, Senator. You can try and get the country to accept it as fact, but that simply will not fly anymore. You might have the media on your side, but we have something much bigger. Ask Dan Rather about it.

Oh, and Senator? You seem a little confused as to what "victory" means. Victory is when the Iraqi government is fully up and running, when Iraq is a functioning democracy. That's when victory is achieved, and, as long as we retain the Iraqi government's welcome, we'll stay up until that point.