Obama Promises Iraqi Heads In Exchange for Votes

This bit of Campaign 2007 Treachery from AP (4/21/07):

[Barack] Obama fielded questions about health care, gun control and energy during a midday appearance before some 200 people at a Nashua senior center. The residents politely applauded, and then Jean Serino of Hudson told the candidate her nephew was heading to Iraq to serve.

"I can't breathe," she said, her voice breaking with sobs. "I want to know, when am I going to be able to breathe? Are you going to get us the hell out of there? Promise us you will get us out of there. That's the most important thing."

"I can only imagine how you feel, as a father and as a parent," he said. "I don't go to a single town-hall meeting where I don't meet a mother or father who either is seeing a loved one go over there or has already lost someone, or has a loved one who has come back injured.

"So I make a solemn pledge to you, as president we will be out of Iraq," Obama said to loud applause. (Here's the whole article.)

What a pair of imbeciles. Obama's pandering, simpering vow to end the conflict -- as if our pulling out will end the conflict -- is pathetic. So is his reference to all the people he has spoken to. Hey, Mr. Obama, how about meeting with people who DON'T already agree with you? Not enough warm fuzzies?

This whole little exchange is the kind of emotionalism and pandering that will propel Democrats to promise defeat as an election platform in 2008. Once again, they show that they are not grown up enough to be in charge of national security or foreign affairs.

We should be wary of Obama and those who think the same way. Although Obama is transparent in his defeatism (for defeat is what he advocates, make no mistake), many others try to dress up withdrawl as shrewd foreign policy.

But here's the real problem. Promises of withdrawl and defeat are band-aids, and they attempt to compartmentalize the issue so that we won't think about what's over the horizon. As if withdrawing means there's nothing over that horizon. But withdrawl will have its consequences, so a commitment to withdraw American forces before the war is also a commitment to those consequences.

In other words, Obama's promise promises of a lot more, and a lot worse, than withdrawal alone. So some warnings:

Hey, Iraqi moderates, beware: Obama and Democratic others are promising your severed heads in exchange for votes.

Hey, Iraqi soldiers: they are promising to abandon you. You and your families will be among the first targets.

Hey, American soldiers: they are pandering to voters with promises to make you lose and thus pile shame on you.

Hey, American young people: in exchange for votes, yours and your parents', Democrats like Obama and Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi are promising you a terrible inheritance: a generation without heroes, an ashamed nation, and a destroyed national confidence. And more and more years of "American is the bad guy" thinking.

That's what they did to my generation with Vietnam. They whined the U.S. into losing when victory was within grasp. Why? To make themselves feel better. It was all about feelings, not national interest.

My generation and yours are paying the price of that treachery. It's called terrorism.

Do not accept defeat. Reject it with all your heart. A nation willing to be defeated most certainly will be -- and probably deserves it.