California Conservative

Rush Limbaugh nicknamed John Edwards the “Breck Girl” during the Democratic primaries because of his hair. The Breck Girl jumped into the “Bush lied, people died” fight with a Washington Post op-ed titled “The Right Way in Iraq”. (Like he’d know the right way.)

Here are some of the most farcical comments he made:

I was wrong.

Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told, and what many of us believed and argued, was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.

Sen. Edwards, what proof do you have that intelligence was “manipulated to fit a political agenda”? You just said that you were wrong. Am I now supposed to buy into your story without a scintilla of evidence? The truth is that you’re lying now because it’s the Democrats’ theme of lying about the President’s alleged lying. You can’t offer proof because the proof of manipulation doesn’t exist. If it did, it would’ve been leaked or exposed.

The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president, and that I was being given by our intelligence community, wasn’t the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.

Sen. Edwards, is it now your contention that it wasn’t just the President who fed you “inaccurate” information but that it was also being fed to you by “our intelligence community”? Shouldn’t that be a hint that the information wasn’t manipulated but rather that the “intelligence community” simply got this wrong? Or is it now your contention that the “intelligence community” conspired with President Bush to go to war?

George Bush won’t accept responsibility for his mistakes. Along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, he has made horrible mistakes at almost every step: failed diplomacy; not going in with enough troops; not giving our forces the equipment they need; not having a plan for peace. Because of these failures, Iraq is a mess and has become a far greater threat than it ever was. It is now a haven for terrorists, and our presence there is draining the goodwill our country once enjoyed, diminishing our global standing. It has made fighting the global war against terrorist organizations more difficult, not less.

George Bush has accepted responsibility for his mistakes by telling the American people that the intel was bad that led to war. He’s also said that, despite that bad intel, regime change was the right thing to do. Remember, Sen. Edwards, that regime change in Iraq was the official policy since 1998, long before President Bush took office.

As for “not having a plan for peace”, I’d suggest you take a visit there and see for yourself all the progress being made there now. Just this morning, I saw an AP headline titled Saudis Pledge $1 Billion to Rebuild Iraq. That sounds an awful lot like a giant step in rebuilding Iraq in the aftermath of the tyrant of Baghdad. It’s also worthwhile for you to recognize that Iraqis, with the aid of our heroic military, have held 2 elections and written and ratified a Constitution.

It’s also noteworthy that a strong military is steadily being built in Iraq. Like anything worthwhile, this won’t happen overnight. Still, Gen. Petraeus is making progress in this endeavor. The Iraqis deserve huge credit, too, because they keep volunteering even in the face of the terrorists killing them.

As for your comment that “Iraq is a mess and has become a far greater threat than it ever was”, get serious. Iraqis will vote in even bigger percentages than voted in our last presidential election. That isn’t a mess, that’s major progress.

As for Iraq being “a far greater threat than it ever was”, I’ll simply ask “By what measure”? Are the Iraqis now in place a greater threat to regional stability than Saddam was? Will this Iraqi government sponsor terrorists who bomb Israel? Will this Iraqi government work to create weapons of mass distruction?

Isn’t it really the case that Zarqawi’s murderous ways have turned huge segments of the Iraqi and Jordanian populations against al Qaida, thereby essentially throwing cold water on the legendary Arab Street’s anger against America’s ‘occupation’ of Iraq?

The urgent question isn’t how we got here but what we do now. We have to give our troops a way to end their mission honorably. That means leaving behind a success, not a failure. What is success? I don’t think it is Iraq as a Jeffersonian democracy. I think it is an Iraq that is relatively stable, largely self-sufficient, comparatively open and free, and in control of its own destiny.

What the Senator hasn’t noticed is that American soldiers are building Iraq into a successful democracy that is “stable, largely self-sufficient, comparatively open and free, and in control of its own destiny.” In fact, give it another 2-3 years and Iraq will be essentially self-sufficient. As for “Iraq as a Jeffersonian democracy”, a peaceful, stable democracy of any sort is a huge success over what Democrats would’ve helped put into place.

First, we need to remove the image of an imperialist America from the landscape of Iraq.

Sen. Edwards, it’s time you and other Democrats retired that line. America is helping Iraq rebuild. It’s helping build schools and other important infrastructure. By comparison, Zarqawi and the insurgents and terrorists are killing people, destroying oil pipelines, and doing their best to undermine the will of the people. It’s the terrorists that are viewed as the bad guys, not us.

That isn’t to suggest that Iraqis want us there forever, especially in the numbers we currently have there. They don’t. It’s just that they’ve seen how the U.S. has helped them gain control of their future by bringing down the tyrant’s regime.

They’re grateful for not having to live in fear of Saddam’s stormtroopers busting into their house, taking a daughter to a rape room or a husband to a mass grave.

Sen. Edwards, you can continue to live in your world of smears and unproven allegations if you’d like but I’ll choose to live in the world where proof, truth and common sense rule the day.

UPDATE: (11/14)
Michelle Malkin reports on The End of The “Bush Lied” Lie

Cross-posted at BoxerWatch

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 13th, 2005 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, DNC, Liberals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.