Today is the day-General David Petraeus addresses Congress on the surge.
Give him a chance: Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman point out that the president has had the courage to change Iraq strategies and ask: Will the Democrats in Congress have courage, too?
“We must also recognize,” McCain and Lieberman note, “that the choice we face in Iraq is not between the current Iraqi government and a perfect Iraqi government. Rather, it is a choice between a young, imperfect, struggling democracy that we have helped midwife into existence, and the fanatical, al Qaeda suicide bombers and Iranian-sponsored terrorists who are trying to destroy it. If Washington politicians succeed in forcing a premature troop withdrawal in Iraq, the result will be a more dangerous world with our enemies emboldened. As Iran’s president recently crowed, ‘soon we will see a huge power vacuum in the region . . . [and] we are prepared to fill the gap.'”
Their minds are made up: As Ralph Peters, military expert, notes, some won’t really listen to General Petraeus:
“None of us knows precisely what Gen. Petraeus will say, but his testimony will be honest and forthright. He’s a model soldier who takes his oath as an officer and his responsibilities as a citizen with the utmost seriousness.
“His reward for leading our troops from one success to another in a conflict that verged on failure only last autumn? Calumny. Accusations that he’s a stooge of the administration.”
Betraying Petraeus: Perhaps the most disgusting preparation for today comes from Moveon.org, which yesterday took an ad in the New York Times with the headline “General Petraeus or General Betray us? Cooking the books for the White House.” It is astonishing to suggest that this respected general, with thirty five years in the military, would cook the books. The Weekly Standard reports:
“MoveOn.org has been working closely with the Democratic congressional leadership –as an article in today’s Sunday New York Times Magazine makes clear. And consider this comment by a Democratic senator from Friday’s Politico: “‘No one wants to call [Petraeus] a liar on national TV,’ noted one Democratic senator, who spoke on the condition on anonymity. ‘The expectation is that the outside groups will do this for us.”