Democrats in control of Congress cut South Vietnamese aid from $1.4B to $700M - less than necessary to sustain a defense. In the FY 75 defense approriation bill, the Senate added the Case-Church amendment, prohibiting the US armed forces from interviening in North or South Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia.

850,000 of our South Vietnamese allies were “re-educated” to death. 150,000 boat people died trying to escape. In Cambodia, Pol Pot murdered 2,000,000 of his countrymen - a third of their population. These are the numbers, the scope, but not the story.

The story is Larry. He was a 23 year old 1Lt pilot. I was Capt and his weapons systems officer (WSO). That night I was working in the frag shop - breaking out the next day’s mission orders until 1 AM. Larry was a scheduler, waiting for the missions, takeoff times, targets, ordnance. He asked me if I could fly in the morning; he was short of backseaters. I declined. Like him, I had been on duty since 5 AM the previous day and I was dead tired. When I woke up at 10 AM, I learned that Larry had put himself on the schedule and took an SA-2 hit over North Vietnam. He left a widow and a young son.

The story is Bob, a 28 year old WSO with a heart of gold. Driving through DaNang City in a pouring rainstorm, I almost ran over a puppy. Bob had me stop and dried to little guy off. None of the locals claimed ownership, so he took the dog in. One night we had a drunken party in the squadron bar. I staggered off to my BOQ, fell down, got up, I went the wrong way, opening Bob’s door and stumbled onto his bed. Who the hell was in my bed, I thought as I threw the sleeping WSO onto the floor. Later, I woke up and realized I was in someone else’s room. When I got to my room, Bob was sleeping in my rack. I threw him out again. Bob was shot down over Laos, captured by the North Vietnamese, casterated and executed with a pistol shot in the forehead.

To me, the story is about Larry, Bob and the other twelve members of my squadron and other friends whose names are on the Vietnam Memorial. As I touched their names at Gathering of Eagles, I hoped that I would not be joined by another generation of young service members whose war dead were just another prop in an election campaign.

As Dr. Sowell suggested, if our politicians going to cut and run to win an election or meet a campaign promise, let’s do it now, before another Larry or Bob dies.

Yes, you can find plenty of this stuff in the world. I haven’t seen much evidence of people losing the capacity for rational though myself, but there we are. Maybe my point would be best illustrated by a conversation I had with a man while working behind the bar;

Man : “The French aren’t worth much. Bloody Germans are a bunch of flatulent gits. Americans? Don’t get me started on Americans. etc, etc for about 5 minutes. And you know why British people are better than that lot?”

Me : “No, please tell me”

Man : ” ‘Cause they’re all so bloody arrogant”

Do you see the relevance?

What is so important about Aug 31, 2008 ?

I know it’s just before the election, but why not Nov. 31, 2008 ? Think about for a second .. if there is a withdrawal of troops by Aug, just what kind of mess will there be in Iraq on election day, some 2 months later ?
A big mess. A huge mess.

I got this feeling that somebody was so intent on the impact a withdrawal would have on the election, they forgot to factor in the “blowback” that would also affect the election.

A smarter move would be to make sure the withdrawal is ongoing and nearly complete by the election, thus the image of troops returning could be exploited politically. Instead, under the Aug scenario, the scenes we will see just days before the election will be general strife and most likely a full civil war in Baghdad and parts south. A virtual repeat of the Viet Nam experience when Congressional Democrats cut off funding and were blamed for the bad ending.

H/t Powerline:

“On March 5 the Heritage Foundation turned its podium over to comedian/commentator Evan Sayet for his talk “How Modern Liberals Think.” I’d never heard of him before, but I’m glad I have now. The video of his talk is 48 minutes long. The talk is brilliant and worth every minute of your time…”

Excerpt [rough transcript]:

“The Cult of Indiscriminateness: The only way to eliminate bigotry is to eliminate rational thought…

“In order to eliminate discrimination, the modern Liberal has opted to become utterly indiscriminate. The problem is, of course, that the ability to discriminate, to thoughtfully choose the better of the available options as in, ’she’s a discriminating shopper’, is the essence of rational thought.

So, quite literally we are dealing with the whole of Western Europe and today’s Democratic party — dominated as it is by this philosophy — that rejects rational thought as a ‘hate crime’. So, what you’re left with after ten, twelve, fourteen, twenty years in the leftist indoctrination centers that our schools have become, are citizens of voting age who, on the one hand are utterly unwilling and incapable of critically judging the merits of the positions they hold and have held unquestioned since they’re five years old, since they first entered the leftist indoctrination process…

“[In lyrics from Supertramp's] ‘Goodbye Stranger’… ‘Now I believe that what you say is the undisputed truth, but I have to see things my own way, just to keep me in my youth.’ And that is so much the mindset of the modern Liberals. It’s not that they’re not aware of all the things that we’re aware of. It’s that they need to reject them in order to remain in this five-year-old utopia that they’ve been told is the only hope for mankind. So, what you’re left with is, not only adults/citizens of voting age, who cannot judge their own positions, but who are virulently antagonistic to any position other than their own. Why? Because when you’ve been brought up to believe that indiscriminateness is a moral imperative, any position other than [your] own, must have employed discrimination. This is why [in the modern Liberal mindset e.g.,] ‘Bush is Hitler!’” -– Evan Sayet, 3/5/07

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/017172.php

One hallmark of today’s left-wing Democratic culture is an intolerance for those who disagree with their position. ”

You honestly cannot see the irony in this statement?

Talk about bipartisanship.

They did. And if the President decides (he’s the Decider, right?) to not sign it and thereby defund the troops, it’s on him.

Well, I think we have an answer to this. What are the odds that some enterprising reporter on the campaign trail will ask Hillary for her own take on it? I know, I keed! I keeed! (Speaking of which, if…