Dear Liz Cheney,
It is certainly no surprise that the Washington Post’s editorial board published your letter to Hillary Clinton accusing her of cowardice and America-hating. After all, the WaPo editorial page is home to such even-headed voices of political reason as George Will and Deborah Howell.
~flip it~
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems are living in a tiny little bubble just like the President. Accusing Democrats of being cowards and aiding Al Qaeda is so pre-November 7th, 2006. Remember what happened on that day? That’s the day your father’s foreign policy gave the Democrats the ammunition they needed to donkey-punch the Republican party out of the Congressional majority. Those that believe Democrats are on the side of the terrorists, like yourself, are the ones who still believe that Saddam and Bin Laden were MySpace buddies and Saddam Hussein had a cadre of VX gas ready to go off if they jiggle the handle on their toilets.
Forgive my barely-restrained snark as I de-pants the individual points of your argument.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman is the only national Democrat showing any courage on this issue.
Gack! Liz, courage is not what Lieberman is demonstrating. Courage is what Governor Bill Richardson demonstrated when he brokered a cease fire between warring factions in Sudan, thus making great strides against the spread of genocide. Courage is what Russ Feingold demonstrated when he stood his ground against your Father’s pseudo-fascist boss and proposed to censure him when he claimed the power to infringe every American’s 4th Amendment rights and FISA-ordained law. Lieberman is pandering to the Corporatocratic right-wing neocon base, the "haves and the have mores," which is the exact kind of pandering you criticize Senator Clinton of in the second paragraph of your letter.
We are at war. America faces an existential threat. This is not, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed, a "situation to be solved." It would be nice if we could wake up tomorrow and say, as Sen. Barack Obama suggested at a Jan. 11 hearing, "Enough is enough." Wishing doesn't make it so.
I hate to break it to you, but your dad and his team have already lost the war. He did so when he lied about the justification for invasion, dismantled the standing Iraqi army, when he started a war with no exit strategy, failed to secure tons of explosives, when, through incompetence and pernicious military contracting, he refused to properly equip the troops, when his puppet government couldn’t rally support of the people, and when he generally denies reality.
And, you are accurate if when you call it an "existential threat" you mean "a threat inflated to the level of fantasy in order to justify the increased profit margin of the company influencing my inheritance."
We will have to fight these terrorists to the death somewhere, sometime.
Like Tora Bora? Maybe we could fight terrorists by not continuing a needless war that increases the terrorist threat? Perhaps you could publish a resume of your military service and that of your father’s administration to demonstrate some credibility on your opinion of when and where to best fight terrorism. Until then, I’ll rely on Jack Murtha’s experience, but I’ll be eagerly scanning the WaPo editorials for your resume.
Quitting helps the terrorists. Few politicians want to be known as spokesmen for retreat. Instead we hear such words as "redeployment," "drawdown" or "troop cap." Let's be clear: If we restrict the ability of our troops to fight and win this war, we help the terrorists.
Lets assume for a second that you are not conducting a half-witted conflation of your political enemies and those that attacked us on 9/11, what you are saying is that two-thirds of Americans, the Joint Chiefs, and a bipartisain coalition of Senators want to give Bin Laden a foot rub.
Beware the polls.
If Senator Clinton is taking political advice about poll consequences from the people that have the lowest approval rating since Voldemort, she doesn’t deserve to be President.
In November the American people expressed serious concerns about Iraq (and about Republican corruption and scandals). They did not say that they want us to lose this war.
I’m assuming "lose this war" is "redeploy troops" as seen through feces-colored lenses. If you can’t see the contradiction in these two statements, I recommend you to rent re-runs of Sesame Street and play some "one of these things is not like the other" for at least a week. Then look at them again.
Retreat from Iraq hurts us in the broader war. We are fighting the war on terrorism with allies across the globe...They can't win without us, and many of them won't continue to fight if they believe we're abandoning them.
Our presence in Iraq is a rallying-cry for terrorism. Indeed, if you want Iraqis to think that the U.S. presence in Iraq will make them safer, perhaps you should be writing your letter to them.
Politicians urging America to quit in Iraq should explain how we win the war on terrorism once we've scared all of our allies away.
Politicians urging America to quit Iraq passed the recommendations of the 9/11 commission in less than a week of their control of Congress. Your father, Dick Cheney, had six years as president of the Senate and all he did to prevent another attack on U.S. soil is to demonstrate his firearm prowess by shooting his buddy in the face with birdshot.
Our soldiers will win if we let them. ...American troops will win if we show even one-tenth the courage here at home that they show every day on the battlefield.
Here’s a suggestion. Hold out your left hand, take a dump in it, bring it to your friends and look at their faces when you call it a cupcake. Wishing won’t make it so. Here’s another suggestion, go to your father and ask him to muster up "one-tenth" the courage of our soldiers and admit that this war amounts to a humanitarian atrocity that will forever taint the dignity of the United States.
To be clear, I’m not entirely in the Hillary camp, I believe she doesn’t reflect the new progressive trajectory of the Democratic Party and she’s a member of the DLC-wing of the party that has been losing elections for too many years. She panders instead of flexing her Democratic values, and it's obvious. Nonetheless, I will not sit on my hands while you or anyone still bathing in the wrong-headed fountain of ignorance on Iraq attacks her. After all, substance-less attacks only make you look afraid.
I agree with this statement:
America deserves better.
America deserves a president and a vice-president whose foreign and domestic policy makes us safer, engenders pride and honor in our flag and country, and respects the constitutional underpinnings of what our country stands for: individual liberty. America deserves a President like...say...Hillary Clinton, or Obama, or Richardson, or Edwards, or any Democrat not beholden to the corporate pestilence preventing the passage of reality-based policy. Until that happens, the terrorists of 9/11 have won.
I will agree with one more point you make: your title. Retreat isn’t an option for Hillary Clinton. She must fight with all her resources to oust your father and all the bought-and-paid-for neocon madmen from the Executive to prevent the further destruction of this country’s military, economy, civil rights and international goodwill.
Thanks for taking the time to write. I will now go buy a parakeet and a birdcage to give the page your editorial is printed on its appropriate value.