If "The smell of napalm in the morning is the smell of victory" (paraphrased from Apocalypse Now), what is the smell of capitulation in the morning? This is a short diary with poll. I'm going to re-ask some tough questions that may ruffle some feathers, unless of course, you hate the smell of defeat like I do.
Please follow my rant under the fold. Don't worry, I've kept the "incendiary bombs" to a minimum, just enough to make my point.
From reading the diaries posted here daily for the past two weeks since Speaker Pelosi's and Majority Leader Reid's capitulation to Mister Bush over the "timelines for withdrawal", I know that people are asking just about the same questions I'm going to vent now:
>>>Why did our "generals", Pelosi and Reid surrender to Bush, handing him their "swords" after the first skirmish over the timelines for withdrawal? As much as they tried to mask it the next day, the sheer magnitude of their utter collapse and defeat was plainly evident on their stunned faces! It was written all over their faces, all the "we'll get them next time" speeches to the contrary. They knew they betrayed us into the hands of this war criminal cabal, and his war profiteering gang of military-industrialists!
>>>It was a "war of wills"; a war of his will against the express will of the people; a will that was most strongly shouted last November at the ballot box! What, if anything, did Mister Bush say to Pelosi and Reid behind closed doors to make them bow to him and capitulate to his will so soon after, and really before, the battle was really enjoined? How many "pieces of silver" did it take? 30? 20? 10?
>>>What could he possibly have threatened them with? Leaving our troops in harm's way-regardless of the outcome, if they didn't bow to his extortion of sorts, and pay the $120 billion in "ransom", an extortion paid that amounts to keeping them in Iraq whether or not the money was given? Or was it more despicable and insidious than that? Did he threaten them with the "martial law" card and with it the dissolution of Congress; or to put it in his language, "My way or the highway"?
>>>OR, Was it all really just a game of deception by our leaders, a ruse, a subterfuge from the very beginning, this faux battle or a feigned maneuver, being all "eyewash" to placate the masses, that they all had hatched together in concert from its inception? In other words, did they plan to give Bush the money and his pound of flesh from the very beginning, even though they knew the people vehemently opposed Bush's war? And even though, they knew that the livid anti-war wing of America-not just the base of our party, would exact from them a heavy toll in the '08 election? Why?
>>>Why didn't they just keep re-submitting the original bill back to committee, re-writing or "refreshing" it, so it wouldn't have to face the "3/5ths rule" gauntlet? Once re-written and "refreshed" it would have only needed a simple majority. They tried to make us believe, "We don't have the votes to over-ride a veto", when a basic and simple parliamentary maneuver by our leaders would have sufficed to trump Mister Bush's veto power. With victory in sight, why did they surrender before the smoke cleared from the first skirmish?
We may never know the answers to these questions. But the people still have the power of the ballot box! They will examine our leaders' rationale in the light of their own subjective set of facts. In 2008, the voters will pass their own judgement on this treachery of betrayal, on both our leaders' capitulation to Mister Bush, and for the blood spilled by forcing us to co-sign for a war a clear majority didn't want in the first place!