Slow Bleed

Hey, everybody! Remember way back when I was actually a full-time contributor to this blog? Sure seems like a long time ago, huh?

Well, I guess it's true what they say, that sometimes "stuff" happens. My son goes insane and gets himself kicked out of his private school. The American voters go collectively insane and put the Democrats back in charge. My day job takes over my life. I make first contact with a delightful condition that wipes me out for what is now the sixth day in a row. Good times, gooooood times.

However, with another day to fill (hopefully the last one before I can turn my life back over to my day job), and scrolling down to peruse Jennifer's excellent work, I came across her Ollie North post, and that cross-connected with an RNC email I found in my in-box yesterday:

The Democrat strategy on Iraq is finally clear.

We've known all along that they want to cut and run before the job is done. But they've been afraid to confront President Bush directly. [Last Wednes]day, Democrat Representative John Murtha let slip what he and Nancy Pelosi really intend to do, and it is genuinely frightening.

They call it their 'slow-bleed' plan. Instead of supporting the troops in Iraq, or simply bringing them home, the Democrats intend to gradually make it harder and harder for them to do their jobs. They will introduce riders onto bills to prevent certain units from deploying. They will try to limit the President's constitutional power to determine the length and number of deployments. They will attempt to keep the Pentagon from replacing troops who rotate out of Iraq. They may even try to limit how our troops operate by, for example, prohibiting our armed forces from creating and operating bases in Iraq.

'Slow-bleed' is exactly the right name for this incredibly irresponsible and dangerous strategy. Cutting and running is bad enough. But the Murtha-Pelosi 'slow-bleed' plan is far worse. It is a cynical and dangerous erosion of our ability to fight the terrorists while we still have men and women on the ground in Iraq. It will put their lives in far greater danger, as resources slowly dry up. How can our troops operate without bases? How can they fight without backup?

'Slow-bleed' cannot become law. Luckily, we have an opportunity to stop it. The Murtha plan depended on stealth. Now, however, the press has broken the story. And now we can act.

Sounds like the "anti-Surge" to me. Leave it to the Traitorcrats to not be able to even commit fratricide honestly and honorably. Inflict creeping paralysis on the war effort and then cite the resulting debilitation as "proof" that it "can't work" and was "doomed from the start." And blame the inevitable, inexorable defeat - the first of an avalanche of defeats to follow - on President Bush and the GOP.

I'm afraid I can't be as optimistic about stopping the "slow bleed" as Mike Duncan is, though. We lost the ability to stop such schemes last November 7th. The very insidious, furtive nature of this strategy effectively negates the procedural obstacles the true Republican remnant can erect in the Senate. The minority can't stop the Donks from spending less on war appropriations bills, or force them to spend more; obstructing such bills won't get more resources to the troops, nor will presidential vetoes, even assuming Bush was willing to muster any. And we all know there'll be enough RINO defectors to provide all the necessary cover.

Sorry to have to be the voice of darkness again, but I see no reason why the Dems' "slow bleed" strategy won't work to a "t", and accomplish what sure looks to me like its primary purpose: to lay palms in front of the coronational procession of America's next president, Hillary Rodham Whatzizname.

The DisLoyalists picked a lousy time to rediscover discretion. Which is why it may not be too much longer before we're all looking back on these current days as being comparatively good times, indeed.