Yesterday the Senate began debating its Iraq resolution. As with last week's house vote, the Repubican Right is spinning the Democrats into knots with accusations of "retreat," "cut and run," "surrender," "emboldening the terrorists" and being "weak on national security."
Why would the Republicans choose to publicly debate the issue most responsible for their and the Bush administration's unpopularity? How can they get away with attacking Democrats on one of the greatest leadership failures in a century --for which they are overwhelmingly to blame?
Easy: they've successfully framed a post-war occupation as a war we have yet to win.
The "debate" on these so-called "resolutions" is over, and the Republican Right has won. Just check out these pathetic play-by-play highlights in the
NY Times:
Before the vote, Republicans tried to deflate Democratic attempts to turn a harsh spotlight on the entire war, with Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona declaring, "The strategy there needs to be to win, not withdraw. Withdrawal follows victory." [...]
Mr. Levin's resolution did nothing to stop the Republicans' ridicule, with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky dismissing it in a Fox News interview as "cut and jog." "The last thing you want to do when you have the terrorists on the run is give them notice that you're going to leave," said Mr. McConnell, the Senate's No. 2 Republican.
President Bush spoke similarly at a Republican fund-raiser here Monday night, asserting: "An early withdrawal would embolden the terrorists. An early withdrawal would embolden Al Qaeda and bin Laden. There will be no early withdrawal so long as we run the Congress and occupy the White House."
And the Dem's? They we're left to insist, pathetically, that no, no, no they're not cutting and running:
"This amendment is not cut and run," said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who joined Mr. Levin in proposing it. "This is not about a date certain. This is about getting the president to do the job correctly, something he has failed to do for the last three years and three months."
It's another classic case of Republicans winning the battle to frame the issue. They won it before the last election and have been pounding their frame it ever since.
Specifically, they pretend that the "war" isn't over yet, even though the Baathist regime collapsed, Saddam and his cohorts are dead or in jail, we disbanded their army, public institutions have been "de-Baathified," and Iraq has had two elections under our strict control of our military.
They insist we haven't yet achieved "victory." We haven't?
We invaded Iraq to get Saddam's alleged WMDs, and achieved total victory over Saddam's military in about three weeks. Everything since then has been the post-war occupation and reconstruction.
They say redploying troops a yrear from now is "surrender." Surrender?
We already won. Saddam surrendered to our soldiers two years ago when they found him hiding in an underground spider hole. There's no such thing as "surrendering" when you are the victor occupying (and supposedly rebuilding) the country you defeated.
They say to redeploy troops in 2007 is to "cut and run." Cut and run?
There's no such thing as "cut and run" from a 4-year occupation --only from an undecided war-- and we won the war over two years ago.
As long as the Republican Right is allowed to frame Iraq as an undecided war instead of what it really is --a two-plus year old occupation-- any proposal to redeploy will be spun as retreat. Every time Dem's and people like us call it "the war in Iraq," not "our occupation of Iraq," and fail to restate Bush's reason for invading --taking away Saddam's alleged WMD's-- we deceive the public and allow the Republicans to dismiss anything but stay-the-course as surrender.
It's no accident Bush claimed that redeploying from the occupation would embolden al Qaeda and bin Laden. He wants people to forget that we invaded Iraq to depose Saddam and get his WMDs --and that war is over.
Ever since a Zell Miller shrieked at the GOP convention that John Kerry committed a grave offense by calling us "occupiers" in Iraq, Dem's have been afraid to call Iraq what it is: a post-war military occupation.
Since Americans despise the very thought of retreating from an undecided war before we've won, they will never rally behind anyone perceived as retreating.
As military veteran & netroots candidate Eric Massa says, every Dem should make the same 4 points about Iraq:
1. The war was a mistake
2. OUT is better than IN
3. SOONER is better than LATER
4. Take the politicians out of it and let the Generals determine the soonest practical redeployment
Most Democrats proposing "withdrawl" --from Webb to Kerry to Murtha to Feingold-- are in fact, advocating redeployment from the Iraq occupation, not an undecided "war." The war against Saddam is over and we won.
Will Dem's have the smarts and courage to say so?