Senator Edward Kennedy is a Drunk Traitor Who Kills People

What do I really think, you must be asking. Don't hold back, you say.

Today I saw the senator who never loses at quarters say "our troops in Iraq are part of the problem." Ignoring the effect on troop morale, Teddy's full of flammable gas (a-gain).

Some Iraqis Want U.S. Troops to Stay.
Yeah, the smart ones who represent a majority of the population.

Until recently, leaders of the majority Iraqi Shiite community insisted that the Americans should leave after elections in 2005. The party platform of the United Iraqi Alliance -- the Shiite bloc expected to win the largest share of Sunday's vote -- called for a timetable for the withdrawal of multinational troops.

Now, Shiite leaders have changed their minds. In a move little noticed by the media, the alliance has dropped the call for a timetable from its platform.

The alliance has not yet publicized the change; it took me days and many trips to party headquarters to get hold of a copy of the revised version of the platform.

But the policy shift reflects a growing fear in the Shiite establishment that if the Americans leave soon, the Sunni Baathists who persecuted them under Saddam might make a comeback. The Shiite community is also under siege by radical Sunni Islamists from inside -- and outside -- Iraq who consider Shiite Muslims to be infidels. These fanatics are trying to foment civil war.

This is so obvious. Why don't idiots like Boxer, Kerry, and Kennedy get it? I fear they do get it and simply don't care. Moreover, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria don't want to see a democracy on their borders. Their governments are doing every covert thing they can to make Iraq fail. Lucky Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, the Leftist wing of the Democratic Party is helping them.

UPDATE: None Dare Call it Treason (WaTi - fairly noninvasive registration). Well, most don't dare anyway.

But wait, there's fire in the old warhorse yet. In a speech in Washington today, Mr. Kennedy became the first senator to call for the early withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Drawing a parallel with the Vietnam war (why is it that liberals are so hot to champion U.S. failure?), he declared that "the U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces."

In other words, let's ignore the sacrifice of those who have died to defeat a brutal dictator and to establish a fledgling democracy in the heart of the Middle East, and get the hell out as quickly as we can. Now that's statesmanship. Three days before courageous Iraqis risk their lives to vote in their first-ever democratic election. Now that's timing. To appease the Saddam holdovers who are brutally killing and maiming their own women and children to return to power. Now that's the American way.

And this is the man regarded by many as the senior statesman of the Democratic Party.

Senior just means outdated, spoiled, or decomposing in this case.

UPDATE: Iraqi president says U.S. troops should stay

BAGHDAD, Iraq-- Iraq's president said Tuesday it would be "complete nonsense" to ask foreign troops to leave the country now, although some could depart by year's end. Officials began the final vote tally from elections to produce a government to confront the insurgency.....

.....During a news conference, President Ghazi al-Yawer was asked whether the presence of foreign troops might be fueling the Sunni Arab revolt by encouraging rebel attacks.

"It's only complete nonsense to ask the troops to leave in this chaos and this vacuum of power," al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab, said.

He said foreign troops should leave only after Iraq's security forces are built up, the country's security situation has improved and some pockets of terrorists are eliminated.

"By the end of this year, we could see the number of foreign troops decreasing," al-Yawer said.

Yes, it would be nonsensical. Let's not repeat what happened after the Gulf War, where the Bush Administration (41) encouraged revolution but didn't support the revolution it encouraged. I cried when I saw our soldiers pointing at the Shiites being massacred within their eyesight, but our soldiers were under orders not to act. Realpolitik created real genocide.

The experiment in Iraqi democracy may not work, but the United States cannot be the reason it fails.