Republicans lash out

Browsing down the Right side of the Daou report (on Salon.com) is a depressing experience. While most people are concerned about how the U.S. can extricate itself most effectively and safely from Iraq, the Right wing blogger/muggers are focused on playing politics with war. Linking to the blogs would just inflate their hit counters (and egos), so if you want more, you'll have to go through the Daou report.

From GOP Bloggers:

"Democrat-MSM Axis Taking Its Toll on Troops

Liberal surrender talk having an effect on the battlefield.... Congratulations, Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi, your efforts are succeeding; you must be so proud.

From Jawa Report:

"Of course over at dKos [the Daily Kos], when the erroneous news that Zarqawi dead broke, there were immediate signs of dismay. For the hardcore Left, any good news for our troops is bad news for them. They have pinned their political hopes on the defeat of our troops."

In total, the Republicans see any opposition to war as opposition to the troops and are quick to do whatever they can to link problems with the war effort onto Democrats. In the process they are abandoning the troops by holding on to the fallacy that all we need to do is "stay the course" in Iraq and the Iraqis will "stand up so we can stand down". However, it is not that simple where our troop presence is an endogenous variable in the insurgency. We should all be asking ourselves and our leaders how to get our so we're not still in Iraq, losing American soldiers in 5 or 10 years. One conservative blogger, Andrew Sullivan, with whom I do not often agree had this critique of the right's reaction to John Murtha's suggestion that we withdraw our troops from Iraq within 6 months:

"The Bushies are all over John Murtha. It seems to me it would be more helpful if Republicans and conservatives offered positive arguments for how to do better instead of attacking every critic as a wuss, unpatriotic, inconsistent, or worse. Murtha spent 37 years in the Marines. He voted for the war. But, unlike some, he kept his eyes open and he's reflecting genuine, real, patriotic worries about the war among many Americans. If he's worried, we all should be. It doesn't speak very well of the pro-Bush right that their first instinct is to ignore him and their second to dismiss him. But it's no big surprise by now, is it?"