Democrats vs our military

John Podhoretz analyzes new poll released by the Military Times:

That poll of 1,423 active members of the military indicates that the armed forces of the United States are passionate supporters of the Coalition's efforts in Iraq.

Support for the war inside the military stands at 60 percent, 25 percent higher than the latest Gallup measurement of the American people as a whole.

When it comes to President Bush's handling of the war effort, the results are even more lopsided. Only 42 percent of Americans approve, according to ABC News. In the military, Bush garners 63 percent support.

In other words, support for Bush's Iraq policy is an astounding half again as big in the active military as in the American body politic.

And, in the words of the Army Times report on the poll, "Support for the war is even greater among those who have served longest in the combat zone: Two-thirds of combat vets say the war is worth fighting."

It seems that the people who are actually putting their lives on the line believe in what they are doing — and that those who have spent the most time in harm's way are the most passionate of all.

Job satisfaction in the military, the poll found, is a breathtaking 87 percent, and only a quarter of those polled say they want out.

Note, too, that the active military is angrier at Congress than at the Pentagon. ... Quoting from the Military Times again: "60 percent blame Congress for the shortage of body armor in the combat zone."

That result suggests a greater degree of sophistication on these matters than most Americans — and most pundits — possess. Military personnel know that equipment problems in Iraq are the result of Congress' decisions throughout the '90s to slash the military budget, which had a parlous impact on "combat readiness."

"But what is not heartening is this sobering fact: We can locate the decline in support for the war effort almost entirely inside the Democratic Party.

By a margin of 80-19, Democrats now say they oppose the decision to go to war. The margin among Republicans is exactly the reverse: 80 percent of GOPers support the war, while 19 percent disapprove.

This is not only a partisan divide. It's a cultural divide. As the year 2004 ends, the rank and file of the Democratic Party has turned decisively and profoundly against the military effort in Iraq.

I would add that the Democrats have turned against our military long ago. The Democrats primary interest in our military is as a target of spending cuts, social engineering (inserting Gays into the military and females into combat) and prestige military actions—provided they don’t directly benefit any identifiable U.S. interest (e.g., Bosnia, Kosovo and UN “peacekeeping”).

And there is reason to believe it won't be long before they turn on the military as well. Throughout the year, Democratic politicians have been trying to split the difference with the military saying they support the troops while opposing the war. But that kind of sophistry won't stand.

But was there any dolt who actually bought both halves of that straddle? Michael Moore sat at a place of honor at the Democratic National convention. Who put him there? Karl Rove?

Everyone knew that John Kerry double-crossed his comrades, who were still in Vietnam—on his return from Vietnam. Everyone knew that John Kerry contributed to our loss of the Vietnam War by siding with our wartime enemies and actively undermining that war’s political support. Everyone knew that John Kerry had attempted to prevent Reagan from removing the communist regime in Nicaragua. Everyone also knew that John Kerry took the Soviets side when Reagan sought to balance the Soviet deployment of SS20s to Eastern Europe with Perishing and Cruise Missiles.

If anyone wanted to deliberately sabotage our war effort in Iraq then all the evidence about John Kerry indicated that electing him president would be the right way to go about doing it.

Knowing John Kerry’s history, knowing that a Kerry Presidency would increase the risks of failure in Iraq to a virtual certainty, the Democrats nominated him anyway. Cognizant of his history and the likely consequences of a Kerry Presidency, the Democrats nominated John Kerry—a well-known turncoat who sided with our wartime enemies—to be a wartime president.
So exactly who didn't understand perfectly well what the Democrats really believed?

The military wants to fight this war. Democrats don't. How long before Democrats decide that our men and women in uniform are just extensions of the president and party they detest a bunch of warmongering, bloodthirsty and stupid imperialists?"

Yup, Podhoretz emphases the obvious again. After all, the first step to losing a war is to make damn sure our military isn’t allowed to win it. (One of the lessons learned by the leftists when they sabotaged the Vietnam War.) The conflict between the Democrat’s agenda and our military’s couldn’t be more irreconcilable.

This data also reveals the covert and unacknowledged defacto alliance between the Leftists and the al Qaeda death squads stalking our military in Iraq. The division of labor is obvious: the al Qaeda death squads generate a small trickle of causalities and the leftists and Democrats deliberately endeavor to undermine the war’s political support by ranting and exaggerating the significance of our loses.

The Democrats’ political problem—which they are still trying to solve—is how to force the U.S. to lose the Iraq War while avoiding political blame for engineering our loss.

Our military is the Democrat’s “third rail”. They don’t dare attack our military; or at least they know they cannot be seen to be attacking our military. So far the Democrat’s strategy has been to out-source physical assaults on our military to their al Qaeda death squad allies while patiently waiting for the trickle of American causalities to undermine the U.S.’ political will.

Democratic Party bottom-feeders — like the odd and unpleasant people who inhabit the comments sections on Web sites like dailykos.com and democraticunderground.com — have already long since started spewing their bile at our soldiers, sailors and Marines.

Soon, however, the bottom feeders may rise to the surface, just as they did during the Vietnam War. These will be underground opinions no longer.

I can hardly wait for the Democrats to forget that they must conceal their agenda.

postscript:

The bold emphasis in Podhoretz’s article is mine.

Hat tip to lucianne

Update:

QandO sees this the same way.

Now you say, "oh that won't happen. We, as a nation, learned our lesson
with Vietnam."

OK, if you say so. But I still find it to be an intellectual challenge to hold the contradictory position of loving the warrior and hating the war. In my opinion, it would be tantamount to saying that you supported the Japanese soldier (as he and his comrades raped and leveled Nanking) but hated the war his government started.

How does one justify in their mind hating the killing and destruction of what they consider to be an unjust or unnecessary war yet claim to support unconditionally the instruments of that killing and destruction?

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Here a prime example of a Democratic surrender monkey attempting to make lemonade from the high levels of support within our military for the our war in Iraq:

Of course, totally ignoring the fact that they almost surely have to publicly support the [Global War on Terror] it is amazing how many do not.

Yeah, and most of the soldiers who don’t support the war in Iraq are probably Democrats who figured the military should just be a reliable way to get a federal paycheck. Since these Democrats think our military is a jobs program they probably also think that they shouldn’t be subjected to any physical risk just because they took the money.