Timid Trio on Iraq

"It has tormented me, torn me more than any one thing...To see what these guys in Iraq are having to go through and knowing what I know here: that we didn't prepare for it, we didn't understand what we were getting into. And to put those guys in those positions, it makes me so angry."

Sen. Hagel on Bush's failure of U.S. soldiers

As Chuck Hagel came under fire from Vice-President Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, and the like for his wake up call to the Bush Administration, warning last week that "we're losing in Iraq," his fellow Nebraska Republicans in Congress went out of their way to distance themselves from Hagel's bleak, reality-based assessment and fall in line with the Pollyannish proclamations of the President. Friday's Omaha World-Herald reported:

Hagel's pessimism wasn't shared by Nebraska's three Republican House members, Reps. Jeff Fortenberry, Lee Terry and Tom Osborne, though each congressman said the war remains very tough....

Osborne, who visited Iraq for a third time this spring, said that despite insurgent attacks, he sensed that morale remained solid among U.S. soldiers. They have a strong sense that they are working toward accomplishing their mission, he said.

"I hope I'm not deluded," he added.

Terry said he "would completely disagree" that America is losing in Iraq. "I think we're winning the war against the terrorists and insurgents."

In recent months, noted Fortenberry, the Iraqi people have held a successful election and set up an interim government.

"I do think we're making progress," he said. "But it still is a very dangerous, risky situation."

If an award for stoogery had to be given here, it would undoubtedly go to Omaha's Lee Terry for his description of the Iraq situation in terms so out of touch with reality that it may as well be Never-Never-land.

But seriously, all three of Nebraska's Congressmen should be ashamed for their pathetic political re-enactment of "Three Blind Mice" that completely disregards the rising number of American casualties this summer, not to mention the literal dozens of Iraqi civilians who are dying each day in the wave of terror for which WE ARE LARGELY BLAMED in the streets of Baghdad.

Not our bombs, not our bombers, but this is a situation we created for which we were not and likely could not be prepared. And now the Iraqi people must suffer the consequences. For this we thought they'd be grateful?

It's unsurprising that Chuck Hagel is the only one of these Republicans with military or combat experience. His loyalty to his fellow soldiers and actually having learned a lesson or two from Vietnam have obviously broken through the partisan conditioning that so cripples Terry, Osborne, Fortenberry, and damn near every other Republican in Congress.

"See how they run, see how they run" - each one scurrying to have the biggest, tightest blindfold covering their eyes keeping them from the truth that, as Hagel told the OWH:

Insurgent attacks are more frequent than a year ago. Bombs used by insurgents are growing more deadly, piercing America's best protective clothing and equipment. Oil production is down. Electricity is less available than a year ago. Economic development is lagging. Ninety percent of the humanitarian and economic aid pledged by 60 nations hasn't reached Iraq because of the continuing violence. Only one Middle Eastern country has an ambassador in Iraq.

Meanwhile, we've got Sec. of Defense Don Rumsfeld making an extreme about face and admitting the Iraqi insurgency, which minus our presence qualifies as a civil war, may last 12 years or more. Still, the Timid Trio remains quiet and unquestioning.

"Did you ever see such a thing in your life as three blind mice?"