When You Have Friends Like Chuck Hagel You Don't Need Enemies

Sitting this morning with my coffee, I heard Chuck Hagel, (R) Nebraska, on the television. I made a double take because he sounded more like John McCain than John McCain. It is clear the Senator from Nebraska is eyeing a 2008 run at the presidency. What he doesn't already understand is that there is no chance a politician from a state the size of Nebraska will ever become president. He does not have the political base. Three of the four surrounding states are primarily Democratic in their voting (except 2000 and 2004) and he has no message that will cut through the clutter of the Giuliani, McCain, Clinton circus.

That rant over, Hagel said today that Iraq is like Vietnam. What? Have you been reading the San Francisco Chronicle or the LA Times too much? If you have followed this blog you will already have seen the casualty rate statistics and the reality of the war as it stands today. Hagel is trying to paint a 1973 picture of the world. This is not Vietnam and Bush is not Nixon.

In reality, if Iraq is allowed to have its constitution and to begin a free and democratic society - AND that society is protected so it can grow, democracy will replace theocracy in that part of the world. The insurgents are not Iraqis. They are representatives from Iran and Syria. We need to close the borders, nurture the rule of law in Iraq, and begin some positive reporting from that part of the world. I am sure many of you don't know that nearly twice the number of schools have been re-built in Iraq than there are US dead. More women voted in the last Iraqi election than at any other time in that country's history.

As an aside, Hagel and Russ Feingold, (D) Wisconsin, are peas in the pod. Feingold says the US should pull out entirely by Christmas next year. He says it would "take the wind out of the sails of the insurgency." What? Remove any independent protection the Iraqis have for political expediency in the US. Hmmmm sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Unlike 1973, the bulk of the US population is no longer between 15 and 30 years of age. Many of us now have the gift of perspective and the loss of the fog of illicit substances. This is not Vietnam, nor is it WWII or Korea. It is Iraq and the Iraqi people are winning their freedom. We should be proud of our contribution as a nation and not cowards who are afraid of what others who do not and would not support us in the world think.