KUCINICH vs ABIZAID, ZINNI, & BATISTE: ROUND ONE

In a Senate hearing earlier today, as reported in the New York Times, General John Abizaid, who runs CENTCOM said Wednesday that to begin a significant troop withdrawal from Iraq over the next six months would lead to an increase in sectarian killings and hamper efforts to persuade the Iraqi government to make the difficult decisions needed to secure the country.

He indicated that he even favored increasing the number of American soldiers in Iraq, so as to provide more trainers for the re-building Iraqi Armed Forces. He was joined in his opinion by the two generals who run the biggest intelligence operations we have:

In their testimony Wednesday, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said they agreed with General Abizaid that American forces were one of the few elements keeping a lid on violence in Iraq and that withdrawing troops would only increase sectarian violence.

And similar comments from two of the Democrats' favorite members of the Retired-Generals'-Iraq-War-Critic-and-CNN-Pundit-Club were also reported by the Times:

Anthony C. Zinni, the former head of the United States Central Command and one of the retired generals who called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, argued that any substantial reduction of American forces over the next several months would be more likely to accelerate the slide to civil war than stop it. [And,] John Batiste, a retired Army major general who also joined in the call for Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation, described the Congressional proposals for troop withdrawals as “terribly naïve.”

But that hasn't scared off the Democrat doves of Congress. Dennis Kucinich (Dumb, Ohio) called today for cutting off funding for the war in Iraq immediately:

"We have to determine that the time has come to cut off funds. There’s enough money in the pipeline to achieve the orderly withdrawal that Senator McGovern is talking about. But cut off funds, we must. That's the ultimate power of the Congress, the power of the purse. That's how we'll end this war, and that’s the only way we’re going to end this war."

Well, it worked before. That's exactly how the Democrats in Congress tied up South Vietnam in a bow and delivered it to their hero Ho Chi Minh 31 years ago. The result: mass murders, re-education camps, a Vietnamese invasion of China, three million refugees who fled the country in sampans, and 31 more years of poverty and tyranny in South Vietnam itself.

I hope that the American people will see through the Democrats plans this time, and prevent them from delivering another free nation to a brutal tyranny. (By the way: do you think it's interesting that the Times is front-paging big stories about Generals who oppose the Democrats' plans only after the election?) MORE HERE; complete round up HERE.

*******UPDATE: Reliapundit adds: Check out this comparison of Democrat dove Dennis Kucinich and General John Abizaid!