LIEBERMAN CALLS DEM DOVES IN CONGRESS PUSSIES

WELL, NOT EXACTLY PUSSIES - JUST CONGRESSIONAL FELINES; WSJ - (hat tip Memeorandum):

The war in Iraq brings to Joe Lieberman's mind an old Mark Twain story.

"When a cat jumps on a hot stove, the cat never jumps on the stove again because the cat always assumes the stove is hot," says the senator from Connecticut.

"But we are smarter than that. OK, so Vietnam didn't work out. But there are times when you've got to use force, to protect your security and to protect your principles."

Try telling that to the nuisance of congressional felines now prowling around the Iraq debate, eyeing it like a cooker on high boil.

Next week will witness a Senate vote on a resolution condemning President Bush's new plan to quell growing sectarian violence and terrorism in Iraq by increasing the number of troops. While that vote may be largely symbolic, it comes amid far more ominous congressional calls to cut off war funding, to leave the Iraqis to settle their differences, to bring the troops home. If ever the Iraq political debate was at a crossroads, it's now.

At the center of this fray is Sen. Lieberman, a sort of Horatio at the congressional bridge--spiritedly trying to hold back a bipartisan stampede out of Iraq that he believes will result in devastating consequences for that country, the region and, most importantly, U.S. national security.

Iraq is very winnable, and we will win if the Democrats don't force us to abandon them the way they forced us to abandon the South Vietnamese people and the Contras; (many of the doves then are the very same doves now: Kennedy; Kerry; Levin, et al: WRONG THEN AND WRONG NOW!). Which is to say that Joe is flat out WRONG about "Vietnam not working out", (or under a misconception as to why):

• FACT: the last US combat troop left Vietnam on March 31, 1973.
• FACT: South Vietnam didn't fall until TWO YEARS LATER.
• FACT: the North Vietnamese didn't violate the terms of the Paris Peace treaty and invade the South, and South Vietnam didn't fall until the Democrat inn Congress pulled the plug on financing them and abandoned them to the socialists of North Vietnam.
• FACT: millions fled Vietnam AFTER the socialist takeover; millions did not get in boat to enter Vietnam.
• FACT: socialist Pol Pot promptly took over Cambodia and murdered MILLIONS, and Laos promptly fell too - THE DOMINO THEORY WAS CORRECT. 100 million people in the region suffered under socialism for decades ever since - 65 million in Vietnam alone!
• A similar regional bloodbath and descent into jihadist tyranny in the Middle East would follow the collapse of the nascent democracy in Iraq. That's why we mustn't act like pussies and abandon the Iraqis or the region.

Bottom-line: If we want to transform Iraq into a democracy and an ally in the GWOT, then we mustn't abandon them - CERTAINLY NOT NOW.

ASIDE: For the truth about Vietnam, and how the MSM and the Dem doves of Congress turned real victory into seeming defeat read these two books - (1) A Better War - and this one - (2) Failing to Win.]