I was just reading a blog called “democrats for bush.” (i’m not going to do the owner the favor of linking to it) The author seems to feel the left isn’t hardnosed enough on the issue of terrorism. In some ways, I agree about the positions of some on the left. Even so, I don’t get how he moves from such a blanket generalization to the point of endorsing Bush.

Somehow he seems to believe that Bush is doing a great job in the war on terror. Why isn’t clear. Why he accepts that invading Iraq has anything to do with the war on terror is even less clear, especially when the rhetoric he uses seems to match the administrations own shifting rationale that now emphasizes liberation of the Iraqi people as the justifcation for invading, which in my mind has less to do with a war on terror than the origianl WMD rationale.

I ended up writing a long rant as a reply to one of his posts, but it was rejected for being too long, so I’m just posting it here as an extended entry.

You do realize that by equating invading Iraq with the war on terror Bush has weakend this country, don’t you?

Ignoring the fact that there was no credible reason to see Iraq as an Imminent threat.

Ignoring the fact that invading Iraq took resources away from prosecuting war against the Taliban and Al Qaieda in Afganistan. (as Rumsfeld knew it would even before it was clear the administration was bent on going into Iraq)

*Not* ignorning the fact that the average number of Americans killed in Iraq per day has actually been going up every month since the transfer of power even as the US tries to transfer more security responsibility to the Iraqis.

The administration’s failure to prosecute the war in Iraq effectively has demonstrated to Iran what it has long believed, that the US is a paper tiger in the region. It has demonstrated to Bin Ladin what he has long believed, that America lacks the will in such situations, to trimumph — and its not just the left’s fault, the administration itself has repeatedly failed to provide adequate resources in Iraq. They failed to commit enough in the first place, and they are failing to commit enough now.

What is the outcome of this? Iran and Syria are funding Iraqi insurgents and supplying them with weapons. They may even be supplying men. They are doing it with relative imputity. The US has its hands full with Afghanistan and Iraq as it is. It can’t afford to open another front.

How does such a show of incompetence and weakness help in prosecuting the war on terror?

How does it help our national security to show that we couldn’t act to secure our oil supply from the middle east in the face of a concerted effort to disrupt it?

How does it help our national security to show our enemies that they have it in their power to cripple our already overstretched millitary by disrupting our supply of oil.

Just how well will all those tanks, humvees and fighters work without petrol? How will those ships and aircraft be able to transfer supplies with curtailed oil supplies?

Just how well is our economy going to work if our fuel supplies are constrained?

Bush and his men have committed a stack of strategic and tactical errors that have put this country in greater long term risk than it was in after 9/11 and you applaud him?