Common Sense?

Why can't more politicians detach themselves from the D or R that follows their name and stand up for their convictions and display some common sense. One such politician is Joe Lieberman, who wrote a column in the Washington Post about the war in Iraq:

Last week a series of coordinated suicide bombings killed more than 170 people. The victims were not soldiers or government officials but civilians -- innocent men, women and children indiscriminately murdered on their way home from work and school.

If such an atrocity had been perpetrated in the United States, Europe or Israel, our response would surely have been anger at the fanatics responsible and resolve not to surrender to their barbarism.

Unfortunately, because this slaughter took place in Baghdad, the carnage was seized upon as the latest talking point by advocates of withdrawal here in Washington. Rather than condemning the attacks and the terrorists who committed them, critics trumpeted them as proof that Gen. David Petraeus's security strategy has failed and that the war is "lost."

And today, perversely, the Senate is likely to vote on a binding timeline of withdrawal from Iraq.

This reaction is dangerously wrong. It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both the reality in Iraq and the nature of the enemy we are fighting there.

What is needed in Iraq policy is not overheated rhetoric but a sober assessment of the progress we have made and the challenges we still face.

We need more politicians who are willing to be honest about our successes as well as our failures, and to work together to find real-world solutions that don't involve surrender or leaving other people to clean up a mess that we helped contribute to. We are way beyond debating why we went to Iraq in the first place; we need to come together to figure out a way to help the Iraqi people - to get the job "done" - and bring our troops home as soon and safely as possible. That is not going to be accomplished by limiting the military funding by setting an arbitrary and artificial time line for withdrawal. This isn't a game, it's war. And we're facing an enemy that couldn't care less about things like the Geneva Conventions or the Hague Conventions, let alone political correctness. If we had more politicians that were more concerned with the United States of America than their party affiliation or their special interest groups, then maybe we would be better able to trust those in charge with the decisions they make.

(HT: Iowa Voice)