The "Stuck on Stupid" Politicians

General Russel Honore's classic line to reporters, "Don't get stuck on stupid," has to be one of the best lines in years. Someone now has to direct the quote toward our elected leaders regarding the debate on Iraq.

Whether you are for or against the war in Iraq realistically you have to be wondering just what the heck is going on.

First of all we are at war yet no declaration of war has been declared despite a declaration issued against the U.S. by Osama Bin Laden back in 1998. In fact the U.S. has not issued a declaration of war since WWII.

Regime change in Iraq has been stated U.S. foreign policy since the Congress voted the “Iraqi Liberation Act” in 1998. (The House of Representatives on a 360-38 vote October 5, and the Senate approved H.R. 4655 by unanimous consent on October 7.)

Was this “Act” just lip service or did they really mean it? And most importantly did they even plan for events after such a change? Surely our wise leaders at the time thought of such a plan after the fact, right?

In fact no past President has a so called “plan for peace” after any war, declared or not. The Marshall Plan after WWII did not take place for nearly two years after the war.

Currently we have Democrats basically calling for a “cut and run” policy no matter how you slice it. Even some Republicans seem to be riding on the same coat tail.

Now mind you the vast majority voted in favor of the war in Iraq and supported it in various measures. Now the majority of members are changing their minds because the (1) President lied about pre-war intelligence (although it was the same intelligence used for years including the 1998 “Iraqi Liberation Act”), (2) didn’t understand what the meaning of “war” was (kind of like “it depends what the meaning of the word “is, is”.), or (3) short term memory loss (stuck on stupid).

There is nothing wrong with honest debate. What is currently occurring in Washington D.C. is dishonest. It is sound bites solely for political gain. The problem is that none of the finger pointing or name calling points to a better solution in addressing the war in Iraq or the war on terror. Why? Because they have no plan. Running away from a fight is not a plan. It is however the plan envisioned by terrorists because they expect the U.S. to lose its resolve and “cut and run”.

Maybe we don’t possess patience in a struggle. The terrorists and rouge thugs in the world do. Saddam was just buying (literally) his time. Does one really think he would change his behavior over time?

Prior to the war everyone was clamoring about the 20,000 or so body bags we would need in a war with Iraq, and lucky for us we were wrong in our assessment of Saddam’s WMD capability. (If Saddam had these weapons and killed 20,000 U.S. service men and women in the opening days of the war would the war have been right?)

All in all if one analyzes the current behavior of our political leaders you can only come up with the following conclusions:

It’s all for their own political purposes and gains.
They are all afflicted with short term memory loss.
They are totally dishonest.
They vote on issues without doing their home work.
They don’t realize we are at war.
They are stuck on stupid.
Or, all of the above!