Enough Already. Harry Reid Did Not Insult/Undermine Our Troops

by- Doug Basham @ 1:45 PM PDT

Senator Harry Reid

Basham and Cornell

Radio talk show host Doug Basham April 24, 2007

All morning, I’ve been listening to one right wing radio talk show host after another demonizing Senator Harry Reid and calling for his recall because he had the nerve to articulate what anyone with any intellectual honesty has known from day one – that the debacle in Iraq is lost. And their rationale in calling for Reid’s head is that his statement insulted/undermined our troops.

Reality check #1: In any entity, the employees are only as good as the people at the top who are setting policy. To say that Reid insulted the troops by saying the war is lost, is as misguided as saying that someone who said Enron went bankrupt was insulting Enron’s employees. Enron went bankrupt because of the destructive, failed policies of the top officials at Enron. Similarly, the war in Iraq is lost because of the destructive, failed policies of the top officials (Bush, Cheney et al) in the Bush administration.

But rather than accept what they keep espousing you and I do – accept responsibility – the Bush administration and their apologists turn the attention back on our troops. So in essence, it is the Bush administration who is insulting our troops, by making them the focus of Reid’s remarks instead of their own failed policies, which was clearly the genesis for what Reid said.

And what Senator Reid did not say is that Iraq was lost from the moment our troops first set foot in the country and the first bomb was dropped in a war that was predicated on lies.

I’ve heard “What message does this send to our troops?” (as if none of them have come to the realization yet that this dishonest war has failed). Let me tell you something. If I were a soldier in Iraq, my reaction would be “Great, now I get to go home instead of dying for a lie in Iraq.”

I’ve heard “Reid is emboldening our enemies.”

Reality check #2: Nothing “emboldens” an enemy more than dishonestly invading their country in the first place; killing countless thousands of their fellow citizens and creating this enemy in the first place. But again, rather than accept responsibility for unnecessarily creating the “enemy,” the Bush administration and their apologists accuse others of “emboldening” the enemy (they created).

I’ve heard “Reid is undermining and/or endangering our troops who are in harm’s way fighting for our freedom.”

Reality check #3: Let us never forget why our troops are in harm’s way in the first place. Iraq was not a failure of bad intelligence – except – to the extent the Bush administration created their own intelligence agency (Office of Special Plans) to “cook” or “Enron” the intelligence they were receiving from our conventional intelligence agencies. Which makes Iraq a failure of dishonest leadership far more than a failure of bad intelligence. Our troops are in harm’s way because they were lied into an unnecessary, impeachable war.

Reality check #4: Nothing undermines or endangers our troops more than A) lying them into an unnecessary, impeachable war in the first place; B) sending them there without the proper armor and protection – and then – when the American people finally start to realize what many of us who pay attention knew all along – that Iraq was a deadly, unnecessary disaster C) send even more troops to die for your lies. There is little – if anything – Senator Reid could say that would even remotely approach – let alone match – the level of undermining our troops the Bush administration has demonstrated.

Reality check #5: If you haven’t realized it yet, our troops are not fighting for our freedom in Iraq. Our freedom was never in danger from Iraq. Our freedom is in far more danger when we allow – and don’t hold accountable – administrations who start unnecessary wars predicated on lies.

So tell me Speaker Pelosi, is impeachment still off the table?

Enough Already

Doug Basham is a progressive talk radio host in Las Vegas. His co-host is the star of the former hit sit-com “Too Close for Comfort,” Lydia Cornell.