Dems Hell Bent on Snatching Defeat from the Arms of Victory.
By Frank Antenori
March 15, 2007

Democrats began debate yesterday in the House and Senate to push their fourth plan to withdraw troops from Iraq. This one will begin to withdraw troops in March of 2008 with completion before November 2008 (A rather convenient date wouldn’t you say?).

Over the past few weeks, I have been in contact with close friends on active duty in the Special Forces that are currently serving in Iraq. They have been emailing me from time to time to keep me up to speed with how things are going.

The emails contained several success stories of interdiction missions along the Iranian border that have help to dramatically reduce Iranian support to the Shia militias. I’ve read about mission after mission in Baghdad and surrounding neighborhoods where Special Operations Forces (SOF) and Light Infantry have secured large portions of the city by rooting out the enemy. They also no longer abandon it to return to their fire base, they hold it, along with an ever improving Iraqi Army.

Some of it has even made the news. Many of you may have recently read in the news about the dramatic decrease in sectarian violence, down almost 50% compared to last month. How about the news coming out of Sadr City? Once the strong hold of Muqtada al-Sadr, the city is now quiet and our troops are meeting little to no resistance.

You may have also heard that al-Sadr himself is nowhere to be found; many of his top lieutenants have been killed, captured or fled to Iran. The “death squads” are no longer operating freely in the city, replaced by kids playing soccer and people shopping. Americans have also reached an agreement with Shia leaders in the city that will allow American forces to remain for as long as it takes. How can that be? I thought they wanted us out?

There’s other news like the tribal leaders in Ramadi, tired of the violence, are now helping the new Iraqi police and the U.S. military bring peace to the province by turning in foreign fighters and insurgents. Then there’s the change to the rules of engagement (ROE) recently implemented by General Petraeus that has untied the hands of our soldiers and instituted a policy of “no sanctuary” for the enemy. In the last three weeks, U.S. forces have relentlessly hunted down, killed and captured well over 1000 insurgents and terrorists, including the #2 al-Qaeda terrorist in Iraq.

I’ve also been in close contact with a former commander of mine who is now a Colonel working in the Pentagon for the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. He has the job of providing intelligence summaries to members of Congress who ask for them and assists with preparing the weekly, highly secret, briefings on the current situation in Iraq to the House Permanent Select Committee for Intelligence (HPSCI).

My Colonel friend also told me that the HPSCI briefings have been showing steady progress and clear indications that the surge is working. By the questions he’s asked by committee members and their staff, he believes many Democrats are either refusing to accept that things may actually be getting better, or are outright ignoring the information. He mentioned one particular Democrat Congresswoman that caught him in the hallway after a briefing and practically accused him of lying to the committee.

So it is no surprise that Democrats are scrambling to do what ever they can to take the wind out of the sails of the U.S. Military effort in Iraq. In a last ditch effort to appease their allies in MoveOn.org, and the rest of the far left, they once again want to give our enemies the hope we’ll cut and run before Petraeus can hunt them down.

The recent spate of Democrat posturing, even though they know none of their ideas stand a chance of passing, shows clear desperation to prevent the administration from claiming success and a turning tide of optimism in Iraq gaining momentum going into a presidential election year.

So one has to ask where our local Congresswoman will come down on the issue. Will she join the rush to defeat crowd or will she put faith in our troops and General Petraeus? She has a choice of either voting to tell our enemy to “hang in there, we’re about to throw in the towel” or taking the “wait and see” approach by voting no, thus telling our troops she has faith in their ability.

I have a funny feeling, knowing Ms. Giffords has made a deal with the devils of her party in exchange for key committee assignments, that she will have no choice but to jump on the “you can’t win because we won’t let you” band wagon and vote in favor of the now camouflaged John Murtha “Slow Bleed” plan.

Many in the business community that supported her campaign recently got a taste of Aesop’s fable: “The Frog and the Scorpion.” They bought into the school girl charm and the belief Gabby would be a business friendly moderate but found out the hard way when she voted in favor of H.R. 800. The bill essentially allows Unions to intimidate workers by taking away secret ballots when voting to form a union. It’s no surprise that the measure was endorsed by the Communist Party and Gabby’s close friend Raul Grijalva.

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs. "You fool!" croaked the frog (business), "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?" The scorpion (Gabby) shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog's back. "I could not help myself. It is my nature."

So all of you frogs out there that thought Ms. Giffords was a moderate, don’t be surprised when she jabs her stinger into your back and votes with her fellow scorpions of the far left to once again embolden our enemy, thus sending a message to our troops at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Fort Huachuca and the rest of our brave military that she has lost faith in them.

After all, she’s in Washington now and running with the scorpions of the party of cut and run; they can’t help it, it’s in their nature. A party that can’t stand to see America prevail, a party that has joined Iranian scorpions in condemning our war effort in Iraq. A party of scorpions that wants to abandon our troops in the field; a party hell bent on snatching defeat from the arms of victory.

Frank Antenori is a retired Special Forces Soldier and veteran of Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Iraq. He is also a former candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress in Congressional District Eight.