What’s the Downside of Staying in Iraq?

RUSH: Just a couple more things about Iraq. New York Times on their blog: ‘Poll: Americans Weigh in on Iraq.’ One of the points that the polls make is this level of negative public opinion has been relatively constant since January. Well, I want to remake a point that I made in the last riff on this. If the public opinion, the negative public opinion has been relatively constant since January, it means that despite the New York Times and the Drive-By Media’s best efforts, and an increase in casualties, by the way, during the surge, the anti-war needle hasn’t lurched to the left. Meanwhile, numbers for Congress as I say are in the crapper, folks. Their numbers are lower than the numbers of support for the war. And yet, well, we’re not talking about getting those guys out of Congress, we’re not talking about pulling them out, although that’s going to happen in the next election. Just ignore ’em. They don’t have any power. Why everybody wants to react to what these people say… here’s who I want to hear from. This is the kind of thing that to me is important. ‘U.S. General in Iraq Speaks Strongly Against Troop Pullout.’

This is the New York Times, John Burns, a good reporter, by the way. ‘An American general directing a major part of the offensive aimed at securing Baghdad said Sunday that it would take until next spring for the operation to succeed, and that an early American withdrawal would clear the way for ‘the enemy to come back’ to areas now being cleared of insurgents. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commanding 15,000 Americans…’ He commands the 3rd I.D., almost 7,000 Iraqi troops under his command also. ‘He spoke more forcefully than any American commander to date in urging that the so-called troop surge ordered by President Bush continue into the spring of 2008. That would match the deadline of March 31 set by the Pentagon, which has said that limits on American troops available for deployment will force an end to the increase by then.’

Now, here’s how they described General Lynch. ‘A blunt-spoken, cigar-smoking Ohio native who commands the Third Infantry Division, said that all the American troops that began an offensive south of Baghdad in mid-June were part of the five-month-old troop buildup, and that they were making ‘significant’ gains in areas that were previously enemy sanctuaries. Pulling back before the job was completed, he said, would create ‘an environment where the enemy could come back and fill the void.’ He implied that an early withdrawal would amount to an abandonment of Iraqi civilians who he said had rallied in support of the American and Iraqi troops.’ He goes on to make some other statements. ‘General Lynch said he was ‘amazed’ at the cooperation his troops were encountering in previously hostile areas. He cited the village of Al Taqa, near the Euphrates about 20 miles southwest of Baghdad, where four American soldiers were killed in an ambush on May 12 and three others were taken hostage. One of the hostages was later found dead, leaving two soldiers missing. Brig. Gen. Jim Huggins, a deputy to General Lynch, said an Iraqi commander in the area had told him on Saturday that women and children in the village had begun using plastic pipes to tap on streetlamps and other metal objects to warn when extremists were in the area planting roadside bombs and planning other attacks. ‘The tapping,’ General Huggins said, was a signal that ‘these people have had enough.”

So here’s a general who’s over there, commands the 3rd I.D. Now, that’s somebody whose words interest me. That’s somebody whose opinion interests me. I couldn’t care less what Jim Webb says or Harry Reid or anybody, especially in the Drive-By Media. I could not care less what they say. What’s the downside of staying? What is it? How are any of us who are not military family, how are we actually affected by it? We aren’t. We’re allowing ourselves to be affected by it with a constant negative drumbeat by the Drive-By Media. If you don’t want to be made uncomfortable, then turn it off. This program is optimism. This program is good cheer. This is all about American can-do spirit.

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RUSH: We go to Fort Benning, Georgia. This is Paul, and I’m glad you waited, sir. Great to have you with us.

CALLER: Hey, thanks, Rush. Let me hurry and get this out before my phone dies. Has anyone made the connection — I haven’t heard it from the media or from Bush himself — that Iraq is a lot like Germany was. A little history lesson. Why were we in Germany, and we still are, for over half a century? Was it because we liked schnitzel or cuckoo clocks? We were in Germany because communism was the enemy, and that was our staging area, and that kept Russia in check. That’s the same thing that Iraq is. What we are doing with our presence in Iraq is we have the light on. Our presence there keeps them at bay. They’re still there, but now they can’t move around freely. If we pull the troops out, it’s going to be like turning the light, leaving the house, and then the cockroaches are going to be free to do whatever they want to do.

RUSH: Armed cockroaches.

CALLER: Exactly. And I’d also like to make the point that of the 3,000 men and women that have died, all those people, soldiers and contractors, have all volunteered to go over there. The minute we pull out and we start having men, women, and, oh, yeah, by the way, children, innocent men, women, and children die on our own soil, then they’re going to blame the government because we went out too fast.

RUSH: Everything you said, by the way, except for that is right on the money. What the Democrats are setting up here is next time there’s an attack, Bush’s fault. Everything that happens negatively in this country in terms of future terrorist attacks, either in this country or against Americans around the world, Bush did it. Bush and his Republican allies did it, because they stirred up a peaceful bunch of Muslims. Yes, they were minding their own business, and we had to invade and occupy one of their precious countries, and we blew up mosques, and we had Abu Ghraib, and we had Club Gitmo, and we have arranged the Muslim — I’m telling you, the Democrats and the Drive-By Media are going to blame every future act of terrorism on Republicans, and that’s their objective. Their objective is not to stop the attacks. The objective is not to stop the people who will commit these atrocities. They are trying to pull out of there so that they can secure defeat, have it blamed on Bush and on Republicans and win elections from now until the sun goes down. This is pure selfishness, pure politics on their part, and it is insidious.

Now, as to the reason that we’re in Iraq and your comparison to Germany, I’ve tried all that throughout the history of this war. I have reminded people of how many more deaths we lost in one battle, D-Day in World War II than we have lost in four years in Iraq. In a training exercise for D-Day, we lost more troops than we have lost in battle in Iraq. I have pointed out that we are in Germany still. We have bases there, and you’re right, they were staging areas for the Cold War. But we’re also in Germany because they were Nazis at one time. The world doesn’t trust that to not surface again. There’s somebody in the world that has to protect the world, and we are the lone superpower, and that’s us, and we protect the superpower, or protect ourselves, and in the process we protect the world. These Democrats and the media just want to pull out of there. It is shortsighted, it’s selfish, it will secure defeat, and it will guarantee more attacks, which they will then love to blame on Bush and the Republicans. Get ready for this, folks. The only option here is to continue to fight these SOBs and win. That’s who we used to be as Americans. We didn’t have time to sit around wringing our hands and telling ourselves, ‘Oh, gosh, that feels so bad. I don’t feel comfortable here. I wish we weren’t at war. Pull the troops out.’

Americans, we’re not that. I’m not convinced that the majority of Americans are that way now, despite all these polls. Back in less affluent times when we didn’t have all this time to hang around, to get upset and get worried about things, especially those of us that do not have members of the family in the military. You talk about selfish and self-centered and me, me, me, me, me. ‘We gotta get out of Iraq, Mr. Limbaugh, because I feel uncomfortable. I don’t like what’s happening. I don’t like the roadside bombs.’ Well, screw you. The country won’t survive with people like you in charge of things, so just go away. You can stay out there and whine and moan and you can complain and you can protest, and you can put on your stupid little banners and say you love and support this, but you count for nothing because you’re doing nothing. You’re doing nothing constructive. You’re doing nothing that’s building anything. You’re inspiring nobody. Just cram it. As a number of children have told me on occasion, ‘Close your pie hole.’ That’s what they call the mouth, I suppose. I’ve learned this. But no kid tells me what to do, so it didn’t work.

RUSH: Micah in Mooresville, North Carolina, welcome to the EIB Network, sir.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Dittos from the college graduate headed to graduate school.

RUSH: Congratulations, sir.

CALLER: Thank you. I wanted to call, I’m actually a member of a military family. My brother was a Marine and in Iraq, served for two tours, and on his second tour he was actually killed in the battle for Fallujah back in 2004. But I did want to say, thank you very, very much for being, dare I say, the only national media figure who represents people like me. And I can’t tell you what it means to me to turn you on every day and listen to what you have to say and agree with pretty much a hundred percent of what you say, and it’s very, very special.

RUSH: I have to tell you a little story, because you’ve made me feel similar to the way I felt in Washington when I was at the National Review 50th anniversary dinner. They had a table of wounded and recovering veterans from Walter Reed, and one of these guys lost an eye. He had an eye patch on and had been severely wounded. He was ambulatory, but he was severely wounded, and he came up and said much the same thing to me that you just did, and honestly I was taken aback. I looked at him, and said, ‘How in the world can you… I mean, I ought to be saying this to you,’ and I would have if I’d have had the chance to open my mouth first. ‘Compared to what I do, you’re out there on the front lines…’ And he stopped me, he said, ‘We all have our roles.’ He wanted to tell me what any words of support from anywhere mean to the people that wear the uniform. I’m by no means the only one. I appreciate your comment on that, Micah. You have lost a brother, and I find it touching that you want to call and thank somebody who just utters a bunch of words on this stuff. I know words count and I know they matter and they can help, but your family and some others, you’ve given up the ultimate sacrifice, and that’s another thing. When I start hearing all these people, nothing at stake, nothing on the line, other than their precious moods, it just frustrates me all to hell because I can imagine how people like you and your family hear it when people say it.

CALLER: It does, Rush, and it burns me to no end for people that have nothing at stake and could care less, really, say, ‘Oh, I support the troops but I hate the war and I hate the president,’ and everything else. It burns me up.

RUSH: Well, it should. But the thing is, we all have something at stake. It’s just some don’t want to take the time to admit it. Some would rather bury their heads and just say, ‘They’re not going to be able to wipe out 3,000 of us any time they want. It was an aberration. We have to get used to that kind of thing in a dangerous world, especially when we’re as bad and mean and evil as we are, conquering their countries and so forth.’ That’s how these people deal with it rather than understanding what truly is at stake. Micah, thanks again so much for the call. God bless you and your family. I know that everybody who heard your call here in the audience is saying the same thing to you, hoping that you can hear them. I said it for them.

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RUSH: Doug in Lincoln, Nebraska. I’m glad you called, sir, welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: Hey, I want to draw just a stark contrast with what’s going on in Iraq with US military versus Islamic terrorists. MSNBC had on its cover story today on the Web, they have a picture of an American soldier and they have some Iraqi children smiling, and it says ‘charity begins at war.’ And, you know, if you go to the right sources, ever since this war started, there’s been a lot of pictures about how our soldiers have tried to reach out to the community. You contrast that with what Islamic terrorism looks like, and you take that same child and you try to put a blowup vest and you explain to that little kid, go stand by those American soldiers, and when you pull this string, flowers will pop out, that story that came out in the media about a month ago —

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: — and it’s such a strong contrast about what this is about. And I get frustrated talking to people and they’re so simplistic in the war, and it’s so much based on feelings. Well, if you want to take feelings to justify being in a war, look what our American soldiers are all about. Look what our country is all about, just in that act of charity versus what Islamic terrorism is all about.

RUSH: You gotta understand how the people you’re talking about react to those pictures. You could show them those pictures, and you know what they’d say? ‘That’s nothing more than PR. Everybody knows the military is evil. Everybody knows the military is just a bunch of murderers. That’s just a staged photo to try to make me change my mind, but they can’t fool me.’ The people you’re talking about have an institutional hatred for the military. As an institution they hate it. They love it when it fails. The worst thing that can happen to these kind of people is military success. It’s hard to understand. These are the same people that have an institutional hatred or dislike for the current structure of this country, want to change it, the traditions, institutions, whatever, that made it great, they don’t like them. They’re leftists. They’re collectively miserable and unhappy, and they want everybody else to join ’em in that. Nothing is going to change. It’s why those people continue to be a minority, but it’s also why we have to continue to beat them in the political sense and their representatives at the ballot box.

There’s no way you’re going to change these people’s minds on things. They have to do it themselves, and in some instances it does happen, but they’re inexplicable. To somebody who considers themselves a decent, patriotic, you know, warm hearted, good guy American, you don’t understand these people. Look at some of the conspiracy theories they come up with to justify their hatred and keep it going. But you’re right in the description that you make. But those kind of pictures are rare, and notice that those pictures are on MSNBC’s website. They’re not on NBC television. So the Drive-Bys can say, ‘Ah, we’re putting some of the good news out.’ Who’s next? Craig in Hazlett, Michigan.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos from a second-time caller, and thanks for the good work you do for our country and the world.

RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

CALLER: You raised some points about our cost in World War II and fighting for freedom reminded me of a History Channel program I saw regarding the reconstruction south after the Civil War and not only the cost of the investment we as a country made in reconstructing the south, but the loss of life from the terrorist Ku Klux Klan that were going around and killing and murdering elected officials, Army personnel, local citizens, and I haven’t really seen a good comparison for that loss and that cost to fight for the freedom in the South as we have in Iraq.

RUSH: I didn’t catch all of what you said because of a bad phone connection. So you’re talking about the casualties in the Civil War and all the money that was spent reconstructing the south, but what’s the connection to Iraq?

CALLER: Well, if you look at just the reconstruction in the South after the Civil War, the millions of dollars spent by the federal government, but more comparison-like is the loss of life with the Ku Klux Klan running around and killing hundreds and hundreds of civilians and elected officials and African-Americans and —

RUSH: Yeah, but okay. Here’s the dirty little secret about the Klan. They were mostly Democrats.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: The Klan was mostly Democrats.

CALLER: Right. The Klan has been labeled as domestic terrorists, but we don’t call them insurgents. We don’t try to portray them as freedom fighters.

RUSH: Well, no, because we got a Republican president in the White House. I’m getting blue in the face repeating this story. I know you’re making a good point, and you think a valid comparison. It is to people with an open mind and who actually don’t know much about history. I mean, to go nuts over 3600 war deaths and casualties, not all of them in combat, and not know that we lost 500,000 Americans in the Civil War and the death toll in World War II, is to simply have no context and to have no perspective on things. But aside from all that, it’s not even the deaths. It’s just the drumbeat of bad news, and people are saying, ‘I don’t want to hear anymore. I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to hear about it, get the troops home.’ It’s an act of selfishness without any kind of clue of the consequences of pulling out.

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RUSH: To Newport Richey, Florida, this is Bill. I’m glad you called, sir. Nice to have you with us.

CALLER: I used-to-be-a-liberal-but-I’m-all-right-now dittos to you, Rush.

RUSH: Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

CALLER: Rush, I remember listening to you last week when you were talking about the benchmarks imposed upon the Iraqi government — this has to get done, that has to get done — and you were asked the question, what has our Congress done? What have they done? Well, lo and behold, on Fox News Sunday, sitting in for Chris Wallace was Brit Hume, and he had one of my personal favorites, Carl Levin, on.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And he asked the same question, what have you guys done? And they did the split screen, and Brit Hume had this boyish grin on his face when he asked the question, and Carl Levin kind of started shaking and started blathering this and that and mentioned the minimum wage a couple of times, and it was really illustrative about how you are on the cutting edge.

RUSH: Well, that’s the way these things fall out. It’s the way these things shake out.

CALLER: It was such a happy thing for me that after Fox News Sunday, I turned off the TV. Normally I will turn to another network because maybe Stephanopoulos or that total loss from Holy Cross there, Chris Matthews, but I didn’t want to be depressed. It was just a joyous day.

RUSH: (Laughing.) Total loss from Holy Cross!

CALLER: It was Limbaugh Echo Syndrome all over again.

RUSH: Yes. That’s exactly what it is out there, but this is a question anybody could have come with: ‘You guys are giving the Iraqi government all these benchmarks. They gotta do this and this and this and they gotta do it in a record amount of time, and if they don’t do it then we’re pulling out and you guys aren’t worth it,’ and it’s a bunch of liberals in Congress putting these benchmarks together, and they make ’em so high there’s no way they could do it. But they couldn’t do anything themselves here. They haven’t done diddly-squat. They’ve had 300 investigations in 100 day days and the minimum wage bill, yip yip yip yip yahoo. Who they are? This is what I asked on Friday. Who are these guys? Who is our Congress telling anybody else how to do it? The Iraqi parliament has higher approval numbers among Iraqis than the US Congress has here among the American people.

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