RUSH: Let’s move on to more audio sound bites. The next question is basically, when are the troops coming home?
YOUTUBER: Dear Presidential Candidates. See those three flags over my shoulder? They covered the coffins and my grandmother, my father, and my oldest son. Someday mine will join them. I do not want to see my youngest sons join them. I have two questions. By what date after January 21st, 2009, will all US troops of out of Iraq, and how many family members do you have serving in uniform?
RUSH: All right, now, I have chosen to give you Joe Biden’s answer, and of course he has no prayer for winning the Democrat nomination. Zilch, zero, nada. But I’ve chosen to give you Biden’s answer because it’s the most realistic. The guy at least had the guts to tell these kooks what’s going on.
BIDEN: There’s not a single military man in this audience who will tell this senator he can get those troops out in six months if the order goes today. Let’s start telling the truth. Number one: you take all the troops out, you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the green zone where I’ve been seven times and shot at, you better make sure you have protection for them or let them die. Number one. So you can’t leave them there, and it’s going to take a minimum of 5,000 troops to 10,000 just to protect our civilians! So while you’re taking them out, governor, take everybody out. That may be necessary. Number three, the idea that we all voted, except for me, for that appropriation, that man’s son is dead. For all I know, it was an IED. Seventy percent of all the deaths occurred have been those roadside bombs. We had money in that bill to begin to build and send immediately mine resistant vehicles and increase by 80% the likelihood none of your cadets will die, general — and they all voted against it. How, in good conscience, can you vote not to send those vehicles over there as long as there’s one single, solitary troop there?
RUSH: He’s the adult on the panel last night when it comes to this, telling these candidates who voted against this bill that they’re morally wrong, and telling the audience in this debate, hey, get realistic. You can’t get out of there immediately, and there are great consequences to getting out. The dirty little secret is, as I have told you, even if the Democrats win the house in ’08 they’re not pulling out of Iraq. In fact, the New York Times today has the story: ‘While Washington is mired in political debate over the future of Iraq, the American command [in Baghdad] has prepared a detailed plan that foresees a significant U.S. role for the next two years. The classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador, calls for restoring security in local areas, including Baghdad, by the summer of 2008. ‘Sustainable security’ is to be established on a nationwide basis by the summer of 2009, according to American officials familiar with the document.’ Petraeus is developing a plan to follow victory in the surge, which is damn right! Keep going!
That’s the dirty little secret. The reality here is that this is going to keep going until it’s done right and until we win, whether the Democrats win the White House in ’08 or not.
The plan envisions two phases — the ‘near-term’ goal was to achieve ‘localised security’ in Baghdad and other areas no later than June,’ of ’08, and get the rest done by June of ’09. ‘[T]he new approach reflects the counterinsurgency precept that protection of the population is the best way to isolate insurgents, encourage political accommodations and gain intelligence on numerous threats.’ It’s a long story, but it is very upbeat and very confident, and Biden, with that answer that you just heard, sealed his fate as the potential winner of the Democratic presidential primary season and so forth, but he was the only adult last night. At least you can say that. The Democrats, they don’t have a plan. It’s just get the hell out. Oh, yeah, sorry. Their plan is talk to Iran and Syria and make sure that they ‘assume their responsibilities’ in the region. Talk to them. That’s Obama’s plan. The only other plan anybody else has is get the hell out of there. Bill Richardson says get the hell out. All the others say get the hell out. Biden said, wait a minute. It just isn’t that easy.