I'd speculate some senators grumbled during WWII over whether resources were applied effectively, whether priorities were correct, why a 37 mm cannon on that tank chassis instead of a 75, why fighters and not bombers, why not more battlewagons, why not .30 cal MGs on planes instead of .50 cal (Thank you Hap Arnold for getting it right). I'd speculate there were similar minor grumblings among coalitions during Korea. But ever since Truman and MacArthur's frictions were not kept secret so well, media attention IS a fact of life.
When GOP Rep. McCloskey and GOP Sen. Morse spoke against the 'Nam war, did that really make the VC and NVA stronger? Between Ho fighting the Japanese, then the French, and then us, and suffering millions of casualties in the process, is there not some argument that he was a stubborn SOB who did not care if it took him 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, as long as he was alive and kicking he would not care if the other side was united or not? Ho blindly took on the strongest nation on earth. What a nut!
Doesn't this "encouragement to the enemy" angle impute rationality to a bunch of lunatic fringe suicide bombers, a group that is noteworthy for its LACK of rationality? Is OBL less of a nut than Ho was?
Anyway, in retrospect, weren't McCloskey and Morse correct? Why should they have shut up way back when, when it turned out they were correct after all?
Yes, we're stuck in Iraq. Apparently some on this board celebrate that. I hope they are correct and western-friendly democracies blossom in the middle east. But to evangelize that we're spreading freedom and democracy... So now our mission has turned into our being political missionaries. Thank goodness we're NOT doing what Castro pulled in Angola, trying to export his political system and not allowing dissent against his mission within his government or public either.
Bush WILL do troop drawdowns in time for the 2006 mid-term congressional elections. Mostly because of public opinion.
