Jim DeMint thinks our democratic system is to blame for American deaths in Iraq.
As reported today, Senator DeMint said at an event yesterday, "Al-Qaida knows that we've got a lot of wimps in Congress ... I believe a lot of the casualties can be laid at the feet of all the talk in Congress about how we've got to get out, we've got to cut and run." The State also reported, "DeMint said a U.S. military officer who drove him around Iraq during a 2005 visit pointed out a site where the officer said there were chemical weapons. DeMint said the United Nations failed to enforce the requirement that Saddam destroy such weapons after the 1991 Gulf War."
As someone who has never worn the uniform, it may be tough for Jim DeMint to understand this, but we fight to protect America and our democratic system of government, which encourages debate and deliberation. If anything, it is reassuring to those of us who serve to know that America's system is working. Because we have no voice when we're in the field, we depend on our elected officials to ask the tough questions in Washington: are we doing the best we can to protect our troops and keep our military strong? Are we employing a strategy that gives our troops a chance to succeed in their mission and come home as quickly and safely as possible? Have we deployed our military as a last resort and with just cause?
Jim DeMint owes us an apology for saying we ought not advocate for troops in Washington.
Wimps are people like Senator DeMint who don't want to ask the tough questions or face facts, which is why he's idiotically clinging to the idea that there were WMD in Iraq. Any stockpiles of weapons found in Iraq were useless -- either inert or rusted and unusable because of their age.
Senator DeMint is living in some sort of twisted fantasy land, where democracy, not failed policy, is responsible for too many American lives lost in Iraq, and where bad intelligence is miraculously valid. He should click his ruby slippers three times and join us back in the land of reality, or resign from the Senate.