RUSH: This is a Pew survey: ‘Only about half of Americans (49%) now say they think that maintaining military strength is the best way to ensure peace — the lowest percentage in the 20-year history of Pew values surveys and down sharply from the 62% who said so in the summer of 2002, less than a year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.’ So less than half of us think that the best way to ensure peace is through military strength. In other words, the majority do not think that military strength is the way to ensure peace. ‘While the partisan divide on this principle is large, it is not much bigger than it was four years ago. The percentage of Republicans subscribing to this view has fluctuated only modestly in recent years; currently, 72% of Republicans agree that the best way to ensure peace is through military strength, a level largely unchanged from 2002 and 2003 (72% and 69%, respectively). By contrast, just 40% of Democrats believe that military strength best ensures peace…’ Now, what does all this say? You can look at total numbers, 49%, and say, ‘Okay, Americans are losing it,’ but are they? Or is it Democrats? Is it a surprise to you that 40% of Democrats do not think that military strength is the best way to ensure peace?
It doesn’t surprise me at all because it’s true. You look at the Democrat Party, look at their leaders and how they are trying to secure defeat in Iraq and secure defeat in the war on terror. By the way, they are out of their gourds over the president’s speech yesterday in which he said that Al-Qaeda in Iraq is Al-Qaeda from Pakistan. The president said this because one of the people we captured, the Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, says so. (paraphrasing) ‘Yeah, this is just a front organization. We’re being run from Pakistan. We’re being run by bin Laden and Zawahiri. We’re here just to make it look like there’s an Iraqi Al-Qaeda that spring up after the US got here so that we could present the false facade that there’s a civil war going on here.’ So the president makes his statement yesterday. John Kerry flipped. He’s just out of his gourd. So did members of the Drive-By Media last night. Harry Reid, he’s out of his gourd, because this undercuts everything they have been trying to tell people, that there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq — and of course, that Al-Qaeda was everywhere in the world but Iraq. They were no Florida. They were in Minnesota. They were in Phoenix. But they were never in Iraq, according to the Democrats. They just can’t get it through their heads, and so the president comes out and says this, and they’re flipping their wigs.
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RUSH: I mentioned earlier that Senator Kerry had blew a gasket over President Bush’s speech yesterday in which he claimed that Al-Qaeda in Iraq is just Al-Qaeda. There’s no separate Al-Qaeda in Iraq. We know this because we captured the top gun, and the top gun said, ‘There is no Al-Qaeda in Iraq. This is Al-Qaeda. We just set this up as a phony front to make it look like there’s a civil war here, that Iraqis have joined this group and formed this group so that you guys in the press and everybody will think it’s a civil war, when it’s not.’ The president was simply repeating that. The Drive-Bys last night had a gourd. Kerry, Harry Reid went nuts. Yesterday afternoon in Washington at the capitol, Senator Kerry responded to the president’s speech earlier in the day. He begins with this.
KERRY: The president is trying to scare the American people into believing that Al-Qaeda is the rationale for continuing the war in Iraq. And today he said nothing new about Al-Qaeda itself and basically nothing that we would differ with with respect to the purposes and goals of Al-Qaeda. We all understand that Al-Qaeda is a danger, and we all understand what its goals are. But 9/11 was not plotted in Iraq. 9/11 did not happen from an Al-Qaeda in Iraq. It happened from Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, an Al-Qaeda that is now larger and reconstituted and dangerous, if not more so than it was then.
RUSH: They just can’t deal with the truth of what’s happening in Iraq, getting out, they have to run to the microphones. If I were Dingy Harry, I’d send somebody else out there besides Kerry. He’s got about as much credibility on this as a beaver. Here’s the next thing that he said.
KERRY: The president is picking the wrong rationale for this war. And he’s also setting up a phony argument about what it is that we have to continue to do in Iraq. We are not in Iraq because Al-Qaeda is the principal threat in Iraq. There was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq, as the president pointed out beforehand, and the fact is that Al-Qaeda has grown in its strength, and in its presence in Iraq because we are there. So I think it is important for us to realize that all of us are committed to destroying Al-Qaeda. But Al-Qaeda is not going to be ultimately destroyed in Iraq unless the Iraqis themselves join in this fight. And Al-Qaeda is not the principal killer of American forces in Iraq. Those forces are dying because of IEDs, because of insurgents, and because of the struggle between Shi’a and Sunni.
RUSH: This is exactly what I’m talking about. The IEDs are coming from Iran, Al-Qaeda is using them, Al-Qaeda is in Iraq having expanded their operation or maybe even transferring it from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Shi’a and the Sunni are aligning with us because they’re getting fed up with the barbarism of Al-Qaeda. Things are really going in a positive way there, as we’ve been discussing the past couple days, and they just can’t handle it. These guys just can’t deal with it. To go out and make such a passionate statement here. It ought to convince you that the war is nothing more than the latest political issue for these people. They’re arguing about this not under the terms that the president sets forth, national security, protecting Americans. They’re talking about it as if they were debating a Social Security reform bill or some such thing.
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RUSH: A quick question for you to ponder, ladies and gentlemen. How do we know which side in this war John Kerry is on? In the last war he was with the enemy, met with them, lied for them before a Senate committee. How do we really know what side he is on? Being pretty consistent, if you ask me.
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RUSH: I want to go back and play one of these sound bites from Senator Kerry yesterday after President Bush’s speech on Al-Qaeda in Iraq. We have two from Senator Kennedy after this one.
VIETNAM VETERAN JOHN KERRY: The president is picking the wrong rationale for this war, and he’s also setting up a phony argument about what it is, uh, that we have to continue to do in Iraq. Uh, we are not in Iraq because Al-Qaeda is the principal threat in Iraq. There was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq, as the president pointed out beforehand, and the fact is that Al-Qaeda has grown in its strength and in its presence in Iraq because we are there. So I think it is important for us to realize that, uh, all of us are committed to destroying Al-Qaeda, but Al-Qaeda is not going to be ultimately destroyed in Iraq, unless the Iraqis themselves join in this fight, and Al-Qaeda is not the principle center of American–
RUSH: Wait a minute! Stop the tape! Who says that? Where does that come from? ‘The only way Al-Qaeda in Iraq can be defeated is if the Iraqis join us’? We’re not capable of doing it ourselves? You know, how do we know which side John Kerry is on in this war, folks? In the last war, Vietnam, he was with the enemy. He met with them. He lied for them before a Senate committee, and now here we have Senator Kerry downplaying the enemy’s role in slaughtering Iraqis and downplaying their danger! We’re the problem — once again. So whose side is he on here? He’s being very consistent, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll tell you something else. This is absolutely hilarious. ‘Mr. Bin Laden’s group’ is how the New York Times refers to Al-Qaeda! (Lauging.) Why don’t they just say, ‘Osama bin Laden, D-Afghanistan’? (Laughing.) Mr. Bin Laden’s group? Osama bin Laden, D-Afghanistan. (Laughing.) Democrat, Afghanistan. Like Congressman William Jefferson (Democrat-Louisiana). Here is Senator Kennedy. He was like on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, and Wolf played the audio from the president that said, ‘We’ve already seen how Al-Qaeda used a failed state thousands of miles from our shores to bring death and destruction to the streets of our cities, and we must not allow them to do it, so again. So, however difficult the fight is in Iraq, we must win it and we can win it,’ and Wolf says to Senator Kennedy, ‘All right, senator. What do you say to the president?’
KENNEDY: Of course, you cah-n’t confuse, uh, the facts like the president is attempting, uh, to do. Um, John Adams said, um, uhh, ‘Facts are difficult things,’ [sic] meaning we have to deal with the facts. And the facts remain that the National Intelligence Estimate says Al-Qaeda is stronger because of our presence. The National Intelligence Estimate says that the surge is not working, and the Nat — and also the, uh, other reports, Baker-Hamilton, uh, suggest that Iraqis will only make the judgment decision about their own future when they believe that we are going to, uh, uh, withdraw it.
RUSH: On whose side is Senator Kennedy? Folks, I’m telling you, these people treating this not as a US national security issue. They’re arguing with President Bush about that. They are trying to convince us that this is just a standard, normal, political issue like Social Security reform or whatever. Blitzer then says, ‘There’s a lot of frustration among Democrats and others. You’ve been in power now for almost a year in the House and Senate…’ Not quite, Wolf. We’re not even to eight months yet. It’s seven months, ‘…and you haven’t been able to effectively change that policy in Iraq. What do you say to those Democrats who are angry at you?
KENNEDY: They, uh, should understand the history. Uh, I was here against, eh, the Vietnam War from 1967 on. We didn’t conclude it ’til 19 — really in 1973. We thought we did in 1968, didn’t we? We had a Democratic president, a nominee that said we’re going to end the war, and a Republican that said he had a plan to end the war, and still it went on. Uh, I — I regret that, and I fought to try and bring an early end to the war. I fought to bring an end to the Contra war! That lasted too long. That lasted five years! This isn’t going to last that long. But until we get the American people that are really going to, eh, shake the doors here in the Capitol and shake those Republican doors, it isn’t going to happen.
RUSH: Wait a second! Whoa!
KENNEDY: But I’m going to be there every step of the way urging, fighting, struggling —
RUSH: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
KENNDY: — working, with my colleagues to get that job done.
RUSH: Wait just a second. What did he say here? ‘Until we get the American people, they are really going to shake the doors here in the Capitol and shake those Republicans doors…’ I thought a massive majority of public opinion was get out of Iraq? I thought they had the American people on this. I thought the American people elected them on this basis! You see what a bunch of phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock and rollers these are? They are trying to convince everybody of what they believe. It’s not that they are reacting to what people believe.
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RUSH: Gail in Chicago, welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I appreciate your intelligence and your insight.
RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
CALLER: And this is in regards to the pullout of Iraq. I think that is a nation of quitters, and we have never been quitters. And I don’t know why people want to do this so quickly.
RUSH: Well, the answer to your question lies in the current makeup, philosophies, and general direction of the Democrat Party and the American left who want to lose.
CALLER: (Giggles.)
RUSH: They do! They’ve already said we have. They want to lose and they want the loss to be saddled around the neck of George W. Bush and the Republicans.
CALLER: I think that can be touted as treasonable against the president.
RUSH: Well, I don’t know about that, but in practical terms, they are aiding and abetting the enemy as PR agents in this country. There’s no question. Treasonous or not? A lot of people think that it is, but nothing is going to happen to them on that score. They just need to be taken care in the next election at the ballot box. They really are. This is all about them personally and their own political agenda, their own political advancement, the acquisition of power.
CALLER: And I think the people that have said, ‘Pull out of Iraq! Pull out of Iraq,’ are the Democrats who don’t really know the true issue, and they would if they listened to you.
RUSH: They know it. This is what everybody doesn’t get. You know, they’re not stupid, and they are not ignorant. They know exactly what they’re doing. You used the right word; they are quitters! They are quitters. They want to quit. They’ve gotten themselves maneuvered into such a corner here, they can’t politically afford for this to emerge victorious, the country to emerge victorious in Iraq. That will destroy them. That will end them, at least for the next election cycle. They can’t let that happen. They can’t claim any credit if there’s victory. They’re out there saying it’s not possible. They’re out there saying they don’t want victory! They’re ragging all over our troops. They’re ragging all over our Iraqi allies. You do, you wonder whose side they’re on here. They’ll claim, ‘Are you challenging my patriotism?’ No, I don’t challenge your patriotism, you’re just stupid! You’re out there, you’re choosing sides and you’re choosing the enemy because you think that will help you. I would say to the Democrats that have.