Tide Turning Against "Anti-War" Crowd?

DID YOU FEEL IT?

At some point in the past few weeks, a shift occured. Maybe it started back
in November, when Congressman Jack Murtha lost his bid to be House Majority
Leader.



Hanoi Jane

Or perhaps it was on January 27, when Jane Fonda staged a defeatist
demonstration on the hallowed grounds of the U.S. Navy Memorial. On that
same day, some of her fellow defeatists vandalized the West Steps of the
U.S. Capitol, while others spit at the foot of Iraq veteran Joshua Sparling
(that's not a typo, Sparling lost his right leg in Iraq).



Corporal Joshua Sparling

Maybe it all came to a head last Friday, when the House of Representatives
expressed their institutional preference for defeat over victory in Iraq.

Whenever the shift began, it was evident by Saturday afternoon that
something had changed. That was when a motion in the Senate to take up the
House's anti-war resolution failed to win enough votes to move forward. And
that was for the mildest, most watered-down rebuke that could possibly
satisfy the defeatists. On that same day, the Washington Post slammed
Congressman Murtha for advocating a "slow bleed" strategy to end the war in
Iraq.

Mr. Murtha has a different idea. He would stop the surge by crudely
hamstringing the ability of military commanders to deploy troops... His aim,
he made clear, is not to improve readiness but to "stop the surge." So why
not straightforwardly strip the money out of the appropriations bill -- an
action Congress is clearly empowered to take -- rather than try to
micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional? Because, Mr.
Murtha said, it will deflect accusations that he is trying to do what he is
trying to do. "What we are saying will be very hard to find fault with," he
said.
But an increasingly vocal number of Americans are indeed "finding fault"
with Jack Murtha and his friends in the defeatist movement. On March 17,
another group of defeatists organized by the neo-Stalinist Workers World
Party plan to march from the Vietnam War Memorial, across the Potomac,
passing Arlington National Cemetery on their way to the Pentagon, where they
will rally within a couple hundred yards of the site where Islamic
terrorists crashed a hijacked plane into that building.





Fearing a repeat of the lawlessness and vandalism which occured in January,
several groups are banding together to stand in opposition to this group of
radicals. A group of Vietnam veterans calling themselves "A Gathering of
Eagles" will stand vigil over the Vietnam Wall. Another group, "Move America
Forward," will caravan from San Francisco to Washington DC, where they will
set up a patriotic counter-rally on the National Mall.
Last week, a Navy officer in Baghdad and a retired soldier began circulating
a petition amongst the troops, "The Appeal For Courage," urging Congress to
"fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat." Such
petitions are rare, but are allowed under DoD directives designed to protect
military whistleblowers. For the first few days, their petition garnered
little interest. Over the weekend, the number of signatures doubled.

At the same time, blogger NZ Bear established a new advocacy group, "The
Victory Caucus." By week's end, his new website had recieved over 100,000
visits, and 3,400 had registered to join the group. If you think this is
small potatoes, consider that this is exactly how the left-wing advocacy
group MoveOn.org got started in 1998, at the height of President Clinton's
impeachment crisis.

When Orlando Congressman Ric Keller made an ill-advised speech on Friday
comparing the war in Iraq to a neighbor who won't mow his lawn, the Victory
Caucus members labelled him "Lawnmower Boy," and swamped his office with
disapproving emails, phone calls, and faxes.




More importantly, they pledged $100,000 overnight to support an unnamed,
hypothetical pro-victory candidate to defeat Keller in 2008.

Meanwhile in Iraq, the "surge" moves forward.

Coalition Forces killed four foreign terrorist facilitators and detained
four other suspected terrorists while conducting operations Sunday southeast
of Rutbah...
Coalition Forces captured a suspected insurgent leader during
early-morning operations Feb. 17 in the Adhamiyah district of Baghdad. The
suspect is reported to be a leader within an improvised explosive device and
car-bomb network believed responsible for planning and conducting car-bomb
attacks against Iraqi civilians and Iraqi Security Forces in the Baghdad
area. He is implicated in several bomb attacks that are responsible for
inciting sectarian violence in northern Baghdad...

Members of the Ninewa Iraqi Special Weapons and Tactics team captured a
suspected insurgent leader Feb. 17 during operations with Coalition advisers
in eastern Mosul. The suspect is reportedly linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq and
is tied to several recent attacks targeting Iraqi Security Forces and
Coalition Forces in the area.


Moqtada al-Sadr is in hiding, and al Qaeda in Iraq is dying.

The momentum has shifted. Did you feel it?

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