OH-04: Jordan (R) Blasted Over Iraq Remarks

As I noted last Thursday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Urbana) confirmed that he is an all-out drinker of the "Troop Surge Is Working" Kool-Aid by telling a crowd in Lima that “We’ve lost some great people unfortunately, but we’re making progress.” It turns out that the Bush/McCain 100-year-war doctrine is a hard sell, even in the conservative 4th Congressional District, if the the letters page of The Lima News is any indication.

Of course, energetic challenger Mike Carroll (D-Mansfield) wasn't about to let that comment slip by unchallenged. His biting response was published by the newspaper on Saturday:

I would like to ask why is it that no one is talking about that, when the Iraq War started, we were told it would be paid for with oil profits? Instead it’s costing us $150 billion a year?

Doesn’t anyone remember President Bush landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 and stating “mission accomplished”? He also said then that major combat operations have ended. Doesn’t that mean we have been in an occupation of Iraq since that time?

I want to tell the residents of the 4th Congressional District that, when elected, I will support legislation to end this occupation.

But Carroll is not a lonely voice in the wilderness. Columnist Thomas J. Lucente Jr. blasted Jordan for his flippant remark in a column published Sunday:

Not one member of the administration can articulate with any kind of specificity why we are in Iraq and what needs to happen to trigger our withdrawal. When asked, the best answer any war supporter can give is that we cannot withdraw until we have achieved “victory.”

What is this elusive “victory”? As I recall, the objective set forth by Bush five years ago was regime change, which was quickly achieved. He then changed the game plan to the holding of free and fair elections. Again, achieved. Now it is “victory.” However, victory has been achieved. Saddam Hussein was not only deposed, he was tried, convicted of crimes and executed. The sign of our victory was Saddam dangling from the end of a rope.

Yet, we are still there with no end in sight and 4,000 great Americans dead. ...

How can Jordan, Bush, or anyone else support a war that has resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million people, including 4,000 Americans, and serves no purpose? In fact, the war has made America more vulnerable. The nation is not capable at this point of defending itself.

Bush’s war in Iraq is, without a doubt, the most profligate and disastrous foreign policy fiasco in U.S. history. ...

Ordinary citizens also voiced objections to Jordan's unblinking praise for the surge, including this open letter to Bush and Jordan by Vietnam veteran David Winters of Lima published today:

OK! I give up! Starting this, the sixth year of our invasion and occupation of Iraq (it isn’t a war, Congress declares that), you say we will stay until we win. Just what criteria will that be? I must have been asleep, as I don’t recall just what we need to do to win.

Do more American soldiers need to die? Do more Iraqis need to die? Does Muqtada al-Sadr need to shave his beard? What? I keep seeing you people say we must win, but never do you say what it will take. Maybe, since you are afraid of the population of the U.S. finding out your best secrets, you could at least tell our brave heroes in uniform just what it will take to bring them home to their loving families. What will it take? Please tell them. Just so you know, I had my war (Vietnam). It was a lie, too.

This latest week-long fiasco in Iraq saw about 500 Iraqis killed in intra-Shia fighting that failed to resolve the power struggle and triggered rioting in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, destruction of a critical oil pipeline near Basra, and rockets and mortar fire raining down on the U.S. Embassy in the Green Zone. The continuing lie that "The Surge is Working" is not fooling all the people, not even in the reddest parts of the state.