(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding?

In the past four days my wife has received six mailers from the Colorado Republican Committee urging her to vote Republican next Tuesday with these laughable claims:

• Republicans will keep their commitment to hunt down terrorists and bring them to justice.
• Republicans have pledged to pursue terrorists until Islamic radicalism is defeated.
• Republicans continue to support America's military men and women.
• Only the Republicans have proven they will never retreat under pressure from terrorists - or the nations that harbor them.
• Only the Republicans are committed to keeping America safe.
• Democrats have voted to cut off funding to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Democrats have pledged to meet with foreign dictators and tyrants with no preconditions.
• Democrats will embolden terrorists around the world who continue to plot against America and attack innocent victims in all corners of the world.
• Democrats want to surrender in Iraq.

The last one is my favorite. Doesn't anyone remember that President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" and unveiled that huge banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003? How can we surrender when we already won over five years ago?

Senator McCain has said this year that he thought President Bush acted prematurely, but he is lying. Here are some of his quotes from 2003:

• “I believe that this conflict is still going to be relatively short.” - March 30, 2003.
• “It’s clear that the end is very much in sight.” - April 9, 2003.
• "Their morale could not be higher. This is a mission accomplished." - December 14, 2003.

After almost two more years of limited progress, Senator McCain said “I think the situation on the ground is going to improve. I do think that progress is being made in a lot of Iraq. Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course. If I thought we weren’t making progress, I’d be despondent.”

He should be despondent, but he keeps talking about how the surge has worked. Doesn't he know that almost 97% of American deaths in Iraq occurred after our mission was accomplished? Does he realize that almost 66% of American deaths in Iraq occurred after the start of Bush's second term in January of 2005? The surge may have reduced American deaths, but the deaths of innocent Iraqi citizens are up and show no signs of decline outside of Baghdad. And now Iraqi Christians are targets of violence.

These mailers are a simple reminder that the Bush Doctrine and his entire foreign policy was an utter and complete failure on every front except one: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, James Baker, Richard Perle, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Paul Bremer and other Republican insiders are now all noticeably wealthier than they were before we invaded Iraq. How? Well, they all have millions of dollars at stake in private sector companies that received uncontested contracts from the government to build the weapons we used to destroy Iraq or to rebuild the entire government infrastructure of Iraq after we dismantled it.

So, what's so funny about peace, love and understanding? Nothing.