*** Major Update: Clarice Feldman points to news about a 3 Stooges class video of Zarqawi and his merry men. In it (somebody please find me a link to the actual footage) Zarqawi’s men burn their hands on the machine gun barrel they were using. Is this the vision that has struck fear into the hearts of Murtha, Dean, Kerry and Odem? Is this the why the left whimpers on and on about a war long over and has bed-wetting nightmares about ‘quagmires’ and such? When someone calls for the rapid surrender, point to this video and demand to know why Liberals are panicking over these bafoons! – here’s a link to the video thanks to reader Bill In AZ ***

Boy, some people are obsessed. We won the war in Iraq. We won over the civil war potential between the main fanctions. We won over the terrorists who are now being turned in by Iaqis. Iraq is a democratic country with a darn good constitution which will be the example for all Arab/Muslim peoples and nations. Iraqi’s fight side by side with us, protecing our back while we protect theirs.

Yet there are some strange people out there who only see the negatives and blow it out of all sense of proportion. Take this babbling Lt. General and listen to his view of Iraq:

The prewar dream of a liberal Iraqi democracy friendly to the United States is no longer credible. No Iraqi leader with enough power and legitimacy to control the country will be pro-American.

I guess the guy never reads a broad group of newspapers or listens to the speeches by Iraqi leaders who all claim alliance and gratitude to the US. If you only read the NY Times and only watch CBS apparently you are effectively lobotomized. For example, here is one of Iraq’s leaders which this man apparently opposes:

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi:

Everything the Iraqis have been struggling for has become a reality. … We Iraqis are just like the rest of the peoples in the world, we don’t want our country to remain under occupation. … we will need the help and support of the multinational forces to defeat the enemies of Iraq, who don’t want stability, freedom and prosperity for us. …We would like to express our extreme gratitude and appreciation to the coalition led by the United States and all those who have made painful sacrifices for the liberation of Iraq.

Lt Gen Odem is angling for Sec Def or some other Cabinet position in a Demcrat Administration. He is out there as one of the liberal media’s minority voices ‘speaking to power’. The good news is I think the liberal left have finally admitted they are the marginal minority and not in power anymore! The bad news is they are so desperate and distraught that Odem is being promoted as the visionary for America.

And what a pathetic and frightening visionary he is. Check out Odem’s response to the idea that if we cut and run we surrender Iraq to Al Qaeda:

Withdrawal will encourage the terrorists. True, but that is the price we are doomed to pay.

Got that? We are doomed. This clown is accepting total defeat to the terrorists. He is willing to accept that a retreat in Iraq would embolden the terrorists like our retreat in Somalia emboldened Bin Laden to bomb our embassies, and fly commercial jetliners into our symbols of economic and military power. I guess he could care less if we lose a few more symbols. Personally I could care less too if there weren’t 3000+ people living and working in those symbols. Odem’s idiocy would accept emboldenment for the terrorists on a scale that dwarfs the result we got from the Somalia cut and run.

Odem needs to be remembered by all for what he is – the dangerous vision of the manic left. A group of people so whacked out because no one takes them seriously anymore. Their solution is to run from a country that is fighting by our side and is just forming a democratic government enjoying the support of probably over 70% of its population.

To Odem and Murtha and Kerry there is no success – ever. If the democrat answer is to run from Iraq they will run from ANYTHING. There will be no effort to protect ourselves at all. In the mind of Odem the US needs to run away now, after a string of unbroken progress. The man represents such a deep brand of defeatism he is a danger to the world actually. He and the other liberals have given up on America, and are now just trying to convince the rest of us to follow them as lambs to the slaughter. Well, no thanks. If that is the democrat plan (along with impeachment of Bush) then they have yet to plumb the depths of political marginalization. H/T RCP