Cal Thomas in some quasi agreement with...

Lou Dobbs was s-o-o-o mad about the Democratic congress as led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a willingness by the Armed Services Committee to recognize that Turkey had engaged in genocidal acts against the Armenians during World War 1 that he repeatedly shouted down a Washington Times columnist (fer pete's sake) on "Lou Dobbs, the Week." Well, I don't always find a reason to agree with the Washington Times columnist, ANY Washington Times columnist, but in this case, "Diane" was correct to note that by opposing giving Turkey heartburn over a 90 year old issue, it had become a case of appeasement. A letter writer or two in the Spokesman-Review's Roundtable were quite happy at engaging in appeasement of the Turkish Muslims aesthetics and calling on the GW administration (second letter) to begin investigating Congress for treason.

Cal Thomas jumps in and takes whacks at Congress by accusing them of trying to lose GW's war. Okay, hold on here:

1. Before we invaded Iraq, Turkey wasn't exactly willing to provide airspace, convoy routes or landing areas at airfields because they didn't like the idea of our invading Iraq because we might unleash a Kurdish problem on their country. In all of the rah, rah, sis, boom, bah leading up to the invasion, that Muslim aesthetic was completely ignored.

Now we'll whine about the Democrats screwing things up when Turkey finally give some sort of grudging support to the war effort?

• Kuwait is the main point of entry into Iraq for most convoys and supply runs. I'll assume that Turkey continues to restrict supplies in and out of Iraq.
• Both the letter writers completely ignored the fact that Kuwait is Iraq's main point of entry for U.S. Troops and would continue to be a main point of exit no matter what we do or don't do politically concerning Turkey.
• I will agree that 90 years after the fact, it is a bit late to start demanding justice for Armenians when instability is growing very quickly in the Middle East.

I will also argue however, that trying to utilize a resolution that may not in fact pass out of the House of Representatives as an attack ad against the Democrats is a fallacy in itself.

Cal Thomas whined that we had finally crippled Al Qaeda in Iraq (but we haven't successfully crippled them anywhere else). Al Qaeda didn't see Iraq as a country of opportunity until we invaded. Oh goody, we can begin killing Americans in the dozens, then the hundreds and finally in the thousands on sacred Muslim soil. Perhaps Thomas should remember, we weren't even at war when GW declared it was over with. Nor did his administration even admit we were at war for better than a year.

Thomas further whines that Congress will only hand a weakened presidency to GW's successor. Then again, according to columnist McGregor of "The Inlander," we would need a president who combined the skills of optimism with honesty to begin putting the country back together. Anyone getting elected who doesn't have those qualities, will in fact be a weakened president.

To put it bluntly, Thomas has joined Pinkerton in taking a long journey into Never Never land.

And finally, the letter writers to the Spokesman are a bit late to start rattling off at the mouth about our U.S. Armed Forces losing their lives, they already are. And if we had been all that concerned about Muslim sensibilities in the first place, we wouldn't now be in Iraq. According to Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker, the war effort is going well. Tom Foreman of "This Week at War" even says so. Then I guess it is now time to move on to granting the Armenian faction living in the U.S. of A. an opportunity to be heard on acts of genocide committed against them by Turkey during World War 1. --Whoops!

Either the Democrats really are trying to make GW lose his war by fairly rare grabs at foreign policy or his administration's front men of Petraeus and Crocker truly are lying through their teeth. With Turkey now getting ready to go after the PKK that GW did not prevent from running amok, I highly doubt that anything is "going well" in that country. GW, to put it bluntly, did nothing to negotiate or to employ diplomacy to prevent these new flies in the soup. As McGregor noted, GW deemed "diplomacy is for wimps." The Democrats don't have to do anything to embarrass the current president, or to weaken him. The fault for all of that lies at his door. Cal Thomas agrees with Dobbs as to appeasing Turkey and those Muslim sensibilities. Some 4 years and counting late after GW took a sledge hammer to them.