TRYING TO AVOID THE UNAVOIDABLE WILL BRING ABOUT THE AVOIDABLE

Guests on the Weekly Gan-up: Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for "USA Today" Karen Tumulty, reporter, "Time" magazine Joseph Curl, The Washington Times

The times eerily and truly resemble the 1930s. By trying to avoid a war with Germany the "civilized" nations ended up in a much larger and more costly war. Now that the Democrats are in power, or at least have more than they had, and in the words of Iraq Study Group member Leon Pannetta, "we must come together".

PANETTA: "As I told the president this morning, this war has badly divided this country. It's divided Republicans from Democrats, and to some extent, the president from the people. And policy sometimes, with those divisions, has been reduced to a 30-second sound bite that runs the gamut from “victory” or “stay the course” to “cut and run”. And what this group tried to do, five Democrats and five Republicans, is try to set aside those code words and those divisions and try to look at the realities that are there.

And I would suggest to the president and to the American people that, if you look at the realities of what's taking place there, the fact that violence is out of control, the fact that Iraqis ultimately have to control their future; they have to take care of security; they've got to deal with the region in that area, that ultimately, you can find consensus here. This country cannot be at war and be as divided as we are today. You've got to unify this country. And I'd suggest to the president that what we did in this group can perhaps serve as an example to try to pull together the leadership of the Congress and try to focus on the recommendations that we've made. We have made a terrible commitment in Iraq in terms of our blood and our treasure. And I think we owe it to them to try to take one last chance at making Iraq work, and more importantly, to take one last chance at unifying this country on this war. I think the president understands that he simply is not going to be able to proceed with whatever policy changes he wants to implement if we're divided. That is the principal goal, in my mind, that he has to accomplish." (December 6, 2006 Iraq Study Group News Conference Transcript)

Either I am as stupid as Democrats think I am as a citizen or someone has the kind of gall that is capable of erasing from our memory the fact that the man represents the side in this country which has waged a greater war against president Bush than against the enemy the US fighting!

About the “code words” Mr. Panetta says the Study Group tried to avoid, when Mr. Panetta says, “I think the president understands that he simply is not going to be able to proceed with whatever policy changes he wants to implement if we're divided” and that he “can find consensus here” what he really means is that the President needs to agree with the Democrats or they will continue to wage war against him, not against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Mr. Panetta also said, that “this war has badly divided this country” and that in Iraq “violence is out of control”. Do Mr. Panetta and the new “conservative” Democrats believe that we all have forgotten the endless speeches, comments, books, “documentaries”, newscasts, editorials, statements from leading Democrats, in other words the whole campaign directed to discredit not only the President, but even the armed forces? And can he really not understand the connection between that domestic campaign and the emboldening of terrorists in Iraq leading to a violence that is not “out of control” but purposefully controlled to create the impression of chaos?

Now the Democrats and a few so-called “realists” are upholding the Iraq Study Group pages as someone by the name of Chamberlain once held a piece of paper as hope for “peace for our time.”

But in these times of news clips and sound bites perception is reality and now the perception around the world is that not only the US is surrendering but also that both Democrats and terrorists are celebrating something in common, the Iraq Study Group. In trying to avoid a greater regional conflict the Iraq Study Group and those who believe this is a road for peace may be mixing elements of delusion with what they think is realism. And that it is not a recipe for peace.