Almost daily Corner bashing

Sometimes I think Larry Kudlow writes and says things as if he actually believes nobody's reading or listening. That's not to deny that we'd all be better off if nobody read or listened to the man. But since in reality people do pay attention to him, he should at least try not to be staggeringly dishonest when he knows he might be called out on it.

Let's remember that this isn't the Dems' first stab at undermining our war effort. Initially, Harry Reid & Co. were attempting to telegraph to our enemy precisely when we would withdraw our troops. That’s unheard of in the history of warfare.

The Paris Peace Accords, which announced a 60-day timeline for withdrawal from Vietnam, was one dispositive example that leapt to my mind. Maybe there are others. Either way, announcing a precise withdrawal date is not as much "unheard of in the history of warfare," as it is "very recently heard of in the history of warfare."

But what Kudlow's certainly getting at here is that wars in the past have often ended with one side's unconditional surrender. Unfortunately, the president has said that this war isn't going to end that way. And, also unfortunately, the diffuse groups of people we're supposedly at war against aren't exactly the sort of centralized apparatus that can follow the terms of a surrender of their own.

So given that a conventional end isn't in any way an option, how else do people like Kudlow think this war will or should end? Should we lie about a withdrawal date? Should we, a la Vietnam, withdraw as announced and then continue the war in other countries without telling anybody? Should we up and disappear one day? Or should we just never leave? I personally think most of them, without ever saying so, want us to stay in Iraq indefinitely. The reason they don't say so, of course, is that there's absolutely no public support or logical justification for that plan. So they instead fall back time and again on the miserable tactic of smearing the people who are actually putting forward constructive options.

Update: I can't seem to figure out what the precise terms of the Dayton agreements in the Balkans were? Anybody know? Also, Matt writes in to point out that the Gulf War armistice must have specified when U.S. troops would leave Iraq. Perhaps. But that was only after American objectives had been accomplished entirely. Kudlow, I imagine, makes exceptions for wars with clear victors (at least as long as America never loses), which means he must think that there's a difference between the success of the  first Gulf War and the success of the second one. I concur.

Saddam Hussein, however, did agree to a Soviet-proposed cease-fire agreement that required him to withdraw his troops to their pre-Kuwait-invasion positions within three weeks. This shows an interesting willingness on the part of the now-deceased Iraqi dictator to act more sensibly than Larry Kudlow, who, if we take him at the meaning of his words, seems to think that losing-wars should never end.