And so the fall Senate session shifts into gear as the senior Senator from New York, Charles Schumer, takes to the floor after the August recess and gives his assessment of the surge in Iraq.  Here's the nub of what Schumer said in his 10 minute address to his anti-war fringe and, for that matter, the remnants of al Qaeda that have been getting wiped out in Iraq over the last four months.

And let me be clear, the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda said to these tribes we have to fight al Qaeda ourselves. It wasn't that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace here. And that is because there was no one else there protecting.

Get it? Schumer is saying that the Bush-Petraeus plan is such a failure that the tribal sheiks had to take matters into their own hands because our military was so inept.  Our military had nothing to do with clearing out al Qaeda out of Ramadi and Baquba, news that will I'm sure come as quite a surprise to the brave men and women who distinctly remember things a little differently, having flushed out al Qaeda and all. 

But what Schumer says is important, because it telegraphs the tack that the Democrats are going to take in days and weeks ahead.  The Democrats have the same view of the military that they do of all Americans.  The average American, according to the liberal view, cannot make it on their own without government programs, regulation or control.  The same holds true for the military.  They cannot possibly get it right if they are led by a conservative commander-in-chief.  

Not only is Schumer calling the American military incompetent, he's calling them liars, as well.  Here's what General Petraeus had to say about Anbar on Hugh's show in July:

But the detention, or the capture or killing of the number of leaders that we have taken out in recent months, and weeks, actually, and the progress in terms of just clearing areas of them…as you know, Anbar Province has really become quite relatively clear of al Qaeda. Eastern Anbar still has some, and we are working in that area. We have recently cleared Western Baquba, which was almost al Qaeda central, the capitol of the new caliphate that they have tried to establish here in Iraq. So there has been considerable progress against them...

About a month later, Major General James Simmons, deputy commanding general for Multi-National Forces in Iraq, had the following to say about al-Anbar Province:

Well, the operation that you’re talking about that I mentioned the other day was Operation Lightning Hammer which was conducted by MND-North [Multi-National Division-North], which is headquartered out of Hawaii, the 25^th Infantry Division commanded by Major General Randy Mixon. They conducted a 12-day, large scale operation in Diyala to disrupt al Qaeda and other terrorist elements that are operating in the Diyala River Valley. And the operation went into the process of clearing about fifty villages and palm groves. It was a very successful operation, resulted in 26 al Qaeda members being killed, and 37 of them detained, 10 very large weapons caches were taken down in the process of this operation that went on there north and east of Baqubah.  

So this didn't happen, according to Chuck Schumer.  Generals Petraeus and Simmons are liars.  Sunni and Shia warlords got tired of our troops spinning their wheels while building up the surge size and chased out al Qaeda themselves.  

Ed Gillespie, Counselor to the President and present in al-Anbar over the weekend, told Hugh in an interview today that these same tribal sheiks that Schumer is calling warlords told President Bush that yes, they once fought against multi-national forces, but now have fought side by side with our forces to root out al Qaeda.  

Schumer's attitude towards the military, and the contempt in which he holds them, needs to be remembered as we approach November, '08.  There is one party that respects the military and appreciates the service they provide to all of us, and there is one party that uses them as a political tool, and are willing to completely rewrite history to deny any good the military does in order to make political gains.  Which one are you going to vote for?