At the Water's Edge

In thinking about this posting I realized that I have a third goal to add to my justification for making yet another blog: to persuade the American left to return to a more moderate position, to come back to it's senses. I realize that this might result in more Democratic political victories but it is a price I would consider worth paying just to have both political parties on the same side against the determined and increasingly dangerous enemies we face in the world outside our borders.

Ever since Vietnam liberals have found it nearly impossible to see any US military action as a positive or necessary thing. Thus they view every war or intervention through the prism of their version of the Vietnam conflict. They have tried so hard to make the Iraq struggle Vietnam redux. They did the same with Afghanistan and the first Gulf War. Even non-military actions, such as the sanctions against Iraq before 9/11/01, often came under fire.

I don't believe that Democratic politicians are unaware or unconcerned about the serious threat we face in the combination of the struggle in Iraq, the two-headed menace of Iran and Al Qaeda and the complicity of Syria, Russia, China and North Korea. Not to mention the Balkans, the Sudan, Somalia, Palestine, Hugo "El Mono" Chavez in Venezuela, FARC in Colombia etc. etc. etc. And I'm sure my liberal friends are indeed patriotic for the most part. But to put it bluntly, I think that the Democrats are putting partisan political strategy above national security and above the obligation we have as a prosperous, powerful and (hopefully) moral democracy to help people out there struggling against terror and tyranny. It is getting extremely dangerous to have a nation so divided against itself.

Please read this linked speech by Joe Lieberman, pleading with his own party to cut it out. Here's an excerpt.

. . [T]here is something profoundly wrong--something that should trouble all of us--when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran's murder of our troops, than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.

There is likewise something profoundly wrong when we see candidates who are willing to pander to this politically paranoid, hyper-partisan sentiment in the Democratic base--even if it sends a message of weakness and division to the Iranian regime.