TheReligionofPeace - The 2006 Democrats: What Next?

A 'TheReligionofPeace.com' Exclusive:

The Democrats Return to Power... What Next?

Want to know what the Democrats will do about Islamic terror? Better keep that Magic 8-Ball handy, because they aren't saying.

Glen Reinsford

[TROP Note: A lot of our American readers happen to be very sensible Democrats and may not be pleased with this article (which is NOT a political endorsement, by the way). We value you and apologize in advance for any hurt feelings. Please appreciate that we do keep our political opinions bottled up most of time, but we can't help the occasional stumble - particularly so close to an election.]

It is said that immediately following 9/11 the Republicans in America acted like Republicans and so did Democrats. The opposition party then spent a few awkward months waving the flag and searching for relevance before getting spanked in straight elections. Americans were in no mood for a return to the days when friendly governments overseas were ceded to the enemy, nuclear-seeking dictatorships were appeased, and terror attacks both at home and abroad were considered legal matters. Neither had the Democrats done themselves any favors with a history of championing litigious restraints on the intelligence community and applying downward pressure to defense budgets.

But, after five years of wandering in the wilderness, the Democrats are back! The party of Mel Reynolds and Ted Kennedy is now campaigning on family values and widely expected to trounce the identity-challenged Republican Party in November to take full control of Congress en route to regaining the White House in 2008. The country will be under a Democratic agenda in a time of war for the first time since Jimmy Carter stood in the breach and stared down the Soviets (in theory, at least).

Unfortunately, no one has any idea of what a Democratic victory means.

The problem is that the Democrats have become quite skilled at not telling Americans what they will do when they take power. How will they fight the war on Islamic terror? Do they renounce the appeasement policies of the past or will they reinstate them? More troops… less troops…? In what condition will they leave Iraq?

As in 2004, when the Iraq war was the centerpiece of a John Kerry campaign that somehow managed to say nothing substantive about its own plans for the conflict, Americans are left guessing at what viable national security alternatives the Democrats may or may not have up their sleeves.

Some of us argue that the Democrats won’t put political correctness before security this time around or hand the battle against terrorism back over to lawyers. Others argue that they will. Some insist that the party will be forced by its own rhetoric to junk the Bush Administration’s national defense policy, which Democrats have labeled a “miserable failure” (though it seems to be successful by at least one measure). Others rhetorically ask just when the party of Gerry Studds and Bill Clinton ever seemed deterred by plain hypocrisy.

The real problem, of course, is that the voters are forced to debate intangibles on the very critical issue of security, since the Democrats offer us little more than esoteric vocabulary such as “redoubled efforts”, “sensitive war”, and “reaching out.” Instead of spelling out alternatives, the political strategy is based on a visceral appeal – encouraging voters to ask themselves whether they “feel safer” (in a post-9/11 world in which no one feels safer). Paradoxically, the DNC embraced Michael Moore in 2004, after he famously claimed that “there is no terrorist threat.”

The party’s published “Plan for Security,” where one might expect to find answers, is long on rhetoric and shockingly short on specifics. It is little more than a series of sound-bites – which is understandable given that it was designed from polling data. Setting aside the issue of whether national security should be subject to public opinion, Americans at least deserve to know the actual changes that Democrats intend to deliver when they take power.

With regard to Iraq, for example, some Democrats, such as Charles Rangel, have openly advocated reinstating the military draft. This would mean making American males between the ages of 18 and 26 eligible for combat regardless of their own personal preference. John Kerry recently implied in a speech to college students that if they didn't "study hard" they might find themselves "stuck in Iraq." Other Democrats have stayed largely silent on the matter, refusing to either denounce or affirm any such plans.

Not counting the Carter and Clinton debacles in the Iranian desert and Mogadishu respectively, the last time that a Democratic Commander-in-Chief led in a time of major combat operations was during the escalation of the Vietnam War, when Lyndon Johnson personally handpicked bombing targets (with disastrous consequences). Have Democrats learned their lesson about micromanaging battle from the Oval Office? Will they allow the generals to run the war? A less than stellar past on the part of America’s future leaders means that they probably owe the people more than just a slogan.

There are other questions. Will the Democrats do for Iraq and the Middle East what they did for Southeast Asia after taking power following the 1974 elections? Will they take the sort of firm stand against Islamic radicals that Reagan did against the Communists to win the Cold War? Or will they be more inclined to sympathize with and trust the enemy, as was the case in the 1970’s and 80’s, and with North Korea in 1994?

And then there’s the criticism. It’s quite easy to snipe around the edges of current policy, particularly with the benefit of hindsight and focus groups, but this is hardly a substitute for true leadership. It isn’t much of an exaggeration to say that elected Democrats have contributed nothing to the war on Islamic terror thus far other than negative critique, demoralization and burden. Their language has easily been more inspiring to America’s enemies than her soldiers. (The most visible exception was Joe Lieberman, but his 'tough on terror' stance earned him a dramatic fall from grace within his own party).

The consequences of persistent criticism may run deeper than most people realize. Although the Republicans are certainly not above Monday morning quarterbacking either, the Democrats are disadvantaged by having spent the first five years of the war on terror on the sidelines, trying to capitalize on each and every misstep that could possibly be construed. In other words, they have a lot invested in the concept of perfect war.

Yet, the only perfect war is the one never attempted. Terrorists were not engaged on the battlefield as they should have been in the 1990’s, when al-Qaeda publicly declared war on America and backed it up with progressively bolder attacks on U.S. targets. Both the Democrats and Republicans put off joining the war until after the enemy made it impossible to ignore.

The Clinton administration chose its battles carefully at the time. Freedom, democracy and human rights were important enough to commit U.S. troops overseas, but only in places like Haiti, Bosnia and Somalia, where friendly casualties would be as small as any long-term significance. Democrats at the time did not feel that they had the moral authority to act meaningfully, such as stopping real genocide in Africa or taking out Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Somalia itself was abandoned after the loss of a handful of Americans, and has now become an Islamic state with al-Qaeda ties.

One would expect this to change, given that Americans are far more aware of the imminent threat that radical Islam poses to the West - and expect their government to defend them militarily. This could motivate Democrats into taking the tough (ie. unpopular) measures necessary to accomplish this, but their own comprehensive criticism of current policy – which leaves no room for error – almost certainly means an aversion to taking the sort of risks that are unavoidable when confronting an enemy that has not the slightest regard for human life in a conflict that is already accepted as morally-asymmetrical.

The problem, again, is that Democrats are deliberately nonspecific about their plans. What will happen when the “man in the arena” is finally brought down by the critics in the gallery, who then find themselves in charge? In this case, Americans can only guess.

Obviously there are Democrats who love their country and are deeply concerned about protecting her citizens. Others are not as patriotic. It is unfortunate that in recent decades the Democrats rarely find themselves on the opposite side of any foreign policy issue from overseas elements that openly hate America. Less than half of Democrats, in fact, agree that the United States is a fair and decent nation. Fewer still believe that other countries should be like America. Critics charge that – at the very least – this lack of patriotic confidence could translate into a reduced willingness to make hard choices simply for fear of provoking international criticism.

Still, it would be foolish to say (as some fools do) that Democrats “want” to undermine national security. Certainly there are radical constituents within the party (such as those calling for a ‘Department of Peace’) but there is every reason to believe that the mainstream Democratic leadership will want to act in the best interest of Americans when they do take effective control next month and formal power in 2008. In fact, there will be a strong and instinctive motivation to prevent terror attacks on U.S. soil, since the alternative would have catastrophic political consequences.

The debate instead should focus on the decisions that Democrats intend to make once in power and what effect this will have both to overseas stability and domestic vulnerability. What alternatives do they intend? Will they affirm or renounce their own past policies of appeasement and procrastination? Will they make the sacrifice for Iraq and the Arab world, or abandon the mission? Will terrorists be encouraged or discouraged by the decisions that Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, Hillary Clinton and the rest of America’s future leaders intend to make on behalf of America in the battle against Islamic aggression?

Regretfully, Americans are denied the ability to have a meaningful debate over these questions, because Democrats have declined to provide the necessary specifics. The slogans say nothing at all about what they will actually do when they take power. But don’t blame Democrats. All politicians say only as little as they need to ensure 51% of the vote. The Democrats are savvy enough to know that defining their proposal for protecting America and fighting Islamic terror will either affirm the current policy or invite the sort of critique that they would prefer to see focused only on their opponents.

Surprisingly, the voters are not demanding to know what the Democrats are unwilling to say. Unfortunately, we all have to live with the consequences of that… whatever they may be.

Glen Reinsford is a disgruntled (ex-?)Democrat and the author of Age of Tolerance: a Novel of Alternate History from Al to Allah. (The 'Al' is Al Gore).