Democrats- Desperate for Defeat -Summer Soldiers

Desperate for Defeat

By George Neumayr
Published 11/22/2005 12:09:47 AM

The foreign policy of the Democratic Party verges on deliberate defeatism: afraid of American "dominance" in the world, many Democrats would prefer that America tie wars than win them. Because they would like to see America put in its place -- this isn't an overstatement; just listen to the Democrats' constant complaints about America's lone "superpower" status -- their contribution to the war effort is defined by deep ambivalence. They don't necessarily want their country to lose, but they are not so sure if they want it to win either. They often define this ambivalence as "patriotism": we're henpecking and sapping American military morale for the country's own good, they'll say, lest it become too "arrogant."

As they did during the Cold War, the Democrats see their role in the war on terrorism as that of harsh, inflexible monitors of their own country. "Patriotism" thus translates into endless temporizing, moral equivalence, and a campaign to place suicidal limitations on their country's military leadership. All of this is accompanied by a gross lack of proportion and perspective and a dilettantish indifference to the consequences of a lost war.

Democrats will tell the military to fight with one arm tied behind its back from the comfortable spot of standing behind it. From this safe vantage point, they can offer up such fine sentiments as: although a "democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand." (Al Gore, quoting someone else, used that line in a speech.) Democrats love this high-minded and windy talk, especially since someone else is doing the difficult work of preventing terrorists from cutting off their hands.

It is striking how black-and-white, how totally lacking in empathy, Democrats become when their own country's military soldiers, who are operating under very tricky circumstances, are under discussion. The Democrats' weakness for "situation ethics" suddenly disappears and they become know-it-alls on the moral particulars of military life. Certain acts are intrinsically wrong, they thunder, even as they argue in every other context that no such acts exist.

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Summer Soldiers

By JOHN O'NEILL
November 21, 2005


Senator Kerry, supposedly defending Rep. John Murtha, said, "I won't stand for the Swift-Boating of Jack Murtha!" As one of the 254 members of Mr. Kerry's unit in Vietnam who belonged to Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth, I found Mr. Kerry's comments most ironic.

To us, Mr. Kerry's comments meant that no one should do to Mr. Murtha that which Mr. Kerry did to all of us and our fellow Vietnam veterans, living and dead. Mr. Kerry's disgraceful comments on many occasions in 1971 (while we were locked in combat), claiming falsely that we were "murdering" hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and committing rape and mayhem on a daily basis, are a part of the public record for which he has never apologized. This might be called "Kerrying" our soldiers.

Mr. Murtha's distinguished military record does not mean he is not wildly and completely wrong in his pullout proposal. Despite Mr. Murtha's effort to present himself as speaking for our troops, all serious data is to the contrary. Thus, for example, an Army Times poll of October 3, 2004, found Mr. Bush beating Mr. Kerry among active duty troops by 74% to 18%. Other polls were similar. While there are a few active duty or retired personnel like Mr. Murtha on the pullout side, they are not as numerous as, say, Yankee fans in Boston. It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of military personnel simply wish to be left alone by the Kerrys and other politicians to finish a job which they believe is nearly done and which they know the John Kerrys and Nancy Pelosis of Washington are totally incompetent to direct and even understand.

The Democratic Party (notwithstanding its cynical expressions of concern for the same troops it periodically seeks to label as engaged in widespread crime) is regarded with intense distrust by many active duty and retired military personnel. They have been Kerried once too often. It was once the majority party that stopped the Nazis, Fascists, and North Koreans and that in words of a far different Kennedy summoned us "to fight any battle" for freedom. Sadly, the party of Henry Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt has become the party of retreat - from the Iranian Hostage Crisis to the retreat from Mogadishu; to opposition to the 1991 Gulf War; to the failure to avenge the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the USS Cole bombing or the murder of our own troops and embassy personnel around the world. Indeed, this past Thursday night, the nation watched the bizarre spectacle of a Democratic Party speaking in favor of immediate withdrawal but too afraid to even cast a vote recording for posterity these convictions. And the drift from American values to the party of Mr. Kerry and Michael Moore has been matched by its shrinking base. Recent polls, for example, show vastly lower approval ratings - in the low 20s - for Congressional Democrats than even the low rating of Mr. Bush. As for many veterans and military personnel, they remember well the politicians who voted to send us to war then "Kerried" us while we were locked in combat, dishonoring both our service and our dead.

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