Unravelling The New World Order

November 10, 2003

While a large percentage of Americans believe that our U.S. military in Iraq are working diligently to achieve victory in an extremely difficult and unpredictable war on terrorism, the Democrat leadership continues to whine that President Bush has not devised an exit strategy.  Most sensible Americans understand that it would be counterproductive to focus on an exit strategy before the people of Iraq are ready—and able—to govern themselves.  In my opinion, this “exit strategy now” harangue on the part of the Democrats is like suggesting that we should devise a strategy for jumping off a train that is rocketing along the track at 150 miles per hour! 

I loved Ann Coulter’s article, “The Democrats’ Plan to Lose The War” (9-11-03, FrontPageMagazine.com).  In that article, Ms. Coulter skewers the Democrats for their blind and unwavering insistence that the UN—an organization so riddled with corruption that it can no longer function in the capacity for which it was designed—could be persuaded to partner with us in an endeavor to bring peace and stability to a nation it had wronged so horribly by its own pathetic failures.

She writes, “None of the Democrats has the guts to come out and demand that U.S. forces turn tail and run when the going gets tough. If only one of them had the courage to demand cowardice like a real Democrat! So instead, they stamp their feet and demand that Bush go to the United Nations. Apparently it is urgent that we replace the best fighting force in the world with an ‘international peacekeeping force,’ i.e., a task force both feared and respected worldwide for its ability to distribute powdered milk to poor children.

“Inconsolable that their pleas to ‘work through’ the U.N. did not stop Bush from invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein, now all the Democrats are eager for the U.N. to get involved so it can wreck the rebuilding process.”

Unilateral Occupation vs. Multinational “Peacekeeping”

“Occupation” (a dirty word in Democratic circles, apparently) is something we have done before, with some remarkably dissimilar results.  The success or failure of these endeavors seemed to depend (amazingly) on the approaches that were used.

Following World War II, the United States ran the Japanese occupation unilaterally. Within five years—and absent the meddling of other nations—Gen. Douglas MacArthur had assisted the Japanese in forging a constitutional democracy (a concept totally alien to the Japanese up to that point) with a bicameral legislature, a bill of rights and an independent judiciary.

In Germany, on the other hand, there was the model of “multinational peacekeeping,” similar no doubt to what the Democrats want to impose on Iraq today (and what they would undoubtedly consider a viable “exit strategy”). The United States, spending the equivalent of $200 billion/year in today’s dollars to bail out Western Europe, was nobly assisted in the occupation by our allies, Britain, France and the Soviet Union—which nations bickered and squabbled while attempting to impose their various ideologies and models of economics.  Such was the resulting chaos that it took 45 years to clean up the torturous mess and bring down the wall that one of our “allies” erected in order to forcibly keep millions of Eastern Europeans from venturing foolishly into the perilous and contemptible world of capitalism—and to prevent nosy Westerners from intruding on the Soviet Union’s working class paradise.

In 1993, we were confronted with horrifying television images of dead American servicemen being dragged past cheering mobs through the streets of Mogadishu. With a typically Clintonesque show of courage and statesmanship, our pot-smoking commander in chief (who dodged the draft and despised the military) responded by withdrawing our troops. Today, the number 18 must be imprinted like a blinking neon exit sign in the minds of our terrorist enemies; that is the number of dead Americans in Somalia that caused the U.S. to cut and run. 

To cut and run this time would be a massive defeat for the forces of order and decency—not just in Iraq, but for the world at large—and a dramatic victory for the forces of evil.  To withdraw before we have secured the victory will only serve to encourage the proliferation of terrorism on a scale greater than before.  On the other hand, if the U.S. succeeds in stabilizing Iraq and eventually gaining that nation as an ally, then Syrian, Iranian and Palestinian terrorists will have no place to hide and American pressure on terrorists everywhere will be greatly enhanced. 

President Bush has vowed that America will stay the course, but he has also observed that that has not been the case in recent decades: “During the last few decades the terrorists grew bolder, believing if they hit America hard, America would retreat and back down.”

No doubt, George W. Bush was referring to al Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, when President Clinton backed down.  No doubt, he referred to al Qaeda’s attack on American troops in Somalia, when President Clinton backed down.  No doubt, he was thinking of the attack on the Khobar Towers, when President Clinton backed down.  No doubt, he referred to the attack on the USS Cole, when President Clinton backed down.

The enemy understands the scope of the battle in which we are now engaged; it is fighting for its life in Iraq.  The enemy is not seeing our leadership backing down and they are not seeing us running away.  But they still believe, based on past experience, that by sabotaging the peace in Iraq, they will be able to intimidate America and force our retreat.

Sadly for our nation, the Democratic leadership in America is conducting its own campaign of sabotage against the President of the United States—and against our fighting forces in Iraq as well, because it is their Commander in Chief who is under daily attack here at home.  It is a black day for America when one of its ruling parties cannot be counted on to support our Commander in Chief when we are engaged in war—especially, a war that is a response to a brutal, blood-thirty aggressor who actively supported terrorism against the United States and demonstrated a capability to develop, and a will to use, weapons of mass destruction.

The current Democrat leadership, to its everlasting shame, has engaged in political profiteering at a time when courageous Americans are putting their lives in harm’s way every day. These brave Americans understand what is at stake in Iraq—and what is at stake in America if we lack the courage to finish what we have undertaken. 

Unless the Democrats put aside their vicious attacks on the President and get behind the effort to bring stability and freedom to Iraq, they may have squandered their last hope that the American people will ever again be willing to hand the reins of power back to them.  They will be, as Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) has already dubbed them in his book by that name, “A National Party No More.”