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| Democrats' silence on jihad is deadly |
| 2007-01-24 |
| By Jeff Jacoby The surge is underway, and more rapidly than many of us were expecting. The influx of new troops into Iraq? No, of candidates into the 2008 presidential contest. So far this month, Senators Hillary Clinton of New York, Barack Obama of Illinois, and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, plus Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico -- Democrats all -- have formally launched White House campaigns (or "exploratory committees"). Already in the race were former senators John Edwards of North Carolina and Mike Gravel of Alaska, former governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa, and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Eight Democrats, eight would-be commanders-in-chief -- all running for president in a time of war. So which of them, on getting into the race, had this to say about the nature of the enemy confronting us? "We are engaged in a war against an axis of Islamists, extremists, and terrorists. It is an axis of evil. It has headquarters in Tehran and Waziristan. But because of the unconventional nature of this war, it also has headquarters in cities throughout Europe and Asia and Africa and the United States of America, in cells that operate in the shadows but are prepared to strike us again as they did on September 11th, 2001. "The enemy we are fighting is . . . totalitarian. It is inhumane. It has a violent ideology and a goal of expansionism and totalitarianism. It threatens our security, our values, our way of life as seriously, in my opinion, as fascism and communism did in the last century." Can't match that assessment of the global jihad with the Democratic candidate who uttered it? Don't feel bad; it was a trick question. Those words were actually spoken by Senator Joseph Lieberman at a forum on Iraq this month. Lieberman shared the podium with GOP colleague John McCain, who was no less blunt in his evaluation of the war and its stakes. For McCain, a Republican presidential hopeful, the struggle against the Islamists is the paramount issue of the day. His campaign website, while spare, highlights a recent speech in which McCain called stopping radical Islam "our most important moral obligation." He described the jihadists as "moral monsters but . . . also a disciplined, dedicated movement driven by an apocalyptic religious zeal, which celebrates martyrdom and murder." Sounding nearly as resolute is former governor Mitt Romney, whose campaign website puts "Defeating the Jihadists" first in its list of key campaign issues. "The jihadists are waging a global war against the United States and its allies," Romney is quoted as saying, "with the ambition of replacing legitimate governments with a caliphate -- a theocracy." Speaking in Israel yesterday, Romney asserted that "a central purpose of NATO should be to defeat radical Islam," through means both military and ideological. The Democratic candidates, by contrast, are virtually silent on the subject. Barack Obama launched his exploratory committee with an online video that mentioned the economy, healthcare, vanishing pensions, college costs, and the fractiousness of partisan politics. His only nod to national security was a passing reference to the war in Iraq, which he opposes. But 9/11 and its aftermath? The worldwide jihad? The global conflict between democratic freedom and Taliban-style repression? Not a word. Hillary Clinton's highly praised kickoff video likewise included nothing about the overriding threat of our time. Her website does contain a speech she gave at the Council on Foreign Relations last October, but it is filled with vague rhetoric about diplomacy and international conferences and how we must address the "troubled conditions terrorists seek out." New Yorkers don't need to be told "that we are in a war against terrorists who seek to do us harm," Clinton says. But if she recognizes that the future of the civilized world depends on winning that war, she shows little sign of it. What is true of Obama and Clinton is more or less true of Edwards, Richardson, and the others. The Democrats seem prepared to emulate John Kerry, who insisted in 2004 that "we have to get back to the place we were" before 9/11. Back, that is, to treating Islamist terrorism not as "the focus of our lives," but merely as "a nuisance" that we need "to reduce" -- like gambling, he said, or prostitution. Heading into the 2008 campaign, our political universe is still divided. On one side are those who see the Islamists as a nuisance to be controlled. On the other: those who regard them as an existential enemy to be destroyed. On the relative strength of those two camps, the next election may well depend. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #10 Yeah, and BTW, Mike, who'd miss Dearborn? Actually, I think that (some) of the nominees would react to Mike's hypothetical in the appropriate manner. If we got nuked, I don't think even Hillary could contain the "American Street." But, shortly thereafter, all would be forgotten, and she'd work hard to turn it back into a law enforcement issue. |
| Posted by: BA 2007-01-24 20:16 |
| #9 I think the Global War on Terror is important, I say, let's have a discussion. |
| Posted by: Hillary Clinton 2007-01-24 19:09 |
| #8 what Dave D said. |
| Posted by: RD 2007-01-24 18:20 |
| #7 "I think she says what she thinks she needs to say to get and keep power. She may well have convictions and principles beyond naked self-interest, but I don't know what they are and neither do you." I find that notion that anyone could take anything Hillary Clinton says at face value, to be utterly bogglesome. I simply can't comprehend naivete of that magnitude. Hillary will say whatever her calculations tell her she needs to say to get the reaction she wants. "If something truly awful happens on her watch--say, a mushroom cloud over Dearborn or Tel Aviv--I can't be confident she'd respond in a proper fashion because I don't know what would be guiding her thinking. She may not even know what she'd do." Best indication of what she'd do would be what her husband did following the 1993 WTC bombing: treat the attack as a criminal act-- and ONLY a criminal act-- and sic the FBI on the perpetrators. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2007-01-24 17:57 |
| #6 Good discussion going on here. 'Hawk, echoing some comments I made over in the If I could believe Hillary means what she says, I probably still wouldn't vote for her, but I wouldn't consider the prospect of a Hillary presidency too disturbing. The key word in that previous sentence is "if"--given the history of the Clinton administration, I don't think I can trust her. I think she says what she thinks she needs to say to get and keep power. She may well have convictions and principles beyond naked self-interest, but I don't know what they are and neither do you. If something truly awful happens on her watch--say, a mushroom cloud over Dearborn or Tel Aviv--I can't be confident she'd respond in a proper fashion because I don't know what would be guiding her thinking. She may not even know what she'd do. |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-01-24 16:32 |
| #5 hold on to the center while winning the left? Geez, thats where you guys come in. Hillary runs to the center (thats shes not moving further left than she is even know confirms that) All you hard right folks are gonna go on and on about Hitlery, Socialized Medicine, Whitewater, etc. Rush Limbaugh starts shouting. The left, as much as they dont like Hilary, cant control themselves when y'all start going on like that. They wont be able to sit home. It will hurt too much. At least thats my hope. I also think rank and file liberal voters simply dont relate to things the same way leftie bloggers and so forth do. Most of them dont know what the hell the DLC is, or keep track of every subtle twist of foreign policy. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2007-01-24 15:39 |
| #4 liberalhawk would hold the honourable Senator's feet to the fire on all aspects of the war on terror, which would prove very interesting. A pity he's a mere working slob like the rest of us. Unfortunately, I don't see any possibility that Senator Clinton can hold on to both the left wing of her party and win the center in the general election. Hopefully this is the election in which the Democrats finally choose between their rabid Progressives and their more reality-based center-left constituencies that the rest of us can live with.... and finally jettison the frothing ones. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-01-24 13:52 |
| #3 Clinton/liberalhawk 2008 *giggle* :-) |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-01-24 10:39 |
| #2 from Clinton's monday night webcast Well, they're very important to me as well. There's nothing more important, and you know, ever since I became a Senator from New York, your state and mine, I have worried about 9/11 and terrorism and Afghanistan and Iraq. I have said many times that, if we had known then, when the president came to the Congress to ask for authority to pursue what he said would be an effort to contain Saddam Hussein and put inspectors in to make sure that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction, if we had known everything that we now know, the president would never have asked for such authority, and the Congress would never have voted to give it to him. And I certainly would not have voted to do so. But all these years later, we are faced with a very dangerous situation, and what I've tried to focus on, starting, you know, shortly after the invasion, when I began pointing out the problem saw and raising questions about the policy that was being pursued from my position on the armed Armed Services Committee, we have to make better decisions now than this President was made in the past. That's why I went again, my third trip to Afghanistan and Iraq last weekend, and I tried to make my own assessment. And when I returned, I reaffirmed my opposition to the President's strategy of escalation, putting March American troops into Baghdad, into Iraq. Instead, I think we should cap the number of troops, and we should begin to put real conditions on the Iraqi government. I've said, look, I don't want to cut money for American troops. I've been to too many events and places like our military hospital in Germany, where I stopped on the way back, where I met with our wounded servicemen and women. I don't want to do anything that in any way undercuts their ability to protect themselves and to do what they need to do in the combat arenas where they are being placed. But I do think we should threaten to cut the funding for the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police force and the security for the Iraqi leaders, which we pay for, unless they make some of the decisions that we've been expecting them to make for a number of years. I don't understand why this president has given them such a blank check, and I think we need to make clear there is no open-ended commitment. We need a phased redeployment of our troops. We need to try to bring them home as safely and as soon as it is possible. But let me add that America does have some remaining very vital security interests. The Al Qaeda in Iraq, they weren't there before, they are there now. They pose a threat not only to our troops in Iraq but to our friends in the region and even to us here at home. We have to make sure we do everything we can to try to prevent them from using their horrendous terrorist tactics against Americans and against other innocent people. We also need to try to prevent Iran from expanding its influence in Iraq and in the region. And prevent its continuing effort to obtain a nuclear weapon which would be so dangerous not only to the region but also to Israel and our country and really to the stability of the world. So, yes, I would certainly, you know, wish that we didn't have the situation we face now, but I'm going to continue to do what I can to try to be as responsible as possible to get our troops home but also to deal with the dangers that have been unleashed there. LH note - I personally think its worth giving Maliki a last chance, and so I support the surge. However her reasons for opposing it are not irrational, not indicative that she doesnt care about winning the WOT. Her position on Iran is right on, and indicates a better understanding of the conflict she will like face as President than many have. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2007-01-24 09:49 |
| #1 New Yorkers don't need to be told "that we are in a war against terrorists who seek to do us harm," Clinton says. Apparently they do. Even the Biblical kick in the teeth of 9/11 was not enough to make these bastards pull their heads out of their asses. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2007-01-24 09:28 |