Fighting enemies without, and within

Fighting enemies without, and within
By Martin L. Gross
Published September 22, 2006

The coming November election may well be the most important political contest of our history.
It is surely the most significant election since Lincoln's second term race in 1864 against the Democratic candidate, failed Union Gen. George B. McClellan, who sought a compromise peace with the slaveholding Confederacy.
Lincoln took only 55 percent of the vote, and even lost New Jersey to the appeaser. Had McClellan won, America might today be half slave and half free, and history would have sadly been turned on its head.
This November, we face another decisive contest, one in which the Democratic Party again threatens the security of the United States. Once more, the Democrats seek a so-called peace based on isolationism and defeatism.
Should the Democrats take the House in November, California's Nancy Pelosi will become House speaker, and our security will be subordinate to partisan politics.
Domestically, the Democratic Party intends to repeal the Patriot Act. This will surely dilute our terrorist intelligence, which has been largely responsible for the miraculous record of not suffering a single attack since September 11, 2001. Internationally, the consequences will be as tragic, and perhaps more so.
The best that can be said for the Democrats' foreign policy is that it is naive, even foolish. At worst, it aims to weaken our security and reduce America's role in the world, making it subservient to a United Nations controlled by China and Russia.
The Democrats do not want to understand the importance of a victory in Iraq. True, we did not find the weapons of mass destruction world intelligence believed we would. But now that we are there, victory is essential for geopolitical stability and to win the war against Muslim extremism. If we leave Iraq prematurely, as Democrats Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Carl Levin, John Murtha, Barbara Boxer, et al., insist, we will face unimagined dire consequences.
A bloody religious civil war will break out between the Sunnis and Shi'ities. Iran will intervene on behalf of their fellow Shi'ities, and once victorious in America's absence, will take virtual control of Iraq. As the new power in the region, they will even threaten our strategic place in Afghanistan.
What will the Democrats do? Only offer more defeatism and isolationism to play to the fears of the American people.
Iran is the ultimate enemy. With the Democrats controlling the purse strings in the House, America will be powerless to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. How will the president receive congressional approval for action to destroy Iran's nuclear sites before it is too late? Must he risk impeachment to defend America?
Democratic control of the House will halt American security in its tracks. Already, a California Democratic congresswoman is calling for surrender, claiming the administration is exaggerating the Iranian nuclear threat.
It is a surreal scenario, but one we must face with the threat of a Democratic victory in November
But what of the once-magnificent Democratic Party of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy that successfully fought World War II, then the Cold War? What of the great bipartisan alliance of Democrats with Republicans Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush the elder that defeated the cruel Soviet Union? That is all ancient history as a new, dangerous Democratic Party has evolved to bedevil us.
That began in the 1950s, when I was a leader of the Stevenson movement in the Democratic Party. The discouraged left decided that to survive they had to infiltrate and take over the party. That was accelerated in the 1960s with the hippie/left dissent that rocked the nation. By 1972, the takeover of the party machinery was complete, culminating in the Democratic presidential nomination of George McGovern -- a man who planned to fight the Soviet Union by lowering America's defense budget by 30 percent.
Since then, we have had two Democratic Party presidents: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, both weak on national defense.
Mr. Carter gave the shah his walking papers, facilitating return of the terrorist fanatic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni to power in Iran. Mr. Clinton turned the other cheek as terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, then killed our soldiers in Saudi Arabia, then bombed the USS Cole, only responding foolishly with a handful of cruise missiles against a country that harbored thousands of terrorists.
The new Democratic Party uses its activist primaries to ensure only isolationists receive the party's congressional nominations. Witness the primary defeat of liberal veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman by leftist Ned Lamont in Connecticut.
We now face a Democratic Party that does not wish America well. Proof positive? In 1991, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the world rose in anger against the Iraqi dictator. The U.N. voted for action and scores of nations pledged troops -- including even Arab Syria and Egypt -- to help America free Kuwait.
Back home, what did the Democratic Party do? In the Senate, on the vote to endorse that first Gulf war, the great majority of Democratic senators defied the civilized world and voted against that vital campaign.
Unlike the Democrats, the Republican Party is patriotic. But it is not pristine. The working class has not done as well as possible in the last six years. And Washington Republicans have disgraced themselves with a spending deluge.
But if the people vote their frustrations with Iraq or their pocketbooks, we will once again be threatened with disaster. We cannot afford another George McGovern, or even another George McClellan, if we are to safeguard America and continue our destiny of making the world a better place.

Martin L. Gross is the author of the best-seller, the "Government Racket: Washington Waste from A to Z," and a former official of the Democratic Party. He is now writing a book on that party since World