Democrats Up The Ante; Republicans Fold

One of my legion of liberal friends has been - as he likes to remind me at least once per fiscal quarter - steadfastly opposed to the Iraq War. Not that he's got much use for fiscal quarters, being a Socialist and all, but then again, Democrats have for my entire life made use of that which is useful in our Capitalist society without embracing Capitalism, in much the same way that Communists the world over have embraced the 12 month calendar without embracing, well, Catholicism.

But I digress.

My buddy is an equal opportunity Opposer. In addition to Iraq, he has also courageously opposed the war in Afghanistan, the Bosnian conflict, the liberation of Kosovo, intervention in Darfur, Viet Nam, Korea, World Wars I & II, the Spanish American war, the Civil war, the Revolutionary war, Leno vs. Letterman and Shaq vs. Kobe.

He also believes George W. Bush personally piloted the plane that hit the Pentagon on 911, but that's him.

For my entire life, the Democrat's strategy in debating the great issues of the day has been to establish in the Public's mind some indisputable reference point that we all agree upon. Some undeniable truth; some conventional wisdom; something we all believe or that we were taught in school. Things like "the deficit is a debt that we owe to ourselves", or "Cuba has the best Health Care system in the world", or "Robert Bork would return Jim Crow", and my personal favorite "Dick Cheney is the personification of evil".

Believe me, folks, Democrats - like Jimmy Durante - have "got a million of 'em" when it comes to universal truths. Take for instance, the reason we got into the Iraq War, or what Democrats call the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" argument. Democrats claim there were no WMD, and further more, that "everybody knows it". With that little bit of self-delusion, America bought in and lurched to the left. Now, most Americans oppose our Iraq mission, never mind that it is the most excellent advancement of Freedom and Liberty since Ronald Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union and freed all of Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, the Caucasus, and dozens of other nations under the thumb of the Evil Empire.

Let us first address the most common misconceptions implanted by Democrats and their Media Toadies in the nation's brainpan since 911:

Bush accused Iraq of involvement in 911

This never happened in any plausible way, shape or form. George W indicted the whole of radical Islam for 911, and set his sights on Afghanistan. He was - if anything - overcautious of blaming Iraq. He correctly targeted as his starting point the Taliban since they provided the majority training for Al Qaeda and other terrorists groups, defeated them in Afghanistan and moved on from there. The next logical target was then the only known and active purveyor of WMD in the Middle East, Saddam's Iraq.

Absent any statements from the Bush Administration attempting to link Saddam to 911 (since there were none) one could plausibly argue that it was The Media that was responsible for conflating the separate causes of 911 and the elimination of WMD held (or pursued) by terrorist regimes. Ironically, we now know that there was a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, notwithstanding that Bush never made the argument. It turns out Iraq did harbor and fund a number of 911 conspirators, and offered financial aid to other countries more directly involved, such as Sudan. We also know that Saddam put aside his disagreements with Bin Laden in order to foster Al Qaeda as a resource that would benefit the aims of the Baathists. None of that mattered to the Democrats. They won the rhetorical battle before the facts came out, a strategy that they would employ throughout the war to discredit the Bush Administration.

There were no Weapons Of Mass Destruction

Well, yes, there were. Lest we forget, Saddam used them to kill tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers, and thousands of his own civilians. The Iran/Iraq war and whole villages of dead men, women, children, dogs and livestock are stark testament to the fact that Saddam had WMD, used WMD, and likely retained the stockpiles and capability after the first Gulf War. Upon occupying Iraq after the Second Gulf War, the military also found hundreds of discarded or stockpiled chemical weapons over the course of the war.

Democrats then upped the ante by claiming that we had to find pristine stockpiles and functioning weapons labs in order to justify Saddam as a dispenser of WMD. This is the classic example of Democrats establishing a standard of proof so burdensome as to be next to impossible to satisfy, and yet another example of the nefarious things they do to hogtie America and discredit the motives of those who would defend it.

Did they really expect Saddam to leave functioning weapons labs or stockpiles of weapons to be discovered by our invading forces? Hussein was secretive, after all, and lest we forget, we granted him an eight month interval between the War resolution in 2002 and our invasion in 2003. Exactly how much time would Democrats have liked to give Saddam to dispose of the evidence before we invaded?

They also conveniently forgot that Saddam's ten year shell game with U.N. weapons inspectors was the major justification for the Bush Administration's claim that Saddam retained both chemical stockpiles and capability. That decade long fiasco made the West a laughingstock, emboldening terrorists the world over. In retrospect, Democrats now proclaim that Saddam played hide and seek only to sustain the impression that he had WMD capability so as not to lose stature in the Middle East. So what? Compliance with U.N. mandates meant revealing all of his capabilities. He didn't, and thus, deserved to be overthrown. Were it otherwise, the standard that Democrats would have the world adhere to would now force us to abandon all military plans against Iran and Korea, so long as they can successfully hide their capabilities from the world.

Sounds like a prescription for nuclear blackmail, and perhaps even Armageddon, but Democrats excel at burying their heads in the ground, particularly when it comes to facing the consequences of their treasonous actions. Suspension of disbelief is not only a prerequisite for being a Democrat, it is - in conjunction with a compliant Media - the most effective weapon in their propaganda arsenal.

Another classic example of this phenomenon was when some Administration officials (and other commentators) speculated that Saddam might have shipped his WMD and infrastructure out of the country. Democrats and the Media immediately declared it implausible, and a desperate ex post facto attempt by the Bushies to explain the lack of evidence of WMD. By why, indeed, was such an argument ever implausible?

All of the chemicals and equipment necessary for building an arsenal capable of killing millions can be carried on two flat bed trailers. Not only is it likely that all the evidence was either buried or transported out of the country (probably to Syria), it is a veritable certainty. To believe otherwise is to believe in the good intentions and essential honesty of Saddam. To believe in the honesty and good intentions of Saddam is to believe in the Easter Bunny, the Flying Pumpkin, Santa Clause and many other feel-good symbols that defy common sense and human nature; you know, things like Barack Obama's Stimulus plan.

Also absent from Democrat musings on the meaning of the conflict is that Saddam continued to pursue deployment of artillery and missiles whose only purpose was the delivery of chemical weapons. They also discounted the discovery of tens of thousands of chemical weapons suits found by the U.S. after Iraq fell in the Second Gulf War. Again, why have these things if you're not pursuing chemical weapons? The answer is that only evidence contrary to the Bush administration was ever considered by Democrats and The Media. In retrospect, I'm surprised that the Democrats didn't attempt to make more of the argument that the suits were stockpiled in anticipation of an American chemical weapon attack (which some of their number did), a small but hopeful sign that there are limits to the credulity of the American public.

Bush Misled Us

It's interesting to note how quickly the "Us" became not just Democrats and The Media, but the American public as well. Funny thing is, for decades Democrats and Republicans alike had access to exactly the same Intel on Saddam's WMD programs and capabilities, and the Bill Clinton era is replete with Democrats declaring that Saddam not only had WMD, but was intent on using them. It was also the official Clinton policy to pursue "regime change", and Clinton himself bombed Iraq. How then, were Democrats allowed to declare - like some chaste Southern Belle who didn't even know what porn was - that they were shocked, "shocked", at how George W had "misled" them?

The simple answer is that they had gotten away with so many other abuses of truth and history by The Media that they figured they could get away with this one too. And they were right. I've got to tell you, that one still get's them laughing at Democrat Power Broker get-togethers. "Oh my god", Hillary will declare, "I practically peed my pants the first time I said that in public..........AND GOT AWAY WITH IT!"

For decades prior to George W, Democrats made exactly the same arguments about Saddam's WMD capabilities as Republicans did, right up until the point when, well, they didn't. They then cobbled together a couple of Straw Men, the most damaging being their contention that Bush providing as sole proof of Saddam's nuclear ambitions a discredited report from the Italians about Iraq negotiating with Niger on the procurement of uranium ore, with the infamous Joe Wilson (husband of Valerie Plame) claiming that Niger never did any such thing. The other notable Straw Man was the credibility Democrats gave to reports from the notoriously incompetent and corrupt U.N. weapons inspectors tasked to find any WMD that Saddam did not let them find. Democrats presented both of them to butress their "Bush Lied" argument to the World, said "case closed", and just that easily, it was.

We now know that the Italian report was one of dozens reviewed but not cited by the Bush Administration. We also know that much more credible reports - particularly from the British - were completely ignored by the Media. We also know that Niger likely did negotiate with Saddam for uranium ore, and that Wilson actually provided additional evidence to support that conclusion. Finally, we have ample evidence of outright U.N. collaboration with Saddam, with dozens of U.N. officials raking in millions on the Oil-For-Food program even as their so-called objective weapons inspections were taking place.

To me, these are but a few breath-taking instances of The Media allowing Democrats to re-write history and Republicans going along for the ride, surely one of the most cynical actions on the part of Democrats and one of the most incomprehensible on the part of Republicans. It seems that Repub politicians and apologists literally came to believe that an argument was lost if it was sustained from one Media cycle to the next. In other words, the Democrats fought this like a political campaign, and Republicans acquiesced. That left them nothing but to be progressively backed into a rhetorical corner of the Democrat's choosing.

Which brings us to Republican gutlessness. There's a certain irony that George W. Bush himself would declare in one of his exit interviews that one of his greatest regrets was "the accuracy of intelligence on WMD". What idiocy. The intelligence was as good as it was going to be, given the reality that the Democrat Party has been committed for almost forty years to destroying America's intelligence gathering agencies, not to mention using the Media to rewrite history at the expense of America but to their - and Saddam's - great benefit. What W ought to have "regretted" was Democrat traitors, not the quality of Intel. The Intel was plenty good enough - absent the Democrat's fantastical interpretations - as was Saddam's history, to justify our actions.

My point here is one I've made a hundred times before and will continue to make: if Democrat's are allowed to define the truth to be their propaganda, and insisting on "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" to refute that propaganda, we will never be able to adequately defend our interests, and we will never learn the lessons we should have learned from these conflicts. Put in more concrete terms: by so consistently giving Aid and Comfort to the enemy, think of how difficult they have made it for America to pursue the next dictator disposing of Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

As to Republicans, it seems most of their commentators and decision-makers get tired of defending the defensible, and some allowance has to be made for their advancing age. It is by such measures that conservatives "grow" into acceptability by The Media and Liberal Opposition. Just look at how the cynical bastards embraced Barry Goldwater when - in his dotage - he trashed the Republican Party, not to mention much of what he had professed to believe when he was in his right mind.

Bottom line, a public that can believe the Democrat's arguments against the Iraq war can be made to believe anything, and a Republican establishment that refuses to defend the essential honesty of W's argument is not only not worth supporting, but should be replaced.