Some People Claim There’s A Woman To Blame…
Peter Beinart has penned a truly awful column for the Washington Post. Normally, that sentence would be followed by all the reasons the Democrat is full of it and a defense of whatever GOP initiative he’s attacking. Not this time, however. This time he’s full of crap for defending the administration.
His main contention seems to be the Democrats have repeatedly stymied GOP efforts to do the right thing with regard to foreign policy simply because it was politically expedient for them to do so. As examples he cites the Dubai Port deal, the planned boycott of Maliki’s address to Congress, and the amnesty program granted to insurgents in Iraq who had been accused of killing US troops there.
In every case, he points to the administration’s actions as being in the right, and the Democrats as merely pandering for partisan gain. He’s wrong on both counts.
The Administration has nobody but themselves to blame for their predicament and the Democrats are only holding Bush to the foreign policy course he charted when he uttered the now infamous chide that ‘if you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.”
Where the Democrats are wrong is in their hypocrisy. The Democrats shouted down those sentiments during the election, but everything they have done to hobble the administration is consistent with that principle.
Take the Dubai ports deal. The united Arab Emirates are a known financial resource for terrorists. They were singled out as such by the investigation into the 9-11 attacks, yet we are supposed to grant them economic deals that disregard their lack of meaningful action on terrorism?
What about the Maliki speech? Beinart argues that Iraq is supposed to challenge our position on Israel to prove he’s not a US stooge. Does Peter really believe their is a Muslim man or woman on the street who is not already convinced that any Iraqi government built, installed, and maintained by our military presence is a lap dog of the US? His challenge to Israel will not prove otherwise. The only outcome of Maliki’s comments would be the continued fostering of radical anti-semitism in the Arab nation.
Finally, the granting of amnesty to Iraqi’s who killed US troops is not only contrary to international and US law, but also creates moral outrage for the families and friends of those killed fighting this war.
Now I believed in the invasion of Iraq and still do, so this is not a pretext to chastise the Administration for an ill-conceived invasion. The only reason I needed to go into Iraq was the overthrow of a man who took sadistic pleasure in killing people. Saddam needed to go and I am damn glad we did it. But I am not willing to suffer the loss of my countrymen at the hands of thugs we liberated to simply let them go free as killers.
All of these beliefs are in line with the Administration’s stated policy, yet they are the positions taken and held by the Democrats. If anyone is acting from a position of political calculation, it is the Administration. It now finds itself in a deteriorating foreign policy situation, and wishes to engage in quick fix diplomacy after telling the people there are no quick fixes.
Israel has every right to defend itself against naked acts of aggression by Hezbollah. Calling on world leaders, regardless of their religious affiliation, to denounce the use of terrorism is something that we did following the attacks of 9-11. If the administration has forgotten that day, and now wishes to encourage terrorist appeasement by our so-called allies, they will have no more strident opposition than mine.
Despite Beinart’s short-sighted belief in conceding our soul for the sake of a simmering middle east – rather than a boiling one – Democrats in this case are taking the correct positions. Sadly, they are positions once held, but now abdicated, by the Administration.
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