Democrats Have Not Changed
I can not read anywhere as much as I need to - or used to, but I rarely miss
David Warren. He may be Canadian, but that does not stop him from being a more than average writer, almost necessary, in fact. He almost always gets it right. And so it is with
a recent post about Iraq, and how things are looking up, and how the democrat forces are praying that the clock runs out on victory, so they can feast on another American defeat. But within that post, there is a great description of how the Democrats of today are alike to those of the Viet Nam era. As he writes:
[i]t is important to remember the history. A previous generation of these Democrats first insisted on shoving their South Vietnamese allies aside, and trying to run the war for them; then of imposing all kinds of restraints on their battlefield commanders which, in aggregate, made victory impossible. And then, when they tired of the war, they abandoned the Vietnamese to their fate, with the additional Congressional touch of cutting off South Vietnam’s supply of arms and ammunition. Finally, they just watched as the Communist guerrillas from the jungle were replaced by North Vietnamese regulars in tanks, driving openly down the American-built highways to receive the surrender of Saigon, while the U.S. Seventh Fleet was hovering offshore, with the equipment to "mow them down to marmalade."
It was a rout so ignominious, that it destroyed the credibility of the United States, probably adding ten years to the life of the Soviet Empire. It inspired Communist advances in Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and elsewhere; and, little appreciated at the time, Islamist advances overtly in Iran, and covertly throughout the Muslim world.
Such Democrats -- not all Democrats, there were “Scoop Jackson Democrats” throughout the Cold War -- often complain that their Republican opponents “question their patriotism,” when all they have done is advocate a policy of defeat and humiliation for the United States abroad. All I can add to Dr Johnson’s famous remark that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” is the observation that traitors tend to be especially sensitive to the charge of treason.
Precious, absolutely on the mark. I know that fossils like David Warren (and me) are always getting back to Viet Nam, but we do need to learn the lessons that 58,000 of my contemporaries lost their lives for, or they will have given their lives in vain. I keep telling myself that, if only we can get past the next election in one piece, everything will be all right. And we just might.