Presidents And National Security

Conservative Thoughts ^ | January 30, 2006 | John Kuethe

[Wrangler22]

The latest attack by the Democrats on the Bush Administration has come under the name “NSA Spying Scandal”. Only the American Left can go from crying out that Bush failed to “connect the dots” before September 11th, to a full scale attempt to prevent him from preventing future attacks on this Nation. A glance back at American history will provide precedent for the President’s war powers and a view at how other Presidents used them.

Lincoln: During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas corpus on April 27, 1861. President Lincoln took this action in Maryland and several midwestern states in response to riots, local militia actions. In addition he was concern over the threat that the Southern slave state of Maryland would secede from the Union leaving the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., in the South.

Lincoln was repsponding to requests by his generals to set up military courts to rein in Peace Democrats, called "Copperheads", and those in the Union who supported the Confederate cause. Naturally his suspension Habeas corpus was challenged in court and overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court in Maryland and Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. Putting the Nation before partisan politics, Lincoln ignored Taney's order.

FDR: Democrat icon Roosevelt was not above suspending civil liberties in the Wake of Pearl Harbor. Following Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt was under tremendous pressure intern the estimated 120,000 people of Japanese origin or descent living in California on the grounds that they were a threat to security. Among those who oppposed internment was FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who said that there was no evidence of Japanese-American involvement in espionage or sabotage. The Supreme Court upheld the legality of the executive order, which remained in force until December 1944.

Truman: President Harry S. Truman made the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the loss of around 400,000 lives over 3½ years of direct U.S. involvement in World War II. Already about 60 Japanese cities had been destroyed and Truman's officially stated intention in ordering the bombings was to bring about a quick resolution of the war by inflicting such destruction and fear as to force Japan to surrender. In short, his rational to use the devastating weapons was to save lives. It succeeded.

These are just a few examples of Presidents putting the safety of the Nation first. One would think that the Democrats would put aside partisan attacks on national security. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, today’s Democrat party has put its attack on President Bush and Republicans in general above national security. Their efforts will make this nation more vulnerable to attack by exposing our National Security processes to the enemy in purely partisan political maneuvering. They pale in comparison to Democrats of previous generations who dared to put National Security first.