Karl Rove nails the anti-victory neurosis of the Left

Col. Charles Beckwith, founder of the Delta Force, tells a story about White House planning in April 1980 for the mission to rescue our 53 hostages in Tehran. Beckwith had visited the White House Situation Room to brief President Carter.

In the meeting, according to one writer, "Charlie mentioned that his Delta shooters would 'take out' the hostage guards.

"Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher looked over at Charlie, eyebrows raised. 'Take them out,' Colonel?"

Beckwith replied: "Yes, Mister Deputy Secretary. We're going to double-tap 'em. Shoot 'em each in the head — twice."

Christopher protested: "Couldn't you just shoot them in the shoulder or something?"

Now, before you accuse me of painting with a broad brush, let me say many Democrats do not seek a weak America. For example, Joe Lieberman does not. Zell Miller does not. Sam Nunn does not. John F. Kennedy did not. Alive today, he'd be a hawk.

However, it is eminently fair to say that virtually all those bound to a weak America also are bound to the Democratic Party.

Karl Rove was 100 percent accurate with his June 22 comments: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9-11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9-11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

Liberals are livid, mainly because, secretly, they know Rove has them nailed. Their party in the past 60 years has a rich history of appeasement, defeatism, naivete, fear and weakness.

Liberals simply have not got the will to kill our mortal enemies. They just want to shoot them in the shoulder.

At Yalta, President Roosevelt gave away Eastern Europe to Stalin. At the time, our side had had nearly three decades to size up the evil of the Soviet Union. It was, after all, the nation that murdered 5,000 officers — the cream of Poland's military — at Katyn Forest in 1940.

And yet, as Roosevelt told a confidante: "I think that if I give (Stalin) everything I possibly can without demanding anything in return, then, noblesse oblige, he will not attempt to annex anything and will work to build a peaceful and democratic world."

FDR was wrong. For millions of Eastern Europeans, his assessment meant oppression. For thousands, it meant death. For example, ask Peter Fechter, the young German who tried to escape East Berlin in August 1962.

Ah, but wait — you cannot ask poor Mr. Fechter. Shot by East German border guards, he slowly bled to death in no man's land at the Berlin Wall.

American troops heard his cries but dared not rescue him lest they be shot themselves. Fechter was 18. Today, he would be 61. His corpse is Roosevelt's legacy. His corpse, plus the corpses of 1,064 others — and all these at the Berlin Wall alone.

Now, Vietnam. In a book on the war, Col. Harry Summers recounts an incident from the 1974 Paris peace talks. Summers told Col. Tu of the North Vietnamese army, "You know, you never beat us on the battlefield."

Indeed it was. The communists did not have to win on the ground. They had to win on the TV screens of America's living rooms.

Doing so, they benefited immensely from the collaboration of America's reporters. The most egregious example is how our press magically transformed the Tet Offensive from a great defeat for the communists (which it was) into a great defeat for the Americans (which it was not).

Reporters were shocked that a handful of Viet Cong were able to take a cab to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, blow their way into the compound and kill a few U.S. soldiers.

Indeed, this was disturbing. But in the big picture, it counted for virtually nothing. The Tet Offensive was a disaster for the North. The Viet Cong were wiped out: 50,000 dead. The communists were left to fight with only their uniformed troops.

But why would a reporter bother with such mundane analysis when he can embark on the sexy task of doomsaying? Walter Cronkite made his famous report declaring the war lost — and what do you know, overnight, the war was lost.

Nothing changes. Thirty-seven years later, we may lose the Iraq war because of the protests of America's victory-haters.

Again, my caveat: Many Democrats are not weak Americans. But nearly all weak Americans are Democrats.

Therefore, I think I am entitled to say that when it comes to national security, the Democrats are the party that harbors the timid and the self-handcuffed.

You could say they are the party of Atticus Finch, the heroic lawyer but misguided father in "To Kill a Mockingbird," who told his brave daughter Scout, "I forbid you to fight."

Likewise, Democrats forbid America to fight. For 70 years, they refused to take communism seriously. Now, they refuse to take terrorism seriously. They simply cannot believe our enemies mean us harm.

At the White House in 1980, a shocked Warren Christopher asked: "You mean you're really going to shoot to kill? You really are?"

Michael Bowers is a copy editor and page designer for The Star. Send e-mail to mbowers@starnewspapers.com.

Can that story about Christopher possibly be true?

I thought on 9/11/01, at about 11:00 am that we would never again in my lifetime see a democrat in the White House. I certainly hope history will prove me correct.

Let's never forget how many times we were hit while Bill "BJ" Clinton was in office. From the first attack on the trade center to the USS Cole. And Bush did nothing either until 9/11, but after that, he did a lot. But there's a hell of a lot more to be done. And we can't do it all, some of the rest of the world's "infidels" will also have to start getting seriously series about stopping the jihadis.

And by that, Mr. Christopher, et al, I mean we need to start killing a whole lot more of them. More publicly, and scare the heck out of their little medieval minds by burying them in pig skin, etc. Even Bush is all in the "hearts and minds" mode, the heck with that, their "hearts and minds" should be nothing more than targets to us.

Bruce Herschensohn wrote this five years ago, and it's as true now as it was then:

"Unlike the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month or V-E Day or V-J Day, the end of the Cold War has no date. Even with all its witnesses, no one is sure exactly when it ended. For that matter, no one could say for certain the exact date it began. So the Cold War ended in the same fuzzy way in which it started.

"Maybe it was July 6, 1990, when NATO announced that the Soviet Union was no longer an adversary. Maybe it was one of those days in late August 1990, when one republic of the USSR after another declared independence. Maybe it was March 31, 1991, when the Warsaw Pact military alliance disbanded. Maybe it was Dec. 18, 1991, when the Commonwealth of Independent States was inaugurated. Maybe it was Dec. 26, 1991, when the USSR was formally dissolved. However, because of the drama in the destruction of the symbol of the Soviet Empire, the date that has become recognized is Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall crumbled.

"Since that event 10 years ago, there has been an absence of public dialogue regarding the role of U.S. liberals and conservatives during the post-Khrushchev period. That absence of dialogue has left young people with the mistaken belief that the United States was united in its quest to end the expansion of the Soviet system. It's a lie.

"It was the conservatives who wanted to build U.S. military forces to a position so strong that the Soviet Union would go broke trying to keep up. Opposing those efforts were Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri V. Andropov, Konstantin U. Chernenko and the leadership of the liberals in the U.S.

"It was the conservatives in the U.S. who opposed a nuclear moratorium that would have guaranteed superiority of nuclear forces by the Soviet Union. Endorsing a nuclear moratorium were Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and the leadership of the liberals.

"It was the conservatives who wanted the neutron warhead deployed in Western Europe to deter a potential invasion by Soviet tanks. Opposing were Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and the leadership of the liberals.

"It was the conservatives who supported the liberation of Grenada that brought about free elections in that island-nation. Opposing the liberation were Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and the leadership of the liberals.

"It was the conservatives who advocated the deployment of Pershing missiles for the protection of Western Europe. Endorsing a nuclear freeze that would have prevented that were Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and the leadership of the liberals.

"It was the conservatives who backed a Strategic Defense Initiative to make an enemy's intercontinental ballistic missiles worthless. Opposing such a defensive system for the United States were Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and the leadership of the liberals.

"It was the conservatives who accused the Soviet Union of violating arms treaties. Denying the violations were Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and the leadership of the liberals.

"It was the conservatives who wanted to bring down the Sandinistas of Nicaragua. Embracing Daniel Ortega and opposing the Nicaraguan resistance were Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and the leadership of the liberals.

"And it was a conservative president, Ronald Reagan, who accurately described the Soviet Union and its satellite states as an "evil empire." Ridiculing Reagan were Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and the leadership of the liberals.

"Important chapters of the history of the Cold War have been quickly eliminated, misinforming the new generation. Such misinformation is a common quest after battles have been won. Traveling through Europe shortly after World War II, it was difficult to find anyone who did not claim that they spent the war years as members of the underground. Some of them were telling the truth. Many of them were lying. During the first decade after the Berlin Wall fell, it has become common for older Americans to tell the new generation that they supported those who fought against Soviet communism. Some of them are telling the truth. Many are lying. The only difference in the years after the end of World War II and the years after the destruction of the Berlin Wall is that the delete key on computers has replaced the old red erasers."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.