Right Voices

Joe Lieberman spoke on “the politics of national security,” and the newspapers ignored him. Bill Kristol has posted the speech and it is a good read.(h/t to memeorandum) Here is just a bit:

Between 2002 and 2006, there was a battle within the Democratic Party. . . . We could rightly criticize the Bush administration when it failed to live up to its own rhetoric, or when it bungled the execution of its policies. But I felt that we should not minimize the seriousness of the threat from Islamist extremism, or the fundamental rightness of the muscular, internationalist, and morally self-confident response that President Bush had chosen in response to it.

But that was not the choice most Democrats made. . . . Since retaking Congress in November 2006, the top foreign policy priority of the Democratic Party has not been to expand the size of our military for the war on terror or to strengthen our democracy promotion efforts in the Middle East or to prevail in Afghanistan. It has been to pull our troops out of Iraq, to abandon the democratically elected government there, and to hand a defeat to President Bush.

Iraq has become the singular litmus test for Democratic candidates. No Democratic presidential primary candidate today speaks of America’s moral or strategic responsibility to stand with the Iraqi people against the totalitarian forces of radical Islam, or of the consequences of handing a victory in Iraq to al Qaeda and Iran. And if they did, their campaign would be as unsuccessful as mine was in 2006. Even as evidence has mounted that General Petraeus’ new counterinsurgency strategy is succeeding, Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq, reluctant to acknowledge the progress we are now achieving. . . .

Joe is correct. Democrats were right to criticize in the beginning of the war. Things were not swell by any stretch of the imagination, but when have we asked our soldiers to fight a war like this? As our soldiers are fighting, the powers that be above them are rewriting the handbook. Our military is being upgraded to a 21st century model.

Democrats are so worried about how America is perceived by the rest of the world. They fail to see that they help shape the image. What does it say to the rest of the world when we have elected Democrats talking smack to the world press? Visiting terrorist states(Pelosi), only to have their words used against this country? What does it say to the world when Democrats like Reid say the war is lost? What does the silence say when Democrats don’t acknowledge the progress made?

This is one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all……..