Historian, farmer and columnist Victor Davis Hanson on recent Democratic examples of pre-emption and insertion of American expeditionary forces abroad: "Many Democrats in Congress . . . authorized the first President Bush to fight the Gulf War to stop Hussein's mad drive to absorb Kuwait. In 1999, House Democrats sought, but failed, to pass congressional authorization for President Clinton's ongoing air war against Slobodan Milosevic. Democratic leaders from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama have long lamented that the U.S. did not pre-empt in Africa to stop the Rwandan genocide."
Australia's Prime Minister John Howard, on Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's bill to remove all American troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008: "If I were running al-Qaida in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a (presidential) victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats. I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory."
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a longtime Democrat forced to become an Independent by Democratic leftists - in The Wall Street Journal: "Washington has never been more bitterly divided over our mission in Iraq. The Senate and House of Representatives are bracing for parliamentary trench warfare - trapped in an escalating dynamic of division and confrontation that will neither resolve the tough challenges we face in Iraq nor strengthen our nation against its terrorist enemies around the world."
Lieberman in conclusion: "We are at a critical moment in Iraq - at the beginning of a key battle, in the midst of a war that is irretrievably bound up in an even bigger, global struggle against the totalitarian ideology of radical Islamism. However tired, however frustrated, however angry we may feel, we must remember that our forces in Iraq carry America's cause - the cause of freedom - which we abandon at our peril."
Ross Mackenzie
Ross Mackenzie lives with his wife and Labrador retriever in the woods west of Richmond, Virginia. They have two grown sons, both Naval officers.
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