...who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies. Joe Lieberman catalogs the moral collapse of the Democratic party. One wonders why they're so anxious to lose a war in order to win a political arguement. bolded the money quote for ya Deck... [rquoter]Democrats and Our Enemies By JOSEPH LIEBERMAN May 21, 2008 How did the Democratic Party get here? How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose? Beginning in the 1940s, the Democratic Party was forced to confront two of the most dangerous enemies our nation has ever faced: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In response, Democrats under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy forged and conducted a foreign policy that was principled, internationalist, strong and successful. This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided. This was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, who pledged that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." And this was the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy, who promised in his inaugural address that the United States would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of freedom." This worldview began to come apart in the late 1960s, around the war in Vietnam. In its place, a very different view of the world took root in the Democratic Party. Rather than seeing the Cold War as an ideological contest between the free nations of the West and the repressive regimes of the communist world, this rival political philosophy saw America as the aggressor – a morally bankrupt, imperialist power whose militarism and "inordinate fear of communism" represented the real threat to world peace. It argued that the Soviets and their allies were our enemies not because they were inspired by a totalitarian ideology fundamentally hostile to our way of life, or because they nursed ambitions of global conquest. Rather, the Soviets were our enemy because we had provoked them, because we threatened them, and because we failed to sit down and accord them the respect they deserved. In other words, the Cold War was mostly America's fault. Of course that leftward lurch by the Democrats did not go unchallenged. Democratic Cold Warriors like Scoop Jackson fought against the tide. But despite their principled efforts, the Democratic Party through the 1970s and 1980s became prisoner to a foreign policy philosophy that was, in most respects, the antithesis of what Democrats had stood for under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy. Then, beginning in the 1980s, a new effort began on the part of some of us in the Democratic Party to reverse these developments, and reclaim our party's lost tradition of principle and strength in the world. Our band of so-called New Democrats was successful sooner than we imagined possible when, in 1992, Bill Clinton and Al Gore were elected. In the Balkans, for example, as President Clinton and his advisers slowly but surely came to recognize that American intervention, and only American intervention, could stop Slobodan Milosevic and his campaign of ethnic slaughter, Democratic attitudes about the use of military force in pursuit of our values and our security began to change. This happy development continued into the 2000 campaign, when the Democratic candidate – Vice President Gore – championed a freedom-focused foreign policy, confident of America's moral responsibilities in the world, and unafraid to use our military power. He pledged to increase the defense budget by $50 billion more than his Republican opponent – and, to the dismay of the Democratic left, made sure that the party's platform endorsed a national missile defense. By contrast, in 2000, Gov. George W. Bush promised a "humble foreign policy" and criticized our peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. Today, less than a decade later, the parties have completely switched positions. The reversal began, like so much else in our time, on September 11, 2001. The attack on America by Islamist terrorists shook President Bush from the foreign policy course he was on. He saw September 11 for what it was: a direct ideological and military attack on us and our way of life. If the Democratic Party had stayed where it was in 2000, America could have confronted the terrorists with unity and strength in the years after 9/11. Instead a debate soon began within the Democratic Party about how to respond to Mr. Bush. I felt strongly that Democrats should embrace the basic framework the president had advanced for the war on terror as our own, because it was our own. But that was not the choice most Democratic leaders made. When total victory did not come quickly in Iraq, the old voices of partisanship and peace at any price saw an opportunity to reassert themselves. By considering centrism to be collaboration with the enemy – not bin Laden, but Mr. Bush – activists have successfully pulled the Democratic Party further to the left than it has been at any point in the last 20 years. Far too many Democratic leaders have kowtowed to these opinions rather than challenging them. That unfortunately includes Barack Obama, who, contrary to his rhetorical invocations of bipartisan change, has not been willing to stand up to his party's left wing on a single significant national security or international economic issue in this campaign. In this, Sen. Obama stands in stark contrast to John McCain, who has shown the political courage throughout his career to do what he thinks is right – regardless of its popularity in his party or outside it. John also understands something else that too many Democrats seem to have become confused about lately – the difference between America's friends and America's enemies. There are of course times when it makes sense to engage in tough diplomacy with hostile governments. Yet what Mr. Obama has proposed is not selective engagement, but a blanket policy of meeting personally as president, without preconditions, in his first year in office, with the leaders of the most vicious, anti-American regimes on the planet. Mr. Obama has said that in proposing this, he is following in the footsteps of Reagan and JFK. But Kennedy never met with Castro, and Reagan never met with Khomeini. And can anyone imagine Presidents Kennedy or Reagan sitting down unconditionally with Ahmadinejad or Chavez? I certainly cannot. If a president ever embraced our worst enemies in this way, he would strengthen them and undermine our most steadfast allies. A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned "no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies." This is a lesson that today's Democratic Party leaders need to relearn. Mr. Lieberman is an Independent Democratic senator from Connecticut. This article is adapted from a speech he gave May 18 at a dinner hosted by Commentary magazine.[/rquoter]
one wonders why they're about to win another national election. Too late to switch back Joe! PS basso your historical assumption is dead wrong - plenty of non-belligerent nations have survived. Too many to even list in fact. Of course, the fact that you are necessarily Iran is going to invade the US in the next 8 years shows that you're a complete idiot in the first place - we'll add that to the pile.
Actually, this was a fairly interesting read. But I'd take a lot of issue with Lieberman touting McCain as follows: That's a load of bollocks. There is a reason Joe adds absolutely no details or evidence to backup the above assertion - he'd be blown to smithereens by McCain's waffling support, neatly coinciding with popular and politically expediant ideology.
Maybe because they started offending the Republicans some . . and stopped being p@#$#% and rolling over at ever turn Rocket River
It's a good article. It's sad that Lieberman's been ostracized by his own party over this one issue. And he does make a great point about Obama regarding his lack of bipartisan leadership. His idea of "unity" is everyone in the GOP agreeing with his point of view. Unfortunately with Republicans currently having no backbone or direction, a lot of them probably will go along with anything Obama says or does.
The last guy we elected President said he was going to be a uniter in Washington. We all see how that turned out.
Exactly! I even mentioned that in a thread on this forum a few weeks ago. So why is everyone falling for the same song and dance 8 years later? Especially from a man who has no record whatsoever of uniting anybody.
Exactly. I'm going to vote for the guy that says "screw uniting, my way or the highway, mofos!" /sarcasm
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. --Franklin D. Roosevelt It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences. --Harry S. Truman Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate. --John F. Kennedy
You must not have really bothered to look at his record. Obama has numerous bi-partisan bills in the senate, and long history of bi-partisan work in IL. Not only that he's been successful, thusfar, at overcoming the usual ugly tone and mudslinging that is so often successful in political campaigns. People are not necessarily buying into it, they understand that this person has a track record of success with working across party lines, and they also understand that changing the tone in Washington would help us all. They hope it will work, and will hold Obama accountable should he not follow through.
I don't see the relevance. Why would what Bush said and did be relevant to Obama? Since Bush wasn't a uniter, no future politician can ever be one? As FB notes above, Obama has a pretty solid track record in his time both in Illinois and in the US Senate of working in a bipartisan fashion.
This is going to be the conservative arguement until November. Don't make the same mistake we made. Which means that people will vote for McCain in order not to make that mistake. Or maybe they won't go vote at all. The problem is that if conservatives really meant that they made a mistake in voting for shrub, they wouldn't have voted for him in 2004. I guess they had no choice? Well maybe they should have stayed home in 2004 instead?
the problems with bush really didn't hit the fan till katrina. in 11/04 iraq was still very much supported it was only a year and a half long. if katrina had happened a year earlier, things my have turned out very differently.
Excerpts from the Commencement Address at American University in Washington - John F. Kennedy June 10, 1963 "There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university," wrote John Masefield, in his tribute to English universities - and his words are equally true today. He did not refer to spires and towers, to campus greens and ivied walls. He admired the splendid beauty of the university, he said, because it was "a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see." I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived - yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace. What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn. Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles - which can only destroy and never create - is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace. I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war - and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task. ............ First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable - that mankind is doomed - that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade - therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable - and we believe they can do it again. I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of universal peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal. Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace - based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions - on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace - no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process - a way of solving problems. With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor - it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors. So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it. ......... So, let us not be blind to our differences - but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal. ......... For we can seek a relaxation of tensions without relaxing our guard. And, for our part, we do not need to use threats to prove that we are resolute. We do not need to jam foreign broadcasts out of fear our faith will be eroded. We are unwilling to impose our system on any unwilling people - but we are willing and able to engage in peaceful competition with any people on earth. Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve its financial problems, to make it a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system - a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can finally be abolished. ......... Finally, my fellow Americans, let us examine our attitude toward peace and freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our own lives - as many of you who are graduating today will have a unique opportunity to do, by serving without pay in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed National Service Corps here at home. But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete. It is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of government - local, State, and National - to provide and protect that freedom for all of our citizens by all means within their authority. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch at all levels, wherever that authority is not now adequate, to make it adequate. And it is the responsibility of all citizens in all sections of this country to respect the rights of all others and to respect the law of the land. All this is not unrelated to world peace. "When a man's ways please the Lord," the Scriptures tell us, "he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him." And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights - the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation - the right to breathe air as nature provided it - the right of future generations to a healthy existence? While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can - if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers - offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race. The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough - more than enough - of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on - not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace. http://www.jfklink.com/speeches/jfk/publicpapers/1963/jfk232_1963.html Stop Sullying the Highest Office in the Land... Impeach George W. Bush.
My thoughts on the United States and negotiation with middle eastern terror states (I fully recognize how arrogant this sounds, but it's true): There's no reason to not negotiate. Holding out on negotiation is used as leverage in diplomacy, with mixed results. In diplomacy with Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, the United States has 99.9999999% (estimated) of the leverage. They pose no significant military threat to us, and they cannot defeat our allies without either help or major loss of blood and treasure. So when we put pre-conditions on diplomacy with these states, we're sitting at the table with almost all the chips, and asking them to give up one of their two to join the game. You have to recognize their reluctance to do that. If we bring them to the table, the overwhelming odds are, we'll get what at least some of what we want, and at worst we won't lose anything. Save the "preconditions for negotiation" card for legitimate threats, have open conversation with the minor players.
Lieberman can bs all he wants. The Iraq War was sold on lies and was not necessary. There is no need to support it. It has made our country weaker, not safer. Most Americans don't support it. This includes the vast majority of Democrats and Independents. Joe is a classical neo-con who really should join the bulk of the neos in the GOP.
Eh, permissive gun laws, mandatory military service and a shi**** of mountains in the way do tend to deter most people... I wouldn't condone blatant aggression...but I do think it is idiotic to expect people to respect you without much miltary muscle. ...Which is why I'm happy the Democrats are a good balence. Negotiating with others is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength, for all you people who missed say, I dunno, the fact the world is still growing green because the USSR disbanded peacefully rather then starting a nuclear winter.
Which make it very analogous to the United States, with its permissive gun laws, large military, and imposing size.
