Wrong Test, Wrong Time
By Steve Farrell (10/13/04)
Former Vietnam blackguard, John Kerry, and his trial lawyer running mate, John Edwards, both believe the United States ought never to go to war unless we pass a legitimacy proving ‘World Test’—at least that was their ‘latest’ approach Friday, before debate 2.
It could change.
Nevertheless, according to their latest posture, it is the responsibility of the President of the United States to present and win a case before the world that our cause is just;—before a world, that is, where legitimacy and justice rarely exists, where hatred for the United States, Capitalism, and Christianity abounds (even among our quote unquote ‘traditional allies’).
That’s quite a test.
But there is a better test, a more legitimate test that these two ‘sophisticated’ and ‘patriotic’ candidates failed to mention. It involves the U.S. Constitution. The President’s job, according to that Constitution is to make his case before Congress, which Congress as elected representatives of the American people, not representatives of the world, then declares war if they think it just, or decline if they think not.
OR, as has become tradition, the President at least goes before Congress and begs authorization for military action, by joint resolution, which Congress has done dating back to the days of Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates for smaller squabbles, and consistently since the Korean War for larger ones.
The point being, the President goes to the American people and their representatives in Congress to obtain legitimacy.
President Bush took and passed that legitimacy test. Congress did in fact, and in overwhelming fashion did authorize a general War on Terror, and specific military actions against Afghanistan and Iraq.
The stated purpose of these wars was part of an overall plan to: 1. Punish nations who support, harbor, or who are themselves, terrorists;—and 2. to help prevent terrorism in the future, A. by taking these thugs out on their own turf, and, B. by establishing better governments, freer governments among these peoples, government who will, in turn, become friends and allies of the United States.
That was the theory. That was the argument that begged and received legitimacy.
Congress and the American people bought into it. John Kerry and John Edwards included. We are well on our way. Our troops are in the field. Regimes have been toppled. Thousands of terrorists have been killed, maimed, arrested, or driven into hiding. Others have organized and are fighting back vociferously.
Hindsight is not helpful at this moment. We need to see it through. We need to do our very best to make sure it’s done right. We need to assure our troops who daily search for inspiration as to why they are there, are assured that what they are doing is right, is noble, is courageous, and will be held in remembrance for generations as such. We need to demonstrate those assurances with whatever it takes, with money, with new and better weapons systems, with the freedom to do their job without a politically correct standard, backed by the same unified voice that put them there in the first place.
So that they can carry on and win.
The man, the party, and their friends in the media who tries to undermine the legitimacy of all of this, at this late stage, with our men in the field, and our national reputation on the line, by shouting “Wrong war! Wrong place! Wrong time!” is not any better than the man or men who undermined our soldiers in Vietnam, who inspired rules of engagement which defied common sense and prevented a quick and decisive victory, who fomented hatred for our brave men at home and abroad by raising tails of horror that were not representative of our boys but our enemy, and who thus emboldened third rate communist and terrorist states into believing that the mighty United States could be defeated in any war, any time, any place, so long as they could get the leftist politicians and leftist U.S. media on their side.
Such a man is at best an opportunist. At worst, well, you fill in the blank.
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