It’s been set forth that one of the areas that Dems are perceived as being weak on is in response to terrorism, specifically, Islamic terrorism, which is the leading brand of terrorism at the moment.
They postulate that any sign of “weakness” – whatever that means – on the part of America’s leaders will result in more 9/11-style attacks on Americans, and that until the Dems can demonstrate that they are “strong enough” – whathever that means – to fight the terrorists, they don’t stand much chance of gaining the White House.
I know what the logical response to the terrorism issue is: fight terrorist organizations directly. Kill and/or capture their leaders, destroy the groups and institutions that finance them, and work to change the cultural conditions that make terrorism a powerful force in Islamic society – or whatever society is producing it. Invade other countries only when they are clearly being run by terrorists – like the Taliban in Afghanistan. Do not do stupid-ass things like invading nations that had nothing to do with attacks on America like 9/11 – i.e., Iraq.
I just don’t believe that this vision will sell to the mindless gucks who re-elected Bush as president. To see why, here’s my analysis of what the conservative leaderships’ real response to terrorism was:
“We know we can’t defeat terrorism. We are not even going to try. Terrorism is good for us, it makes Americans unthinkingly support us out of fear. 9/11 worked for us politically, so will any other such attack – the terrorists can’t really do America much harm, even if they succeed in, say, nuking a major American city or spreading a neurotoxin or biowarfare agent it won’t affect America’s ability to make money and/or war too much. It’ll just cement us that much more firmly in power. So let’s invade a couple of Islamic countries to get the towelheads REALLY pissed off, set up some kind of half-assed agency that’ll do very little to prevent terrorist attacks but give us a great tool for attacking political enemies and hope for the best. Or worst, depending on your point of view. We might end up in charge of the whole Middle East if we play our cards right. One invasion might lead to another.”
Before you dismiss this as tinhat speculation, note that it’s exactly what the Bush admin. has done. My suspicion is that the Dems are going to have to get down and dirty like the Pubbies if they want to win, and play on America’s fears that the Bush admin. is so war-crazy that they’ll spend America broke if we don’t dump the Pubbies. We’re going to have the votes of the thoughtful and intelligent as they are going to know what the Bushies are. We have to get the gucks’ votes, and that means exploiting primal things like fear and greed and stupidity.
In fact, many Democratic leaders – most even – have a sane, reasonable view of Islamist terrorism and a good understanding of how to oppose it. The same is true of most Democrats in general. They really only have to do two things. One, they have to nominate people with credibility on the issue. People who say one thing when the polls are one way and another when they think the polls are going the other way are not credible and that’s what Senator Kerry did during his campaign. The other thing is that they have to repudiate people like you. People who think this whole thing is politics to the point where you freely admit that you don’t give a crap about accuracy and would rather see 25 million people fall into anarchy or worse than see a policy initiated by the President succeed.
Well, the con position is already taken by the republicans. The pro position towards Islamic terrorism isn’t very desirable, but there are many on the extreme left who seem to advocate it. Right here on the SDMB you see a lot of sympathy for Palestinian terrorists and Iraqi insurgents who are killing our troops. The Democrats need to distance themselves from these people.
That would necessarily entail a renunciation of MoveOn.
After all, they opposed even the war in Afghanistan. This position is far outside the mainstream of either party, in addition to being the wrong policy.
When the Democratic Party dances to MoveOn’s drum, they lose credibility on national defense issues. Kick these guys to the curb, and they can start the long process of regaining credibility on national defense issues.
Huh??? I do support Iraqi insurgents killing US troops. By what sane definition of “terrorist” is locals killing the troops of an invading army? Terrorists strike at civilians, and not armed, enemy troops that are invaders. As for US troops, I suport them by saying the should be pulled out of Iraq. They don’t belong there.
And there you go. When more Democrats than Republicans jump on rfgdxm for that statement, the party will be on the way. Until then, feel free to hang out with the moveon.org types and pretend there’s no affiliation.
The correct position is to be against terrorism and to take military action, when necessary, against terrorists. The Afghan war was such an action and I supported that action wholeheartedly. The correct position also involves taking sensible precautions such as beefing up airline security, securing our ports and water supply, etc.
I think virtually all mainstream politicians of both parties would agree with the above, although they might differ on the level of effort and/or funding that should go into these things.
The Democratic position on terrorism should NOT be:
To erode civil liberties
To single out a particular religion for harassment
To invade and occupy soverign nations that were not involved in acts of terror
If people think that MoveOn is affiliated with the Democratic Party, it’s for very good reason. Democrats may want to reevaluate this relationship, mindful of where the center of American politics actually lays.
Although he happens to be correct that insurgents fighting soldiers aren’t terrorists.
This reminds me of any number of people who suggest the Republican party should ditch various groups of bigots. Neither party is going to do anything of the sort, so it’s a pointless remark.
Ultimately I think the notion that the Democrats need to do something big on terrorism is false. It’s difficult to believe that a party with no credibility on such a huge issue pulled 48% of the vote in November. Everything I read in the last year showed Kerry successfully eroded Bush’s lead on terrorism as an issue. What the GOP organization has been very successful in doing is depicting a desire for nuance as weakness, and in so doing inadvertently made terrorism rhetoric meaningless.
Way to read. What kind of party is going to tell a bloc of voters to take a hike? They are not part of the Democratic Party. They’re a group of supporters.
Eli Pariser of Move On is entitled to say whatever the hell he likes. It doesn’t make it true. Yes, they brought a lot of support. Both parties (as I wrote in the post that succeeded yours) are supported by people who could be called unsavory. Especially to people in the other party.
But you see, they’re not attacking just US troops. They’re attacking civilians specifically for the purpose of terrorizing them into submission. That makes them terrorists. What’s more, the terrorists aren’t the least bit interested in holding any kind of democratic elections or democratic process. There are several different factions among the terrorists, but the choices they offer seem to be either the garden variety fascism such Saddam’s or the Islamofascism such as Khomeini’s.
So you’re supporting fascism, bub. But that’s hardly a surprise.
In fact I said pretty much the same thing above. 1) Have some flippin’ credibility in your lead candidate. 2) Tell the pro-terrorists to fuck off. Easy. Not big.
Well, the Republican Party certainly told Pat Buchanan to take a hike. It did the same thing with the John Birch society some years ago. On the other side, the Democratic Party has taken great steps to marginalize pro-life leaders and voters in their ranks.
The same thing needs to be done with the MoveOn crowd and others like them, regardless of how much money they raised. That is, if the Democrats want to be credible on defense. All indications I’ve seen show that that’s always a secondary consideration for many of the party’s leadership.
Has Moveon supported the Iraqi (Insurgents/terrorists/militants/bad guys/whatever) over the U.S.? I know they were against the Iraq war but I don’t know that they’ve gone that far. Some of there members may have but is that the groups official policy? I thought they were just an anti-Bush group. Are you sure you aren’t confusing them with International A.N.S.W.E.R. ? Not trying to be snarky, I’m genuinely curious.
(And who came up with the latter groups acronym? The same guy who was naming 60’s spy movie evil organizations?)
Why is it only the Dems who have to renounce their extremists? The GOP elects theirs (Hi, Sen.-elect Coburn) to Congress, and invites them (greetings, not-so-Rev. Falwell) to the White House.
I fully agree that MoveOn was wrong on Afghanistan. But I’ll be damned if I can see the point in kicking them off the bus just on the basis of that one issue, important as it may have been.
In fact, doing so would exacerbate the Dems’ problems in terms of being taken seriously across the board - including on terrorism. The problem with the Dems is that they are easily pushed around by BS like this; the party never seems to come to the point - on any issue - where they will dig in and fight until hell freezes over.
The proper Dem response to MoveOn is, “They were wrong on Afghanistan. They’re right about a lot of other things. Bush & Co. were wrong about Iraq, and are wrong about most other things. The Bush Administration is driving this country off a cliff. MoveOn is a valuable ally in our efforts to keep that from happening.”
On preview, Mr. Moto, I see you added some comments about the GOP’s repudiation of the Birchers, back in another era, and Buchanan more recently. I’ll confess that I don’t remember the former, though I certainly remember a time when that hadn’t yet happened. I vaguely remember the spat between Buchanan and the GOP, but if the GOP repudiated him, what did they repudiate him for? I’m thinkin’ that (aside from possibly blatant anti-Semitism), it couldn’t have possibly been for the sin of being too far to the right.
I noted above that MoveOn had opposed the intervention in Afghanistan immediately after 9/11.
This is an irresponsible position, one that endangered our national security.
I don’t think they have ever affiliated with our nation’s enemies, but they have been insufficiently aggressive in fighting them. That is enough to brand it an organization soft on national defense. Any organization affiliated with them risks being labeled such as well.
There has to be a reckoning here between Democrats who want to bolster national security and this bunch. Somebody is going to be disappointed, perhaps bitterly so.
If MoveOn has its way, the Democratic party will suffer further electoral defeat.
And, by the way, I am reasonably pleased to see such sentiments publicly made, and associated with the Democrats. Each time it happens brings another few votes for the mid-term elections and another couple of seats in the House and Senate. It’s a truly beautiful thing to watch your opposition lose the election for itself. If I could buy a few billboards for rfgdxm, I would.
