Over the last two decades, the Republican Party and its propaganda wing on Fox News and right-wing hate radio have coarsened our political dialogue to a degree that is both astonishing and appalling. The flame-throwing, take-no-prisoners approach championed by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay and Karl Rove, cheered on always by their faithful foot soldiers in the right-wing media, has made it increasingly difficult to have a meaningful and substantive policy debate on many issues critical to the well-being of the United States. Nowhere has this stifling of the free exchange of ideas been more acutely felt than in the area of national security.
If there ever was an issue that required careful, thoughtful and rational discussion, surely it is this one. The country faces daunting challenges. In the short-term we confront trans-national Islamist terrorist organizations and networks such as al-Qaeda. The removal of the Taliban/al-Qaeda regime in Afghanistan which garnered wide support was followed by an ill-considered and ultimately disastrous attack and occupation of Iraq which has arguably hindered rather than helped the wider war on Islamic terrorists. The current Administration and Congress have also reacted to the threat of terrorism in a surprisingly panicky fashion by infringing on the civil liberties of Americans through the new but hardly improved Patriot Act and with warrant-less surveillance of Americans’ communications. The Administration has badly sullied our national reputation by its handling and treatment of terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan and probably other facilities in locations as yet unknown.
In the long-term we view with trepidation China’s emergence as a growing economic and military powerhouse. Our own economic fortunes appear to be waning under the weight of enormous trade and budgetary deficits, and challenges to our long-term prosperity as more and more manufacturing and white-collar jobs are either out-sourced or created overseas by American companies.
The right-wing of the Republican Party, however, has little interest in a substantive public policy debate on national security, because they’re too busy scoring political points by impugning the patriotism and intestinal fortitude of anyone – meaning liberals, progressives, moderates and Democrats of all stripes – who question their own Neanderthal approach to national defence and security. Any suggestion to slow the rate of increase in the Pentagon budget, much less make a modest reduction, immediately elicits howls of outrage and charges of fecklessness and weakness in defence of the American people – this from the same hypocrites who are completely unwilling to actually pay for the bloated defence appropriation by raising taxes or cutting spending. Apparently, it’s much better to borrow from foreigners.
A similarly overwrought reaction greets those who express concern over the lack of judicial and Congressional oversight of domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency, and our nation’s flouting of international conventions on the treatment of detainees in the war on Islamic terrorism. There is plenty of cause for concern on the part of all Americans with this Administration’s expansive view of its unfettered authority in matters relating to national security, and its willingness to undermine the constitutional system of checks and balances that most of us had, heretofore, taken for granted. To question this authority and to insist on the highest standards in our conduct as a nation is to invite excoriation that we are unpatriotic; blame America-first-liberals; America-haters and blah, blah, blah.
Unfortunately, this campaign of the right has had its effect on Democrats in Congress. Paralysed by the fear of being branded as weak on national security, they meekly sign on to any defence budget placed in front of them; they allowed Senator John McCain to take the lead role in shaming Congress into passing and compelling our Bungler-in-Chief to sign legislation barring torture (which the latter disavowed even as he signed it); and they have been largely silent on the issue of warrant-less domestic surveillance. Even now they allow the GOP to divide them and run rhetorical circles around them on a cynical non-binding resolution in the House of Representatives that conflates the misbegotten Iraq War with the overall war against Islamist terrorists.
It would be nice to think that we will do better than this in the future, if for no other reason than that the well-being of the country demands it. Don’t hold your breath.
It is way too much to expect today’s Republicans, guided as they are by the political strategizing of a Karl Rove, to temper the overheated rhetoric. After all, the notion that Democrats and liberals are weak on national security has gained the GOP a great deal politically. In fact, it is clear that the cornerstone of the GOP campaign this fall will be the phoney contrast between a strong and tough Republican Party, determined to do what it takes to keep us safe, and a weak-kneed Democratic Party that is… what exactly? Overly pre-occupied with Americans’ civil liberties? Seized by the belief that we should leave torture and abuse of prisoners to our enemies and eschew such methods ourselves? Or that we should, perhaps, spend what we need to on our national defence but actually pay for it with our taxes, rather than put it on the national credit card and bill our children? And not invade countries that pose no real threat to us?
The real solution, of course, would be an informed citizenry able to see through cynical political ploys and thirty-second sound-bites, an electorate that understands the issues and values substance over hot air – and can tell the difference between the two. Not much chance of that with so many getting their news from Fox or Rush Limbaugh – or not paying attention to any news at all.
In the end it is up to Democrats to take the offensive and lay out in clear terms that it is not weakness to expect the very best from our government; that is not strength to throw money blindly at the Pentagon, when so many other needs go unmet; that it is not unpatriotic to support the troops in Iraq even as we criticise the mission itself and express our disdain for the incompetent zealots who sent them And it will be up to Congressional Democrats this fall to show that they have the strength of their convictions and will not be cowed by the chicken hawks of the Republican Party.