Editor’s Note: When a democracy goes to war, its citizens have a right to expect that even those who disagree with the decision will watch their countrymen’s backs. They have a right to expect that opponents of the war will limit their dissent to civic persuasion and will not join the enemy’s forces – either by providing them with soldiers or leaking national secrets that would weaken the nation’s defense. They have a right to expect that criticism would be tempered by a desire to minimize benefits to the enemy. If the decision to go to war has been ratified by the nation’s elected officials citizens should expect that criticism will not take the form of psychological warfare against the credibility of the commander-in-chief and the morality of the war itself.
In their book Party of Defeat: How Democrats and Radicals Undermined the War on Terror Before And After 9/11, David Horowitz and Ben Johnson argue that in the course of the war in Iraq War the leadership of the Democratic Party stepped over the bounds of reasonable criticism of national policy and conducted a campaign which amounted to political sabotage of the war effort. They base their claim on a core of critical facts that have been conveniently ignored by critics of the war.
The first is that the Democratic Party supported the invasion of Iraq, but then turned against it within four months of its inception. This was not merely a tactical about face. On the contrary, Democrats now claimed that the enemy was no threat, that the rationale for the invasion was falsified, and that America’s war was thus an unjustified aggression and American leaders were in effect war criminals.
When a democracy goes to war, its citizens have a right to expect that even those who disagree with the decision will watch their countrymen’s backs. They have a right to expect that opponents of the war will limit their dissent to civic persuasion and will not join the enemy’s forces – either by providing them with soldiers or leaking national secrets that would weaken the nation’s defense. They have a right to expect that criticism would be tempered by a desire to minimize benefits to the enemy. If the decision to go to war has been ratified by the nation’s elected officials citizens should expect that criticism will not take the form of psychological warfare against the credibility of the commander-in-chief and the morality of the war itself. In their book ,David Horowitz and Ben Johnsonargue that in the course of the war in Iraq War the leadership of the Democratic Party stepped over the bounds of reasonable criticism of national policy and conducted a campaign which amounted to political sabotage of the war effort. They base their claim on a core of critical facts that have been conveniently ignored by critics of the war.The first is that the Democratic Party supported the invasion of Iraq, but then turned against it within four months of its inception. This was not merely a tactical about face. On the contrary, Democrats now claimed that the enemy was no threat, that the rationale for the invasion was falsified, and that America’s war was thus an unjustified aggression and American leaders were in effect war criminals.
Exploiting a minor incident at the Abu Ghraib prison to promote the idea that American leaders were indeed war criminals, Democrats went much further; they supported leaks of classified information by the New York Times and other media agencies, the publication of which destroyed national security programs; and they rallied Americans to cut off aid to their own troops and force us an American surrender in Iraq.
The second point Horowitz and Johnson make is that nothing occurred on the battlefield itself to produce such a scorched earth attack on America’s war. What produced the change was a domestic political calculation. At the time of the invasion, a Democratic primary was in progress in which a far-left antiwar candidate was about to win the party’s presidential nomination. It was this fact that caused the Democrats’ eventual candidates John Kerry and John Edwards to reverse their position on the war, and the Democratic Party followed suit. Because the Democrats could not admit their opposition to the war was based on political polls – that they were willing to sacrifice American lives abroad for political gains at home – the party’s leaders claimed that the speeches and votes they marshaled in support of the war were based on lies that George Bush told them.
The third and in some ways most important point Horowitz and Johnson make in their book is that these Democratic claims about White House deception are demonstrably false. George Bush could not have deceived the Democrats about the intelligence on Iraq because the Democrats had full access to America’s intelligence on Iraq. They had it in a 100 page report called the National Intelligence Estimate that was provided to them before their votes and also through the Senate Intelligence Committee which oversees all of America’s intelligence operations and on which John Kerry and other Democrats sit. In a democracy there are no national security secrets withheld from the opposition which is why leaders of the opposition have an obligation to be responsible critics of the war and not make the claims or conduct the kind of attacks the Democrats did.
The response to this argument laid out in Party of Defeat has been a deafening silence. The grave charges Party of Defeat levels against Democratic Party leaders and critics of the war have been simply ignored by the leftwing media from the New York Times to Slate and The New Republic without exception. This silence cannot be attributed to the authors’ alleged marginality or lack of seriousness in their case. Eighteen members of congress have endorsed Party of Defeat, calling it "a well-documented and disturbing account of the unprecedented attacks by leaders of the Democratic Party on a war they supported and then turned their backs on," and advising "every American concerned about the future of their country in the war on terror [to] consider the arguments in this book." These congressional endorsers of Party of Defeat include six senators and the ranking members of committees on terrorism, intelligence, homeland security and armed services.
In an attempt to defeat the boycott of this argument, the editors of Frontpage have challenged critics of the war to answer it in these pages. Frontpage has even offered monetary compensation for the articles they might write. A surprisingly large number of prominent liberal and leftwing editors, journalists and pundits on the war in Iraq refused the offer (a list of them will be posted at a later date). Among those who did respond, including Michael Isikoff, senior correspondent for Newsweek who has written a 450-page attack on the decision to go war, not a single one has so far answered the argument as outlined above.
Today we post the response of Andrew J. Grotto, a Senior National Security Analyst at the Center for American Progress, where he specializes in U.S. strategic policy and the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons. The Center for American Progress is the think tank created by the Clintons and George Soros and headed by John Podesta, formerly chief of staff in the Clinton White House. Grotto’s response may be taken as a reflection of the views common in the liberal mainstream, not a reassuring thought as will be evident in what follows.
