In the midst of the Great Civil War, the war to determine if a Nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, could long endure; President Abraham Lincoln faced the bitter attack of the Democrat Party. The Democrats put forward General George Brinton McClellan to run against Lincoln, and built their platform around a plank demanding an end to the war; a war which Democrats labeled a failure. Let’s talk about rewriting history. What if the Democrats had won that election? Where would the world be today if this nation, under God . . . a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, had perished from the earth?
The Democrats of 1864 were far more interested in gaining control of the White House and the Congress than they were in ending slavery and preserving the United States of America. It seems that party’s motivations and practices have changed little in the past one and a half centuries.
In the midst of so much rewriting of history, I thought it appropriate to take a journey back to the un-rewritten pages of history to seek perspective and truth. On February 26, 2003 – less than a month before a Coalition of thirty-five nations, lead by the United States, launched Operation Iraqi Freedom; President Bush outlined the reasons for removing Saddam Hessian from power in Iraq. He not only dealt with the reasons for going to war but clearly outlined the difficulty of the task ahead. The selective memory of those who now claim that the President lied about the reasons for and difficulty of the war requires us to deal with the truths in this call to action.
Reasons for War:
1. Because 9/11 has made the United States a battlefield in the Great War of the 21st Century.
2. Because the greatest danger is an outlaw regime arming with Weapons of Mass Destruction. (I point out that the Doffer report has clearly stated that Saddam had in place monies, technologies, and desires to reconstitute the weapons he had used in the past and to develop nuclear weapons.)
3. Because the Iraqi dictator was building Weapons of Mass Destruction. (This was a position held by the UN, all nations with established intelligence organizations, the Democrats and Republicans in congress, the military, the CIA, and even Joe Wilson.)
4. Because Saddam had close ties with terror. (Not 9/11 but with terror – Saddam was running terror training camps, giving money to families of suicide bombers, and providing refuge to al Queda terrorists escaping from Afghanistan.)
5. Because a free Iraq would help to insure the long term safety and security of the world.
6. Because it was necessary to stop Saddam’s regime from spreading discord and violence in the Middle East.
7. Because the liberation of Iraq will allow the power of freedom to transform a region – bringing hope and progress to millions.
8. Because a free and peaceful Iraq will provide the liberty Americans believe in and the security it needs.
9. Because Iraqis live in scarcity and fear in a police state maintained by secret police and torture chambers, and terror. The lives of Iraqis mean little to Saddam, but they do matter to the U.S.
10. Because free nations do not breed ideologies of murder.
11. Because the liberation of Iraq will serve as an inspiration to other peoples suffering under regimes maintained by murder and terror that if they fight they can do so with hope of success.
12. Because the Iraqi people desire to be safe from brutality and oppression.
13. Because the liberation of Iraq will begin a new stage of Middle East peace. (And it has – yesterday the new Palestinian government took over control of its own national border for the first time.)
14. Because ending Saddam’s regime will cut off a wealthy patron that pays for terrorist training and offers rewards to families of suicide bombers.
15. Because the liberation of Iraq will serve as a warning to others not to support terror.
16. Because the removal of Saddam will encourage Palestinians to abandon terror.
17. Because removal of the Saddam regime will enable support for a Palestinian state.
18. Because freedom in Iraq will break the old patterns of hate.
19. Because victory over terror, war, and murder will bring peace.
20. Because following through on the commitments of the UN will make the UN a viable organization. (Not one steeped in oil and blood money)
21. Because the defeat of a murderous dictator and outlaw regime will signal other out- laws that they cannot ignore the will of the civilized world.
22. Because only such a significant change can end Middle East violence and its world wide effects.
President Bush spoke of the difficulty of the war long before it began:
1. It will be difficult to bring stability and unity to that part of the world, but any future will be better than the present.
2. It will be difficult not to allow one Dictator to replace another.
3. It will be difficult to rebuild a nation devastated by a generation of brutalization by a dictator.
4. “It will be difficult to help freedom take hold in a country that has known three decades of dictatorship, secret police, internal divisions, and war.”
5. “It will be difficult to cultivate liberty and peace in the Middle East, after so many generations of strife."
President Bush invokes the memories of Lincoln’s battle against slavery, of Roosevelt’s and Truman’s battle against Fascism and Japanese Militarism, of Reagan’s battle against Communism when he ends his pre-war address by claiming, “Yet, the security of our nation and the hope of millions depend on us, and Americans do not turn away from duties because they are hard. We have met great tests in other times, and we will meet the tests of our time.”
The Democrat political party is now willing to ignore and jeopardize all these important reasons and valuable goals, to give up the difficult fight for a better future of the world, in their disingenuous screaming of “Bush Lied; People Died”. Their only goal is to damage President Bush and gain political power for themselves. In one hundred and forty-one years the goals of the Democrats have not changed.
If Lincoln’s enemies had had their way, two antagonistic nations, one slave and one free, would have battled out the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; warring for territory and power; destroying each other while the monsters in Europe gobbled up the world in Communism, Fascism, and genocide. Slavery would have dragged on into another century of injustice brewing “a fire in the night” that would have dwarfed the “first” civil war in its terror and destructive might.
Now, we must ask ourselves, what if Saddam Hussein’s power would have remained unchecked in ambition and hate. Even John Kerry, who was one of the leaders of the anti- war movement of the 60’s and 70’s that led to the murder and enslavement of millions in South East Asia, cannot bear to contemplate that terror. Yet, to gain power the Democrats are willing to endanger us all, and set the world back into the hand of terrorists and terror states. Let’s remember history – not rewrite it for the momentary expedience of the Democrat political party.
1 year ago