Offensive Enough?

I’ve received a few comments lately expressing offense at the idea that I would compare Nazi propaganda with some of the rhetoric coming from the anti-war movement these days.

I stand by what I wrote!

Further, I am proud to support our work in Iraq and the wider war on terror.

For those who don’t know me, or for those who think they do, let me say categorically that I am not a George Bush apologist. I am a Democrat and I have the votes to prove it. I voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Hubert Humphrey in 1968, George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 (I actually worked on the campaign), Ronald Reagan in 1980, Walter Mondale in 1984, Michael Dukakis in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992, a write-in candidate in 1996, George Bush in 2000, and George Bush in 2004.

I would have supported a Democratic ticket against George Bush in the last two elections if there was a candidate I believed in. Neither Al Gore nor John Kerry were candidates I could believe in. I would have gladly voted for Joe Lieberman if he had been the presidential candidate. But, he wasn’t, so I voted based on my convictions.

I understand the rhetoric is supercharged right now. But I can honestly say that it is not politics, but principle that guides my thinking. You may not agree with those principles, but try as you will, they can not be marginalized, nor will I abandon them.

I also understand that much of what is motivating the current “debate” is politics. It was the same way in the nineties when Bill Clinton committed American troops to end the slaughter in the Balkans. Democrats, my Democrats, supported the effort and Republicans by and large opposed it. So much for principle! I believed that we should have intervened in Rwanda and believe that we as a nation committed a grave sin by not doing so. The blood of hundreds of thousands of Rwandans is as much on our hands as anyone else’s. We had the power and the obligation to do something, but we shrank from our responsibility.

Do you want to know what I find offensive? I find it offensive to hear people say that while Saddam was a tyrant we had no right to intervene. I find it offensive when people call terrorists, who murder innocent men, women, children to advance a world-wide ideology propped up by hatred, freedom fighters. I find it offensive when people who live in world of freedom and the free exchange of ideas would deny those rights to others because of their hatred for one man. I find it offensive when people say that by speaking as I do I’m infringing on someone else’s right to free speech. I have put my life on the line (Vietnam 1965-1966) to ensure that they had that right, and to be honest with you I don’t believe, that if push came to shove, they’d be willing to lay their lives on the line to support my freedom. The obligation and the duty resides with me. I must, by principle, be prepared to lay my life down, and they can, by national identity, demand it of me. But I honestly do not believe that they feel that same sense of obligation or duty to me. I find that offensive.

At the introduction to this piece there is a pamphlet handed out to all who attended a meeting recently held at San Francisco State University. One of the speakers at that event was Cindy Sheehan. I find it offensive that a mother who has lost a son in this conflict would align herself with such evil. I understand grief, but what she had to say at that meeting had little to do with grief. It had to do with hatred. The old adage says that a person is known by the company he or she keeps. I find that offensive!

I rest my case.

I cannot say for sure how this cosmic conflict will end. But I can say that I know which side I am on. Christopher Hitchens said what I feel more eloquently than I ever could:

“Coexistence with aggressive regimes or expansionist, theocratic, and totalitarian ideologies is not in fact possible. One should welcome this conclusion for the additional reason that such coexistence is not desirable, either. If the great effort to remake Iraq as a demilitarized federal and secular democracy should fail or be defeated, I shall lose sleep for the rest of my life in reproaching myself for doing too little. But at least I shall have the comfort of not having offered, so far as I can recall, any word or deed that contributed to a defeat.”

I am proud to sit on the moral high ground in this conflict. I will not yield it. If that offends you, then all I can say is that you be offended.