Republicans Can't Keep Us Safe
By Mike Hersh, Nov 25, 2003
History shows Republicans are wedded to failed policies which cannot promote economic growth or protect American security. As proven in other articles at this site, Republican voodoo economics ruin the economy and run up the national debt.
Failed Republican policies caused nine of the last ten recessions, and extend and deepen down-turns. Their budgets and actions increase poverty and widen the gulf between haves and have-nots. Republican inability to run the economy is well established, so there's no need to belabor that point. Their failure to conduct diplomacy or other national security policy is less widely understood. However, as the facts show:
Republicans promulgate a myth of strength and competence in military and foreign policy. Republicans often accuse Democrats of "decimating" defense. A quick recap of the latter 20th Century exposes this as simply inaccurate. When it comes to keeping America safe, Republicans are absurdly overrated.
Weapons of mass destruction deployed by rogue states threaten us today. We're facing these threats in large part because Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush reversed decades of US national security policy. Reagan said nuclear proliferation was "none of our business." Once a bulwark against the spread of nuclear weaponry, Reagan made America complicit in it.
GW Bush sided with rogue nations like Iran, Iraq and Libya and opposed our allies when he withdrew US support for treaties to control biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. See: Mark Tran, US spurns chemical weapons ban. "A 1972 treaty banning biological weapons has been added to the list of international protocols Bush has decided to ignore," the Guardian (UK), May 21, 2001: http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,494257,00.html.
This is even worse than his father, who merely obstructed enforcement by demanding unrealistic standards for compliance. See: Lee Feinstein, Another Bush flipflop - this time on chemical weapons, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 1990 Vol. 46, No. 10: http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1990/d90/d90feinstein.html.
The facts belie Republicans' claims they are "tough on defense." Republicans Reagan, Bush and Bush helped empower terrorists and rogue nations. Other Republicans cut defense readiness. With the exception of Ronald Reagan, every Cold War Republican president actually cut military spending. Every Cold War Democratic President increased it. So much for Republican propaganda about Democrats "decimating Defense."
Defense Spending, Constant Dollars (adjusted for inflation)
| Truman's last budget spent | $437.0 Billion |
| Eisenhower's first budget cut defense to | $402.1 Billion |
| Republican CUT Defense by | $34.9 Billion |
| Eisenhower's last budget spent | $291.1 Billion |
| Kennedy's first increased defense to | $300.0 Billion |
| Democrat INCREASED Defense by | $8.9 Billion |
| Johnson's last budget spent | $371.8 Billion |
| Nixon's first cut defense to | $346.0 Billion |
| Republican CUT Defense by | $25.8 Billion |
| Ford's last budget spent | $232.7 Billion |
| Carter's first increased defense to | $233.2 Billion |
| Democrat INCREASED Defense by | $500 Million |
Although Carter's initial increase was hardly dramatic, his last budget spent $ 260.8 Billion on defense, an increase of $28.1 Billion over Ford's last budget, capping four straight years of real increases in defense spending. See: U.S. Military Spending, 1945-1996, Center for Defense Information, Prepared by Martin Calhoun, Senior Research Analyst from Department of Defense and CDI data, July 9, 1996: http://www.cdi.org/issues/milspend.html.
To hear the Republican revisionists tell it, all the Democrats cut military spending and Jimmy Carter turned the Pentagon into a shopping mall. Most people are shocked to learn that Republican Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford cut defense while Democrats Kennedy, Johnson and Carter increased defense spending. This is because Republicans successfully mislead voters to win elections.
Reagan alone among Cold War Republicans increased defense spending. He proved that more money isn't always the answer, however, as he launched the most wasteful overspending in world history. Reagan "threw money" by the 100s of $billions at a problem that didn't really exist, something he called "the window of vulnerability." No US commander would have exchanged our military for the Soviets', and every Soviet general would jump at that trade in a heartbeat.
Reagan's profligate spending - mainly on projects and boondoggles which never added much to defense - ran up the national debt as he overreacted to the real but exaggerated Soviet threat. Reagan's grandstanding speeches did nothing to effect peaceful change in the Eastern Bloc; however his reckless saber rattling threatened to plunge the planet into nuclear war. Fortunately, Gorbachev took charge and kept the Cold War cold.
Reagan Never "Won the Cold War." That's a Ridiculous Myth.
While some people credit Reagan for "winning the Cold War," that simply can't be the case. Credit goes to many Americans. Farsighted leaders like Harry S. Truman, George Marshall - a moderate Republican attacked by McCarthyite Republicans - and others like George F. Kennan designed the successful containment policy. They established the programs and alliances like NATO and the Marshall Plan which carried it out.
Kennan laughed off Republicans' claims Reagan or their party won the Cold War: "The suggestion that any American administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic-political upheaval in another great country on another side of the globe is intrinsically silly and childish. No great country has that sort of influence on the internal developments of any other one." See: Kennan, George, "Republicans Won the Cold War?" At A Century's Ending, p.185. Originally published (in a somewhat different version) in the New York Times, October 28, 1992.
Countless American men and women - and our allies - sacrificed in uniform and in support of our national security efforts from 1945 until the Soviet Union collapsed, after Reagan retired. Crediting Reagan or the GOP for "winning the Cold War" is risible and disrespectful to all those who really won the Cold War.
After President Carter achieved historic breakthroughs for peace, Reagan squandered the chance to build on Carter's leadership in the Middle East and increased security in Latin America. Reagan overturned Jimmy Carter's human rights policy, opting for a new approach centered on violence and reaction which Reagan called "anti-terrorism." He named his Vice President George H. W. Bush to head his anti-terror task force.
Calling Reagan's policies "antiterrorism" is a sick joke. He illegally funded terrorists in Central and South America who raped and killed our citizens and their people alike. Reagan backed cruel torturers and thugs whose failed policies alienated their own people, leading to unrest. Reagan blindly assumed the Soviets were causing this strife, despite all evidence to the contrary. Reagan's matched his failures in this hemisphere with fatal mistakes in the Middle East.
It would be difficult to imagine a worse failure than Reagan's lack of leadership that caused the deaths of 241 US Marines in Beirut, Lebanon. Reagan tried to blame this catastrophe on Jimmy Carter, a preposterous lie because Reagan's orders put the marines in harm's way as part of an unformed, pointless policy and undermined Carter's work for peace in the region. This is typical right wing lack of responsibility. It gets even worse.
Reagan's fatal failure is especially unforgivable because he had fair warning: a car bomb attack almost identical to the one which blew up the marine barracks weeks before. Also, reports Reagan ignored indicated that this position was vulnerable. The barracks guards were unarmed under Reagan's policies.
Reagan loudly proclaimed the US forces would remain in Beirut, but quietly slipped them out after he ordered an attack on the tiny island Grenada. To complete the charade, Reagan continued to ship weapons to Iran and other terrorist states which armed and supported the terrorists who killed our marines. Typical Republican foreign policy failure. All this illustrates the right wing approach to international relations and defense. Fail, blame someone else, announce your defiance, but then cut and run. We're seeing this again today as Bush's Iraq policy degenerates into Reaganite failure.
Democrats Favor Strength through Peace and Prosperity.
Even if siding with tyrants were a necessary expedient during the Cold War - something far from certain - the record shows US leaders of both parties embraced the worst regimes at high cost to US moral and geopolitical standing.
Along with modernizing our defense forces, President Carter moved American policy forward. He broke with the long-standing strategy of aligning the US with dictators - even engineering coups against elected governments - which often "blew back" against us and undermined our national security.
Today - a decade after the Cold War ended - Republicans are still driving us backward toward failed policies of the past. Scholars at the Nautilus Institute note:
"In 1947 Kennan singled out one standard above military prowess or economic muscle which the Cold War would test: 'To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.' Now, with the Cold War behind us, can it truly be said that we have passed this test?" The think-tank experts express their doubts, largely due to failed Republican scandals and ruthless, self-defeating policies:
"The paranoid red-baiting of Joseph McCarthy, the cynicism of secret CIA-sponsored coups overturning elected regimes, the breached trust of Watergate, the duplicity of the Iran-Contra affair, all add up to a weighty and depressing litany of failures. Recent revelations that secret Bush Administration policies, rooted in Cold War logic, contributed to the buildup of Iraq simply add to this sorry score." See "Who Won the Cold War?" In Timothy Breen, ed., The Power of Words: Documents in American History (New York: Harper Collins, 1995): http://www.nautilus.org/admin/staff/wademore.html
Reagan and Bush put special interests over national security when they let their campaign contributors sell weapons to both sides in the Iran / Iraq war. Reagan even directly armed Iran and lied to the American people about it. Clearly selling weapons to these terrorist nations undermined our long-term security interests. Upon taking the presidency, George H. W. Bush continued and expanded illegal, illogical arms deals with Iraq. Bush even sent Senator Bob Dole and others to kowtow to Saddam. This foolish policy blew up in our faces when Saddam attacked Kuwait.
Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Two Bushes Failed Us.
PBS Frontline program quoted Bernard Trainor, the author of the book The General's War: "One of the basic problems at the outset of the crisis was that the administration was convinced of the rectitude of its policy towards Iraq, which was to extend them credits and to try to build bridges to Iraq to change their behavior. They knew Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, but [they clung to] the idea, 'If we build bridges, maybe we can change this fellow's way of doing business.'" See: The Gulf War, Frontline/BBC transcript 1, January 20, 1996: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_a.html
Trainor further explained Bush's misguided policy: "Since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, the [Bush] Administration had been focused on the danger of fundamentalism in Iran and its spread. And it sought to balance that off by building bridges to Iraq. [So] when Saddam Hussein started to threaten Kuwait, the administration had a great deal of difficulty accepting the fact that their bridge-building policy was a failure." See: The Gulf War, Frontline/BBC interviews, January 20, 1996: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/trainor/1.html
Many praise Bush for his handling of the Persian Gulf War. All he did was clean up his own mess. Bush's bungling actually caused that war when his Secretary of State James A. Baker III directed April Glaspie, Bush's ambassador to Iraq, to assure Saddam the United States would take no position against Iraq in any intra-Arab dispute:
The Christian Science Monitor reports, "Eight days before his Aug. 2, 1990, invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein met with April Glaspie, then America's ambassador to Iraq. It was the last high-level contact between the two countries before Iraq went to war." This was a "green light" for the Iraqi attack.
Transcripts show Glaspie told Saddam: "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction ... that Kuwait is not associated with America." See: 'WHATEVER HAPPENED TO...?' US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie?, Carleton Cole, Christian Science Monitor, May 27, 1999: http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/05/27/p23s3.htm.
Colin Powell, the man Americans depend on to moderate and inform George W. Bush's foreign policy also bungled badly regarding Iraq. Frontline showed Powell and Dick Cheney admitting their befuddlement:
Gen. Colin Powell said: "My intelligence officer came in and started to show me satellite photos and other intelligence which suggested an Iraqi buildup in the southern part of Iraq. It wasn't immediately troubling because it was just a buildup within their own country. It did not have the backup that one would expect to see for an invasion of another country." See: The Gulf War, Frontline/BBC transcript 1, January 20, 1996: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_a.html
Powell and Bush ignored Saddam's months-long deployment of troops along the Kuwaiti border. Powell overlooked Iraqi announcements which called Kuwait its lost province. To Iraq, Kuwait was part of "their own country." Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expressed his own befuddlement: "We really needed some time to come to grips with this basic, fundamental question of our strategic assessment of what this meant. Did it matter that he'd taken Kuwait?" See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_a.html
Clearly these men - the cream of the crop in both Bush administrations - had no clue what was going on, and no idea what to do about it. Cheney was so confused he "needed time" to decide whether or not the US should do anything at all before he could even being pondering which response was best. This after he and Bush broke US laws and lied to Congress supplying Saddam with equipment Iraq used in the invasion! Bush I is to blame for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the "Black Hawk Down" atrocity in Somalia, as well as the failure to follow through on promises to support Iraqis Bush called upon to topple Saddam.
Republicans refuse to face facts or change with the times. Their continued instinctive embrace of despots abroad undermines our national security. Republicans also consistently misread events and mismanage our reactions as they favor special interests at the expense of American national interests. Democrats do better.
Democrats advance legitimate US interests in partnership with our allies. Republicans fail by going it alone and insulting our allies. After Clinton brought together the Israelis and Jordan, Lebanon and Palestinians engaged in peace talks, Bush loudly announced withdrawal from the Middle East peace process, as well as several international treaties and negotiations. After President Clinton focused on terrorism, Bush lost all focus and ignored all warnings.
While Republicans Fought Clinton, Clinton Fought Terrorists.
The Washington Post confirmed, "The Clinton administration ordered the Navy to maintain two Los Angeles-class attack submarines on permanent station in the nearest available waters, enabling the U.S. military to place Tomahawk cruise missiles on any target in Afghanistan within about six hours of receiving the order." See: The Covert Hunt for bin Laden: Broad Effort Launched After '98 Attacks, Barton Gellman, Washington Post, December 19, 2001; Page A01: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A62725-2001Dec18¬Found=true
President Clinton dedicated himself to neutralizing bin Laden, but Republicans in the Congress thwarted his efforts. Republican Senators like Phil Gramm blocked legislation to freeze al Qaeda financial assets because special banking interests told them to, and they opposed recommendations to improve airline safety out of deference to the airline lobbyists. Still, the Democrats didn't stop trying to keep Americans safe from terror. The Clinton Administration warned the Taliban that America would hold them personally responsible if Osama bin Laden attacked us. The Washington Post reports:
"Assistant Secretary of State Michael A. Sheehan, the department's counterterrorism coordinator, delivered the new message directly to the Taliban. He telephoned Foreign Minister Ahmed Waqil and read him a formal declaration known as a demarche. 'If bin Laden or any of the organizations affiliated with him attacks the United States or United States interests,' he told Waqil, 'we will hold you, the leadership of the Taliban, personally accountable. Do you understand what I am saying? This is from the highest level of my government [if] you're protecting him, you become responsible for his crimes.'"
Clinton's third-ranking State Department official Thomas Pickering "met with Mullah Ahmed Jalil, Taliban deputy foreign minister [and] told him, as Sheehan had told his boss, that 'people who are helping other people kill Americans are our enemies and should consider themselves as such.'" See: Clinton's War on Terror: The Covert Hunt for bin Laden, Barton Gellman, Washington Post, December 19, 2001; Page A01: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62776-2001Dec18?
Bush and Cheney - Back to the Failed Policies of the Past.
Republicans "Go it Alone" and cause more problems than they solve. W. Bush is no exception to that rule. Once in power, the Bush / Cheney administration withdrew the Clinton safeguards, and entered into negotiations with the Taliban to construct a pipeline. Clinton directed his national security team to brief the incoming Bush advisors on the al Qaeda threat. Bush, Cheney, Rice and the rest pointedly ignored this.
Rather than address terrorism the Bush Occupation focused exclusively on the $trillion wasting, scientifically unfeasible and strategically unnecessary "Star Wars" missile shield. This is because of historic Republican obsession with oil and overpriced military boondoggles. Other articles at this site prove the Bush administration dropped the ball leading up to 9/11: http://www.mikehersh.com/cat_index_9.shtml.
While there's no evidence to indicate George W. Bush, Dick Cheney or any other Republican leader colluded in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, their gross negligence left us wide open to attack. Their efforts to blame the Clinton Administration for their failures ring false. They ordered the CIA, FBI and others to "back off" their investigations of suspected bin Laden terrorists, including two of Osama bin Laden's brothers operating in Northern Virginia. Our enemies perceived this as weakness and struck. See: Call it 9-11Gate: http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020517Outrage3.html.
Intelligence agents reveal Bush turned a "blind eye" to terrorism and this led to 3,100 American deaths. Because of Bush's orders, top FBI officials ignored warnings efforts to investigate and arrest the terrorists who later hijacked and flew our planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Special FBI Agent Coleen Rowley confirms this, and the efforts to cover it up. See: Demand Public Congressional 9/11 Investigation: http://www.bushoccupation.com/welcolumn.html.
After the worst lapse national security disaster in the history of the US, Bush insists he and the confounded retreads from his father's failed policy team are qualified to clean up the mess they and his father left behind. But Bush, Cheney and Powell made gross mistakes which left us open to attack. This is hardly a team which inspires confidence. If this were an isolated failure, Republicans might stake some claim to marginal competence. However, time and again Saddam's, Al-Qaeda's and other enemies' well-telegraphed moves shocked the best and brightest the Republicans have to offer.
Bush's neglect after Clinton's leadership made the Palestinian / Israeli conflict explode into unprecedented violence. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, instability there made our efforts to combat al Qaeda much more difficult. Bush began focusing on bin Laden in Afghanistan, but inexplicably his attention faltered. Failure of will there let top al Qaeda terrorists escape.
Having learned nothing, Bush shifted focus to favor a hair-brained PNAC project and a personal family vendetta against Saddam Hussein to the exclusion of all else. Bush's threats to invade Iraq accomplished everything the US needed to keep us safe - Saddam was allowing inspectors free reign, he was suffering terminal humiliation, we could have worked for a smooth transition to new Iraqi leadership.
But Bush refused to take yes for an answer. His bellicose unreasoning policies alienated our allies and further destabilized this volatile region - setting back our efforts against terrorism and rendering us less safe. Now, Bush has our troops stuck in a quagmire dying every day, Bush is spending untold $billions we don't have - and all for nothing. This is textbook Republican short-sightedness.
"Bush's Brain" Karl Rove tell us we should count on Republicans to protect us. Rove is dead wrong. His claims fly in the face of reality. As shown by their long unbroken string of indefensible unmitigated ineptitude, Republicans do not know what they're doing regarding national defense or diplomacy. They have no excuse for these failures. It's not like Republicans didn't have shining examples to follow.
After Carter's human rights, international cooperation and Camp David peace triumphs, 12 years of Republican administrations failed to support peace anywhere on the planet. After President Clinton worked tirelessly for peace in Ireland, the Middle East, and around the world - a proud legacy in marked contrast to repeated Republican failures - Bush simply walked away from the table.
This is because Carter, Clinton and Democrats understand cooperation promotes international peace, and peace promotes international commerce. The United States relies on a peaceful world to prosper. Republicans don't know or don't care about the sad history of bullies - empires which once stood strong - toppled by their own hubris and folly. That's why we cannot rely on Republicans to promote peace or prosperity. We cannot rely on Republicans to keep us safe.
© Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by MikeHersh.com and identified authors. MikeHersh.com invites you to broadcast any material at this site, provided you identify the source as MikeHersh.com. All print, Internet, email and other summaries, excerpts or other written reproductions must include this blurb and a link to http://www.MikeHersh.com.