Latest Terrorism Scare No Help To Democrats

With the victory of antiwar candidate Ned Lamont in Connecticut and the latest terrorism scare coming from England today, Democrats are likely in somewhat worst position than when they started this week. Only that no aircraft bombing actually took place was the only saving grace for the Democrats this week. Yet this doesn't need to be. Democrats could win foreign policy and terrorism arguments if they only would lift a finger to become literate on MidEast events and history and investigate the Republican record since the Reagan years of foreign policy failures that have only increased the threats from Islamic revolutionaries.

During the Reagan Administration, Agriculture Department CCC funds intended to offer natural disaster relief to foreign nations were used in an illegal Reagan foreign policy to allow Saddam Hussein to spend billions on French and Brazilian arms after the Soviet Union had declared a regional arms embargo to dry up the supply of regional arms during the Iran-Iraq War. This was intended to give Iraq a military advantage over Iran as well as undermined the efforts of the Soviets to force a ceasefire among Iran and Iraq and a peace treaty. The result of this illegal Reagan policy was that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi war machine became so large that he invaded Kuwait in 1990 over an oil dispute, which directly caused the 1991 Gulf War. Any problems with Iraq had their roots in the illegal Reagan Republican foreign policy aimed at building up the dictator Saddam Hussein and his military into a huge war machine compared to other MidEast states.

Another bad milepost in the Reagan Administration years was the illegal and covert CIA war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Reagan Administration along with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia helped to establish Mujahedeen fighter training camps throughout remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia brought in Osama Bin Laden to establish many of these terrorist training camps and with the financial and arms help of the CIA, Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization and the Taliban got their roots in this illegal covert foreign policy. The Soviets were acting in regard to the stated 1968 Brezhnev Doctrine to shore up a wobbly Communist regimes as well as opposing a creeping Muslim revolutionarism similar to that of Iran. Instead of behaving in a Cold Warrior way, Reagan only helped to promote the growth of Al Qaeda using CIA funds and arms and helped to promote the worldwide growth of terrorism. Many of the terrorist leaders in Iraq are former Afghanistan War veterans including the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Al Qaeda's #2, Dr. Ayman al-Zawhiri. It is failed Republican foreign policy during the Reagan years that directly built the Al Qaeda network into today's current threat.

In Iraq, the Republican string of foreign policy failures only continued as this very poorly conceived war only further destablized the MidEast and has dramaticly increased the clout of Iran's brand of revolutionary Shia radical Islam. Now Iran has a strong string of power that sweeps across the MidEast, and only promises the future undermining of the more moderate Sunni governments in the region. As Iran consolidates more MidEast power and develops and proliferates nuclear arms throughout the region a serious world war threat to the Western world only grows.

While the Sunni Muslims are far more pragmatic and willing to be become constructive world community members, the regrowth of Islamic radicalism only promises future dangers. To many of the more radical in Islam, paradise can only be gained if a Muslim loses their life fighting an unbeliever. This oftwen means death for both, not a simple religious faith conversion. In 628 the Prophet Muhammed was rejected by Jewish tribes who rejected him as the final prophet. This led to conflict between believers in early Islam and the Jewish community. Muhammad offered a 10 year peace offer, but then attacked these Jewish tribes in open warfare. Since that time after the death of Muhammad, two separate groups of followers developed that followed different family members or others, and the Shia tended to be far more radical than the Sunni followers. By the Middle Ages, three times there were attempts by Muslims to overrun and impose their faith on Vienna and all of Europe. The problems in Bosnia were among pockets of Muslim still left over from previous Muslim rule over much of Europe. In WWI, Turkey wgich represented the last years of the Ottoman Empire aligned with Germany in hopes of asserting Muslim control over parts of Europe. Rome and other areas could have easily fallen under Muslim control if Turkey had won this war. Only after the 1924 revolution in Turkey was the last of the Ottoman rulers replaced with a more secular Muslim regime less bent on worldwide Muslim religious domination.

The Ned Lamont's of the Democratic Party seem to know nothing of any of this history. Much like an ostrich, they hope that a simple withdrawal from Iraq will solve all the MidEast problems. But this naive world view only promises more future conflict between the world of revolutionary Islam and the Western world. Some have recently praised the fact that Ned Lamont hasn't got a clue on some issues as though this is an asset. Unless he manages to become very literate on issues by November, he may run third in the race with the Republican or Lieberman squeeking out ahead.

The problems of the MidEast are very complex. And the Republicans only have tended to much worsen them, erasing all the peaceful efforts of both Carter and Clinton. If Democrats would know more about the MidEast history and the Reagan era Republican failures, then they could win any argument on the MidEast with Republicans. But somehow this just seems to be too much effort on the part of many Democrats where history books seem like Kryptonite to many of them, and they prefer the easy and lazy path of merely wanting out of Iraq now that things aren't going very well. Well, things in the MidEast are far more complicated than that now. We've made a real mess in the MidEast with failed policies and unless the U.S. makes the effort to restablize this mess it will only bite the U.S. over and over again. The Republicans are able to capitalize off of a Democratic spirit of laziness and ignorance about the MidEast although it was the Republican foreign policy disasters that brought us here. Because of this, Democrats are only one terrorist act from complete electoral disaster in November. You have to give both parties a great deal of credit for the sheer mountain of problems that they create for themselves and for the U.S. and the Western world. But how Muslim moderates can gain more strength in face of Islamic revolutionarism is a very good question.