Miserable Creatures

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin's outrageous comparison of U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the genocidal tactics of Nazi, Soviet and Cambodian concentration camps has exposed the moral equivalence and cowardice within the Democratic Party, as much for what Democrats didn't say about Durbin's remarks, as for what they did.

While reaction on the Right was swift in defense of our military against Durbin's seditious charges, all that has emanated from the Left is a deafening silence, or even agreement with Durbin's seditious comments.

There has been no outcry from any major Democratic Party figure, from Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, would-be 2008 presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton, or anyone else on the political left. Nor has there been any grassroots outrage of rank and file Democrats that increasingly bow to the capricious and shrill whims of the radical MoveOn.org fringe of the party. Durbin has refused to apologize for his comparison, and Democrats have not pressed him for one. Many, it would seem, agree with his off-kilter assessment.

This leaves us to draw the frightening conclusion that the Democratic leadership really does feel that our military is on par with the Gestapo, Stalin's NKVD, and the Khmer Rouge. If this is the case—and Democratic leaders have given us no reason to think otherwise over this past week—then the Party of the People has devolved into the Party of Treason.

Durbin's comments—attributed to a faceless FBI agent who is in every way an “anonymous government source” like those that have misled the world on so many aspects of the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility as of late—have been a propaganda victory for the enemy, and an baseless, seditious slander of our troops.

Not one charge of anything even approaching torture has been substantiated at Guantanamo Bay, not one charge.

At most, those interrogating the terrorists—excuse me, “illegal enemy combatants”—at Guantanamo have on a handful of occasions improperly treated a book, and made living conditions almost as unpleasant for these terrorists as those our elite military units go through voluntarily during training or intra-service competitions. If we run a “gulag,” as Mark Steyn dryly observes:

...It's the first gulag in history where the torture victims put on weight. Each prisoner released from Guantanamo receives a new copy of the Koran plus a free pair of blue jeans in his new size: the average detainee puts on 13 pounds during his stay, thanks to the “mustard-baked dill fish”, “baked Tandoori chicken breast” and other delicacies.

No, Democratic hatred of President George W. Bush in particular and Republicans and general have led Democrats to decidedly radical positions that threaten the lives of our military with clearly seditious charges. Democrats cravenly seek a political advantage at the expense of the safety of our men and women in uniform, and that is despicable.

Dick Durbin joins a growing litany of hysterical Left-wing voices that will say or do anything, stoop to any level, slander any person or group, and yes, even commit acts of treason and sedition against this nation in their naked pursuit of political power. They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. So then does a blind chase for power when it consistently portrays fellow Americans as evil in a twisted bid to gain political influence.

The bared treason and sedition of the American political left is reprehensible; they're aiding and abetting of the enemy cause unconscionable. Durbin and his allies on the left would elevate the status of terrorists and murderers to that of legitimate soldiers, while tearing down a United States military that has been the last, best hope for human dignity and freedom against the forces of tyranny on this planet for most of the past century. 50 million people have been freed from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in just the last few short years, and yet the Left would undermine it all to undermine a single man, a president that they do not like.

Dick Durbin and his silent allies in the Democratic leadership would equate us with the most repressive regimes in history. Instead of segregating the actions of a few rouge guards at Abu Ghraib (acts brought to light by our military and prosecuted swiftly in accordance to military law, I might add) he would demonize all soldiers, sailors and airmen of the United States in pursuing his own power-mad agenda.

Durbin and his ilk consistently downplay the threat of terrorists, and would have America forget the actions taken by terrorists on September 11, 2001. Democrats downplay the very real and continued threat of Islamic terrorism, while insisting that our nation is deeply committed to criminal acts.

Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and Dick Durbin are among the leaders of a 21st Century Democratic Party that stands with a shrill chorus of attack-America-first radicals that rejected the will of the American people, because on November 2, 2004, America rejected them. In their anger at their rejection, bereft on anything like ideas for the future of this nation, they instead chose to attack it, and care little for the collateral damage they create in the process.

Far from being supportive of our troops in harm's way, the party that marched under banners proclaiming “we'll support our troops when they kill their officers” would not even consider deaths resulting from their treason as those resulting from “friendly fire.” They've manifestly placed themselves on the side opposite of that of the will evidenced by the American people on November 2nd and opposite that of our men and women in uniform. Liberals have placed themselves against the families of those who perished on September 11th by trying to build a we-deserved-it “memorial” called the International Freedom Center at Ground Zero (NOTE: sign the petition against the IFC).

American liberals have become increasingly anti-American, to the point that they themselves seem to question their own patriotism, by always fervently claiming that we shouldn't question their patriotism. Perhaps someone should tell the Democratic Party that if they feel compelled to keep bringing it up, it might be for a reason.

John Stuart Mill, said that:

"war is an ugly thing. . . . but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war is worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature."

The Democrats, both by what they've said, and what they haven't, have proven to be the very "miserable creatures" to which Mill referred. Democrats care so little about the safety of American military personnel that they would embolden an insidious enemy in a pathetic attempt to score political points.

Democrats have crossed the line from being anti-Bush to anti-American. Let's hope they can find their way back.