Democrats want to repudiate Trump at any cost — even American lives
Over the past 50 years, Democratic legislators, drawing on misguided policy recommendations from the intelligence communities for places such as Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, have viewed the CIA, FBI and NSC with a healthy degree of skepticism.
Democrats believe there is a bright line between challenging the information these agencies provide and blindly following their policy recommendations. For a Democrat, it is has been surreal that the national security apparatus is the only thing standing between President Trump and international instability.
Since his election Trump has launched a wholesale attack on the credibility of the intelligence community as well as that of other federal agencies. Democrats and many Republicans have become alarmed because democratic governments rely on these neutral institutions and advisers not only to provide unbiased empirical information but also to protect us from governmental abuses. Without this leaders can become autocratic and arbitrary.
Last week, Senate Democrats’ fawning over the intelligence community was over the top and cynical as a majority of Democratic senators joined Republicans in supporting Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s resolution. That document cautions the president against a precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria.
Precipitous? We have been fighting in the Middle East for more than 17 years. In Afghanistan and Iraq alone, almost 15,000 service members and contractors have been killed, and we will have spent $5.9 trillion (including veterans’ healthcare costs) by the end of 2019.
Yet no one has been able to define to the American people what victory looks like there. Granted this was a meaningless resolution, but on the heels of the testimony of National Security Chief Dan Coats, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and CIA Director Gina Haspel, Democrats could not wait to repudiate Trump’s withdrawal plans.
Sen. Richard Durbin and many other Democrats have been saying for a long time that the presence of American troops has only led to further destabilization of the Middle East. So to further confuse the American people, the Senate voted in a bipartisan manner to withdraw U.S. troops from the Saudi-backed War in Yemen.
Are we to now to believe there are no terrorists in Yemen? No wonder Americans look at our actions in the Middle East with incredulity, or passivity, as the New York Times recently noted.
Since Trump’s announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East, the arguments opposing him by both parties and the media have been vapid, at best. Just look at the focus on the resignation of Gen. James Mattis, as if he is the only one who can run the Department of Defense.
What has been missing from the debate is the broader context of what this war has cost us and what we can reasonably expect to accomplish. Those questions are too complex for the nightly news, or perhaps it’s just easier to concentrate on narrow, easily dramatized events.
It was the Founding Fathers’ intent that the Senate debate complex issues such as America’ involvement in the Middle East in a deliberative and thoughtful fashion. But Democrats, in their lust to discredit Trump, took the easy way out.
This was an opportunity to ask serious questions: Do we really want to continue to kill civilians such as the 29 children ambushed by an American drone? Can any number of American soldiers, who do not understand the language and culture of the region, be expected to end the divisions that have existed in the Middle East for thousands of years? How much civilian blood do we have on our hands after 17 years of fighting? Why didn’t senators of either party ask any of those questions? Why didn’t any one senator ask it?
What heightened my sense of cynicism even further was that all the Democratic senators running for president voted against the resolution. We will never know if they were more motivated by politics or principle. However, one thing is for sure: They voted the way they did because the American people are tired of this futile war that continues to drain American treasure.
Trump said in the 2016 campaign that he would get us out and he is keeping that promise. Shame on those Democrats who cared more about opposing the president than saving the lives of American soldiers.
Mike Abrams is former chairman of the Dade Democratic Party, a former state legislator and currently a policy adviser to Ballard Partners.
