Success Is Failure

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 8/29/2006

Appeasement: Democrats are calling our victories in the global war on terror defeats. Hysteria like this from an increasingly disloyal opposition is no help in America's long war against a new kind of enemy.

In George Orwell's fictional "Nineteen Eighty-Four," the tyrannical regime of Oceania told its citizens that "war is peace," "freedom is slavery" and "ignorance is strength." Today the Democratic Party could adopt the motto "winning is losing."

This week, Joe Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made a stunning declaration while stumping for president in Iowa: "If anything is shown by the British uncovering the plot on the airliners, it's simple — we are not protected."

You'd think the saving of thousands of lives might warrant a pat on President Bush's back. Instead, Biden claims "we are not safe" and complains about "this administration's refusal to do anything about homeland security."

But there have been no terrorist attacks on the homeland in the five years since 9-11. How much safer can you get than that?

As Vice President Dick Cheney pointed out this week to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, terrorists since 9-11 "have successfully carried out attacks in Casablanca, Jakarta, Mombasa, Bali, Riyadh, Baghdad, Istanbul, Madrid, London, Sharm al-Sheikh, Bombay and elsewhere. Here in the U.S., we have not had another 9-11."

Meantime, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean's reaction to the foiled airline plot was to issue a statement again complaining that "Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida's mastermind, is still on the loose." But bin Laden might as well be in jail, considering how emasculated he is.

What's more, if Democrats had their way, the most valuable tools that have successfully prevented more than a dozen terrorist operations — like the National Security Agency's surveillance of international telephone calls — would be shut down.

The Bush administration isn't giving its opponents a pass. Also speaking to the VFW, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted that "it is apparent that many have still not learned history's lessons." He issued a reminder that we face nothing less than "a new type of fascism" in this war.

Let's also not forget that prominent Democrats want us to cut and run in Iraq. The vice president warned that "retreat would convince the terrorists, once again, that free nations will change our policies, forsake our friends and abandon our interests whenever we are confronted with violence and blackmail." Rumsfeld made it clear: "We have only two options in Iraq — victory or defeat."

Sadly, Democrats can't tell the difference, and with a chance to pick up congressional seats, they are stooping to the Orwellian.