| February
21, 2004
Liberals v. Bush
Doctrine — A Case of Collective
Delusion
By Gary
Mendoza/HispanicVista.com
As the intensity of
liberal criticism of President Bush’s
foreign policy escalates, the collective
detachment from reality of the people
screeching this criticism grows. While
the long list of inconvenient facts they
choose to ignore adds passion to their
diatribes, in these dangerous times,
inconvenient facts matter, and leaders
who ignore unpleasant realities do so at America’s
peril.
To hear President
Bush’s loudest critics tell it,
members of a Bush Administration cabal
were the only people who thought Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Of course, the Kurds and Iranians whom
Saddam gassed might have a different view
in this regard, and the fact that the
United Nations, the Clinton
Administration and the intelligence
services of France, Germany, Russia, Great
Britain and others had reached precisely
the same conclusion is irrelevant.
Why let facts get in
the way of an impassioned argument?
To these loud liberal critics, it’s
much more satisfying to yell “Bush
lied” and take comfort in your own
well-developed (and wholly-unwarranted)
sense of moral superiority.
Saddam’s
indisputable history of pursuing,
possessing and using weapons of mass
destruction, however, isn’t the
central fact these critics turn a blind
eye towards. Most importantly,
these critics refuse to come to terms
with the most unpleasant reality of our
time—America is at war, a war not of
our choosing and with an enemy that we
cannot possibly placate.
September 11 was as
clear a declaration of war as Pearl
Harbor, and in this war, our enemies are
implacably hostile to American values,
American freedom and to the too-often
crass American popular culture. These
enemies will not go away. Instead,
they will continue to plot and, to the
greatest extent possible, carry out
deadly attacks against America and its
friends. They must be hunted down
and brought to account—there is no
other choice.
These loud liberal
critics ignore unpleasant realities at
the top of their lungs to draw attention
away from a reality they’d like America
to ignore. They have no realistic
plan to address the serious threats
presented by enemies dedicated to our
destruction.
If they had an
alternative plan to drain the fever swamp
of Islamic terrorism, their criticisms of
the Iraq invasion and President Bush’s
efforts to put a democratic Arab country
in the heart of the dangerous Middle East
might merit at least a scintilla of
serious intention. Their preference
for putting America’s security
interests in the hands of the U.N. and
other global actors that are
fundamentally indifferent to America’s
security, however, belies a lack of
seriousness about the threats we are
facing.
While liberal
critics don’t want to admit it,
noble intentions, international
organizations and generous smiles are not
going to protect us against enemies
committed to our destruction. Putting
daisies in the barrel of a gun made for a
good photo in the 60s. That same
approach to today’s enemies would be
fatal.
Dangerous times and
real threats demand leaders who are
willing to take the necessary, unwelcome
and often risky steps to protect America’s
security. While the loud liberal
voices who are willingly blind to the
unpleasant reality of today’s
dangerous world and those political
“leaders” who play to this
crowd generate attention, America cannot
afford to follow their head-in-the-sand
approach.
We don’t have
that luxury. This is simply too
much at stake.
_______________________________________________
Gary Mendoza, a
HispanicVista.com columnist (www.hispanicvista.com),
is a partner of the Bingham McCutchen LLP
law firm; a former Commissioner of
Corporations heading California's
Department of Corporations; Deputy Mayor
for Economic Development in Los Angeles
Mayor Richard Riordan's office, and
recent candidate for California's office
of Insurance Commissioner. Email contact:
garymendoza2002@yahoo.com
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