David Copley: A fight against the inevitable

An axis of appeasement has been formed by the Democratic Party leadership. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Tom Daschle and Sen. Ted Kennedy want to continue with ineffective weapons inspections and containment policies against the Iraqi regime. This follows a State of the Union Address in which President Bush made clear that Saddam Hussein is "a brutal dictator with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth and can not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States." The president has already gone the extra mile in an attempt to avoid war. Saddam Hussein has his middle fingers raised toward the United Nations and its weapons inspectors. It's now inevitable that U.S. ground troops will be called upon to end the serious threat posed by Saddam Hussein to our national security. In their official response to the State of the Union, the Democrats had the perfect platform to show that the Democratic leadership stood with the president on the inevitable war. A TV audience of around 100 million watched the State of the Union. Where was Tom? Where was Nancy? No, the TV screens didn't go blank. Some Democrat showed up to deliver the response. Of course he read the right words on the teleprompter. But who was the guy? Gov. Gary "What-state-is-he-in-charge-of" Locke is a bizarre choice to deliver such a critical message. The symbolism surely has not been lost on both our enemies and our brave men and women in uniform. Once again the Democrats were distancing themselves from the commitment to bring Saddam to task. In doing so, they were following in a tradition started in the early '90s by former President Bill Clinton. During his tenure, Clinton waged a relentless war against the U.S. military. While increasing the number of overseas deployments by 400 percent, he slashed our active duty force in half, closed military bases and drastically cut the military budget. Morale and military readiness both suffered under his presidency. The American people know the Democratic Party is weak on defense issues. After their drubbing in the midterm elections in November 2002, political pundits assumed the Democrats would try to reposition themselves as strong supporters of the war on terror. They were wrong. Recently, Pelosi was selected as the Democratic minority leader in the House. Pelosi is so far in left field on national defense, she based her opposition to the first Persian Gulf War on the war's "impact on the environment." Left to her, Saddam might still be in Kuwait. Pelosi's Democratic colleagues in the Senate suffer from the same lack of credibility on national security matters. Senate Majority Leader Daschle claims the president has failed to prove that Saddam Hussein "is an imminent threat." The senator's logic is faulty. The goal is to prevent Saddam from becoming an imminent threat. Saddam stated after the Persian Gulf War that his only mistake was not waiting until he had nuclear weapons to commence the invasion. This makes him the only world leader in history to view the nuclear bomb as an offensive weapon rather than a deterrent. It is much more logical to stop Saddam before he completes his nuclear weapons program and gains the ability to blackmail us. Daschle criticizes the president for failing to "prove" that Saddam still has weapons of mass destruction. Somehow, he overlooks chief weapons inspector Hans Blix's revelation that Iraq has failed to account for 30,000 munitions capable of carrying chemical warheads, 6,500 bombs containing 1,000 tons of chemical agents and over 500 tons of sarin, VX and mustard gas. Saddam didn't "misplace" these weapons after drinking too much beer in downtown Baghdad. Daschle's ally in appeasement, Sen. Kennedy, recently called for a re-vote on the resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. This is a pointless stalling tactic. Absolutely nothing has changed since the passage of the earlier resolution. Why should Congress reconsider its decision? The Democrats should take note of last week's demise of Israel's left-wing Labor Party. Labor won only 19 of 120 seats in the Israeli Parliament, by far its worst showing ever. With less than 20 percent of the seats in the Israeli Parliament, the once-majority party has now become largely irrelevant. Why did the Israeli people vote against the party? Because it was viewed as too ready to appease Yasser Arafat and the terrorists within the Palestinian Authority. Our great American democracy needs a credible opposition party. The Democrats must grow some backbone in a hurry. If not, they will join Israel's Labor Party in history's unmarked grave of irrelevant political has-beens. David Copley is a sophomore Finance and Real Estate major from Bellevue, Wash.

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