The Trial of the Generals: Poison Politics

After long years of war between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian Navy won a battle on stormy seas. The ten generals who had commanded the victory returned to Athens expecting a hero’s welcome. Instead they were thrown into prison and put on trial for their lives. Because of the terrible storm the fleet had been forced to withdraw before it could pick up soldiers who had fallen overboard during the battle.

For political reasons, enemies of the generals accused them of murder, delivered stirring speeches in the assembly; played on the sorrows of those who lost loved ones; stirred the ignorant and angry masses and demanded death by hemlock for the saviors of the city.

Not only did they sway the masses in this outrage, they convinced the people to set aside the Constitution of the City and try the Generals all together and in one day, lest reason return and thwart their scheme.

We know of only one man who spoke out against this idiocy, one voice raised in defense of justice and of the city, Socrates. He warned the assembly of the immorality of their vengeance driven attack and warned of the dire nature of the precedent they would set. But he was only one voice in a maddened multitude. The generals were poisoned, Athens’ war effort decimated, and the deadly precedent of mass trial and summery execution established.

These political poisonings precipitated Athenian defeat. Their armies killed, their empire destroyed, their long wall of defense pulled down, their citizens enslaved, their children murdered, their freedom taken; the people paid the price for political pollution.

Under the oligarchy established by the Spartans; mass trials and summery executions, legitimized by the murder of the generals, took the lives of over 4,000 innocent Athenians. Now to the present:

Week after week the political enemies of President Bush plot to poison and pollute. The dangers of partisan injustice can only be averted by wisdom. As wisdom is knowledge of truth let me present some truths for your consideration:

1. The present problems with Iran and much of Islamic terrorism can be traced to Jimmy Carter’s naive or pernicious politics. Finding the Shah of Iran’s methods of governance unacceptable to his politically popular “rose colored glasses” pacifism, Carter allowed the monster Khomeini to seize Iran and establish the “Islamic” dictatorship that spawns and supports terrorism throughout the world and seeks nuclear weapons and world domination. For over a year Carter broadcast American impotency by allowing Islamic fanatics to hold American hostages and humiliate our nation on a continuing basis. The election of Ronald Reagan cowed Khomeini, but fanatic Islamic-fascism found its home in a former American ally. The consequence of Carter’s cowardice is the Long War we must now fight. For political gain, Carter played to the mob; his lack of leadership has murdered millions.

2. Bill Clinton’s bungling gave hope to al Qaeda and purpose to bin Laden’s quest to become the new Caliph of an Islamic Terror State.

The fruits of George Bush I’s world-wide coalition against aggression were realized when American Marines ended years of Islamic Warlord imposed famine in Somalia. Twenty thousand U.S. Marines brought hope to a brutalized people and the world after tens of thousands of deaths by starvation and terror. But Bill Clinton came to office through the insane politics of Ross Perot. To appease his anti-military political base and perhaps in fruition of the anti-war infatuation of his youth, Clinton began the destruction of U.S. military might. Pillaging the Pentagon provided the “Peace Dividend” Clinton needed to purchase political power.

His anti-military pension led Clinton to withdraw the Marines from Somalia. It was his plan to conduct a low key “unnoticed” action through a few Special Forces troops (Rangers and the hither to secret Delta Force). As conditions on the ground got worse, commanders pled for armor and the force necessary to fulfill their mission. Clinton ignored the requests; choosing to play the role of American pacifism and rely on Pakistani troops from the U.N.

Clinton, having hamstrung U.S. forces in Mogadishu, then demanded a super human task of capturing a group of warlords in the city center. When helicopters went down and U.S. forces were pinned down, there was nothing to do but work the miracle. U.S. forces brought the captured warlords out and the wounded to safety; but not before the naked bodies of American soldiers were dragged and mutilated through the streets of Mogadishu and before the cameras of CNN.

Clinton rewarded the sacrifice of American heroes by releasing the terrorists our troops had died to capture and deserting the people of Somalia to starvation and tyranny. America watched in shame; others were watching too!

Osama bin Laden marked American weakness and postulated that faced with even minimal losses America would turn and run. The remaining years of the Clinton Administration validated Osama’s belief.

Clinton did nothing as the Taliban devoured Afghanistan.

Clinton did nothing as Rwanda drowned in blood, 500,000 to a million people hacked to death by machetes.

Clinton sat back until 250,000 Yugoslavs were slaughtered in a religious genocide. When at last Clinton did act, it was with high altitude bombing and casualty “free” confrontation.

Osama watched as a mob of thugs drove the U.S. Navy out of Haiti.

Osama watched as Saddam murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people in his bid to reestablish his despotic control of Iraq.

Osama watched as Saddam ignored Clinton’s hollow threats and bribed his way into control of the U.N.

Then Osama went on the offensive – to test his hypothesis: U.S. embassies across Africa were destroyed and nothing but ineffectual cruise missiles and cowardice from Clinton, from America.

A direct attack on a U.S. warship and Clinton called the Yemeni Police for help.

Now Osama “knew” the kind of enemy he faced. What could an American election have meant to Al Qaeda? Osama thought that when he took the measure of Bill Clinton, he understood America. So he crafted and carried out the 9/11 attack, confident that America would abandon Israel and the Islamic world to Osama’s rule.

How telling that within days after 9/11 Bill Clinton delivered a speech blaming the attack on America!

But Bill Clinton was gone, and Al Gore never came, and Osama soon learned the difference!

3. Under George Bush II, America’s response was swift, successful, and decisive. Within months Afghanistan was free, al Qaeda on the run and freedom on the march in West Asia. The WMDs that would have been bin Laden’s only hope were denied him in the four week removal of Saddam Hussein from Iraq. Mission accomplished!

Saddam is gone, bin Laden in hiding, constitutional governments allied with the United States surround Iran, but the Long War is not over. The infection of Islamic Fascism and terrorism still threatens the world. However, in the four plus years since Osama’s big mistake, the American homeland has remained secure. Osama’s threats come out on scratchy audio tapes crafted in caves, and have never yet come true.

But in the face of so much success, in the very hour of victory, a new enemy appears. President Bush’s success itself makes him vulnerable. As Americans who no longer live under the threat of attack, they open their ears to the political poison of those seeking power at the expense of their country. The very enemy that aided Sparta in its struggle with Athens now threatens America. Determined to gain power at any cost, politicians motivated by self-serving ambition launch unfounded attacks on America’s war effort. Counting on ignorance, prejudice, fear, and hate to propel them to power. Americans are not as foolish or as uninformed as the Athenian mob, but aided by their powerful allies in the “antique” media, power seekers spread their poison:

1. In a painful parallel to past perversion, Cindy Sheehan and her crowd count corpses and chant blame. Appealing to sorrow and loss they seek Senate seats and presidential power.

2. Seeking gain in the 2006 election, Democrats and their media masters shark up a “disaster” a week to attack the President and those who serve the nation.
1) Misrepresented photos of criminal conduct at Abu Grab are blamed on the President and the military, though the discovery and prosecution of these crimes was by the very military that the media and the terrorists try to blame for the actions of fools. 2) Lies about torture chambers and secrets prisons fill the press, though not a fact is to be found, nor a reason for anger articulated. 3) Crooked lobbyists are dug up to scandalize until the search uncovered Harry Reid. 4) Deception and misreporting over NSA surveillance endangers the nation and sows confusion, and then is proven unfounded. 5) Dick Cheney’s hunting accident is called a metaphor for Administration failures though all that happened was an accident, properly reported to the authorities, but not taken to the press. 6) And now, relying on racist fears and ignorance a phony attack against the Administration is concocted over the sale of a company to a valuable U.S. ally in the war on terror.

Week after week, the Democrat office seekers concoct a tissue of events that exist no where but in their lies, and lacing the poison of half truths about hurricane relief and economic trends they poison the nation.

Some would say that President Bush needs to get ahead of these attacks. construct a “bullet proof” policy for every action taken. Such a process would endanger America. That was Clinton’s way; finger in the air, Billy was always dancing ahead of every issue; carefully polling his way to nowhere.

Bush’s method is more direct and is the only real option he has; the only real course to lead America. He goes forward and waits for his enemies within to take their shot of the week. His time is better spent continuing to combat terrorists rather than spinning and researching every possible lie that might attack him. When the lies come, he deals with them by showing the truth. So far he has been able to rely on the wisdom of the American people to comprehend the truth and recognize the folly.

Wouldn’t it be tragic if America, like Athens, could defeat its enemies in battle only to be poisoned by politics at home?