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Chuck DeVore- Contributor

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore represents 450,000 residents of Orange County California’s 70th Assembly District.. He served as a Reagan White House appointee in the Pentagon from 1986 to 1988 and was Senior Assistant to Cong. Chris Cox. He is a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard. Chuck’s novel, CHINA ATTACKS, sells internationally and has been translated into Chinese for sales in Taiwan. [go to DeVore index]

Democrats AWOL in War on Terror
Offer Nuclear Freeze and Gun Ban as Solution…
[Chuck DeVore] 7/30/04

Wednesday night, Democrat Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards gave America’s trial attorneys a thrill when he offered these tough words about the war on terror: “We will have one clear unmistakable message for al-Qaida and the rest of these terrorists. You cannot run. You cannot hide. And we will destroy you.”

Mr. Edwards’ mention of “al-Qaida and the rest of these terrorists” is interesting in that one of the Democrats’ main criticisms of President Bush’s war on terror is that the President is not focusing exclusively on al-Qaida. What does Mr. Edwards mean by “the rest of these terrorists”? Is he referring to terrorists such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the beast who cut off Nicholas Berg’s head and who was coordinating terrorist affairs in Iraq before the coalition invasion in 2003? Or, is he referring to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, groups that kill a lot of Israelis and have murdered a few Americans in the process? My political instincts tell me we won’t be getting a clarification anytime soon.

Of course, Mr. Edwards’ words sounded remarkably like President Bush’s words about fighting Islamic terrorism, a fact not lost on a Fox News reporter as she asked Senator Dianne Feinstein about Mr. Edwards’ speech. The reporter pressed California’s senior senator to explain the distinction between Mr. Edwards’ rhetoric and Democrat policy in the ongoing war.

After struggling with the question (probably trying to figure out how to stay on message without admitting that her Senate colleague borrowed a line from President Bush) Senator Feinstein offered this as the main difference in how Kerry/Edwards would win the war: no nukes and no guns. Specifically, Ms. Feinstein said the Democrats opposed President Bush’s plans to build new types of tactical nuclear weapons, including “bunker-buster” bombs. She also wanted the President to push Republicans in Congress to renew the national ban on the importation of military-style rifles.

Did my ears deceive me? Freeze nuclear weapons and curtail assault rifle sales in gun shops as the best way to fight the Islamofascist terrorists trying to kill us?

In the early 1980s I was active in College Republicans. It was the Cold War era. We now know the Soviet Union possessed about 40,000 nuclear weapons and had plans to use them in a war against America and the West.

President Ronald Reagan sought to build up America’s defenses and deal with the Soviets from a position of strength. The Democrat response at the time was to fall in line with the Soviets and demand a U.S. nuclear freeze – in other words, to permanently lock in Soviet Communist nuclear supremacy.

So, the Democrat strategy against terror is now becoming clear: offer tough words but soft substance. At least today’s tough words on terror are an improvement over the Democrats’ openly weak response to the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 80s.

As Mr. Kerry said in his April 22, 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “…we cannot fight communism all over the world. I think we should have learned that lesson by now.”

Of course, President Ronald Reagan proved Mr. Kerry’s words about opposing communist totalitarianism wrong when he showed that, with courage and principle, you can fight and win against a terrible evil “all over the world.”

President Bush is showing the world the same principle by methodically destroying terrorists wherever they happen to be.

To borrow a line from Mr. Kerry, “I think we should have learned that lesson by now.”

The American people have learned this lesson – that’s why President Bush will be overwhelmingly reelected this November. tRO

copyright 2004 Chuck DeVore