Dem goals are not a plan

Irish Pennants:

The mood in Washington has been sour lately

so Democrats in Congress thoughtfully provided a little levity Wednesday by issuing their National Security Strategy.

On Feb. 3rd, the Department of Defense issued its quadrennial report on defense strategy. It was 92 pages long. The "Democratic Plan to Protect America and Restore Our Leadership in the World" is six pages long. Half of that is repeating the report in Spanish. And there is a cover page in each language. So the actual "plan" is just two pages long, presented in bullet points in large type, with ample white space between them. Party elders must have labored for months to produce this bear.

The first pledge the Democrats make is to: "Rebuild a state-of-the-art military by making the needed investments in equipment and manpower so that we can project power to protect America wherever and whenever necessary."

This would be a welcome change from past Democratic practice, since a majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress voted against virtually every major weapons system (the M1 tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Patriot missile, the B-2 bomber) that brought us victory in the Cold War, the Gulf War, and the march to Baghdad.

The Democrats pledge to "Eliminate Osama bin Laden, destroy terrorist networks like al Qaida, finish the job in Afghanistan, and end the threat posed by the Taliban."

Since the goal of eliminating Osama bin Laden isn't exactly a radical departure from the policies President Bush is pursuing, Democratic stress on this objective suggests they think they could be more successful in obtaining it than the president so far has been. But the Democratic "plan" provides no hint of what Democrats would do differently.

Perhaps what Democrats have in mind is to build a time machine, and go back to February of 1996, when the government of Sudan, where bin Laden was then residing, offered to turn him over to the United States, and the Clinton administration refused to accept him. Where is H.G. Wells when you need him?

The Democrats also pledge to "double the size of our Special Forces." This indicates Democrats don't have a clue about what it takes to make a SEAL or a Green Beret. The Navy has eight SEAL teams, an expansion of two over what was in 1990. The Navy has wanted to expand this number for decades, but has been unable to find enough sailors who can pass BUDS, and has been unwilling to lower standards. Army Special Forces have been a little more flexible (I got thru by the skin of my teeth during a low grading period), but as Sgt Barry Sadler said: "One hundred men will test today; only three win the Green Beret." The average idiot knows what would happen to the quality of play in the NFL if it were expanded overnight from 32 to 64 teams. Democrats have yet to figure this out.

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If the Democrats really have a plan, they should not wait until the win an election to tell us. If they have a good idea, let's hear it now and implement it so we can win the war quicker. Isn't that everyones objective? These pullet points do not even rise to the "depth" of a PowerPoints presentation.