Continuing Charlie Wilson's War

Just viewing the trailer of the recent Hollywood biography titled "Charlie Wilson's War", you get the impression that Democrats single handily won the Cold War, with little or no assistance from a certain Republican president of the 1980's. This astonishing piece of revisionist history does get one thing right: Congressman Charlie Wilson was a real liberal hero, and no embellishments or outright lies are necessary. Without doubt he was a driving force in Congress for supplying monetary aid and military supplies to the Afghanis that eventually saw the retreat of the Soviet Union from the occupied and long-suffering nation.

Charlie was an anomaly in the Democratic Party of the Reagan era, with most liberals preferring to live with rather than confront communism. Many though, like Wilson, openly rebelled against their colleagues seeming indifference to the threat of our times, with some becoming "Reagan Democrats", most notably Jeane Kirkpatrick and Richard Perle.

Today's liberal movement once again seeks to embrace the failed policies of detente, wishing to appease our enemies instead of holding them accountable for atrocities committed against the West and fellow Muslims. Aside from Senator Joe Lieberman, who was forced to run as an independent in last year's election when his radical Party based rejected their former Vice Presidential candidate, none on the Left are embracing the spread of freedom and the liberation of the Third World from terrorist oppression, as Charlie Wilson once did against the forces of communism.

In their fight with the West, the terrorists have adopted the tactics of their old enemies the Soviets. They commit atrocities against Muslim women and children, behead prisoners, and mistreat them without regard to the conventions of war. They also have established torture chambers throughout Iraq, which make the US prison on Guantanamo Bay appear as a vacation resort.

Yet, few on the Left are speaking against the crimes against humanity, as Charlie Wilson once did. Instead they seek an early withdrawal before the generals there see their mission as finished, withhold vitally needed funds to continue the operation, and blame the woes of the Middle East on the Bush administration, rather than extremism where the real fault lies.

Something strangely missing as top priorities of the Democratic platform is spreading liberty, fighting our enemies, and supporting our allies against Al Qaeda. Issues such as these were a driving force behind Wilson's obsession to aid the Afghani rebels against the Soviet invaders, and defeat the communist ideology. The Democrats see our involvement there in the 80's as an incentive for the birth of today's radical Islam, a convenient excuse for not supporting the President's War on Terror.

Wilson thought otherwise, and felt his Party and his country would be "damned by history" if they failed to act in the Great Calling of his time. Will Democrats heed this sound advice, support the President, and fund the troops, or will they let partisan politics and the hope of the next election distract them from the noble goal of continuing Charlie Wilson's War?