By William R. Mann ——Bio and Archives--November 12, 2008
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"Now, I needn't remind you, or my fellow Americans regardless of party, that Republicans have shouldered this hard responsibility and marched in this cause before. It was Republican leadership under Dwight Eisenhower that kept the peace, and passed along to this administration the mightiest arsenal for defense the world has ever known. And I needn't remind you that it was the strength and the unbelievable will of the Eisenhower years that kept the peace by using our strength, by using it in the Formosa Strait, and in Lebanon, and by showing it courageously at all times. It was during those Republican years that the thrust of Communist Imperialism was blunted. It was during those years of Republican leadership that this world moved closer not to war but closer to peace than at any other time in the last three decades. And I needn't remind you - but I will - that it's been during Democratic years that our strength to deter war has been stilled and even gone into a planned decline. it has been during Democratic years that we have weakly stumbled into conflicts, timidly refusing to draw our own lines against aggression, deceitfully refusing to tell even our people of our full participation and tragically letting our finest men die on battlefields unmarked by purpose, unmarked by pride or the prospect of victory. Yesterday it was Korea; tonight it is Vietnam. Make no bones of this. Don't try to sweep this under the rug. We are at war in Vietnam. And yet the president, who is the commander in chief of our forces, refuses to say-refuses to say, mind you-whether or not the objective over there is victory, and his secretary of defense continues to mislead and misinformation the American people, and enough of it has gone by. And, I needn't remind you - but I will - it has been during Democratic years that a billion persons were cast into Communist captivity and their fate cynically sealed. Today, today in our beloved country, we have an administration which seems eager to deal with communism in every coin known-from gold to wheat, from consulates to confidence, and even human freedom itself. Now, the Republican cause demands that we brand communism as the principal disturber of peace in the world today. Indeed, we should brand it as the only significant disturber of the peace. And we must make clear that until its goals of conquest are absolutely renounced and its rejections with all nations tempered, communism and the governments it now controls are enemies of every man on earth who is or wants to be free."Wow! It is no wonder that the anti-Communist Ronald Reagan was inspired by Barry Goldwater to change parties and become a Republican. We live in interesting times. I don't believe Communism died in 1991. It was discredited. So, the Communists have adapted. They no longer call themselves Communists, just as Democrats avoid the adjective "Liberal." They have cleverly infiltrated Interest Groups, Professions, and Organizations from which to wield their collectivist, socialist revoultionary influences and bullying tactics. Hard-boiled revolutionaries are predominating the Left-wing of the Democrat Party. Progressivism, Environmentalism, Higher Education, Teachers' Unions, Activist Organizations like ACORN, the AARP, Organized Labor and Government Workers' Unions have all adopted the "mass" politics techniques of classical Marxism. Examples, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, are just a tip on that iceberg; extreme Leftists in powerful and prestigious positions in American Education. We must face up to both of these challenges. But before we can totally isolate and cure the cancerous ideas of Collectivist Socialism at home, we must also defeat Totalitarianism resolutely and in detail around the world. Otherwise the cancer will return. So also today, make no bones about it. We are at war in the world; a war against Islamic Fascism overseas, and a war against ideas alien to American Constitutional Government at home. Parsing words about US intentions at home or overseas are not strategies for survival in a dangerous world. Historians, for example, now suggest that Red China believed they had a free hand in Korea because of a misstatement of US Foreign Policy by then Secretary of State Dean Acheson [under Truman]. More recently, a diplomatic blunder by our Ambassador to Iraq in 1990, may have signaled Saddam Hussein that he had a free hand to invade Kuwait. Similary, President Obama negotiating with dictators without precondition, is a recipe for the next international calamity. It is one thing to make fine speeches, to talk the talk. It is quite another to back up your rhetoric by walking the walk. American President Theodore Roosevelt said in a Chicago Speech in April 1903: "There is a homely old adage which runs: 'Speak softly and carry and big stick; you will go far.' If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoughly efficient navy, the Munroe Doctrine will go far." The Patriots I quoted above walked the walk and talked the talk. The eyes of the world are on President-elect Obama. Here is his big chance on the biggest stage to show that he is a freedom loving Constitutionalist American. If he shows he is up to that task we will prevail in Iraq and Afgahanstan, and we will counter the growing undemocratic influences in our own hemisphere. If Obama proves unable to stand tall for America on principle, and without regard to the whims of world public opinion, he will weaken America and place us all in great danger. I wish the new president well. More importantly, I hope he will be sanguine and zealous in the protection of our interests. Sadly, I have my doubts. As my father once opined regarding American Strength: "Better Brinkmanship than Chickenship." WILLIAM R. MANN LTC, USA [Retired] Aut pax aut bellum!
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William R. Mann, is a retired Lt. Colonel, US Army. He is a now a political observer, analyst, activist and writer for Conservative causes. He was educated at West Point [Bachelor of Science, 1971 ]and the Naval Postgraduate School [Masters, National Security Affairs, 1982].