Orrin Hatch this week: Terrorists are "waiting for the Democrats here to take control, let things cool off and then strike again."
Dick Cheney last week: Ned Lamont's victory will encourage "the al-Qaeda types."
The classic Republican line is that terrorists will strike if Democrats are elected to office. But has anyone actually attempted to dig deeply into the assumptions hidden in that claim?
I. If Republicans are wrong, then we are set!
In that scenario, terrorists will not be motivated by Democratic victory, or good chance of victory, and we will be safe. Sounds pretty nice to me. But what's the alternative?
II. If Republicans are right, there are two possible reasons why.
1. Because Democrats might make the country more vulnerable.
Is there any validity to this claim? Most Americans feel no safer now than they did a few years ago. The Bush Administration has repeatedly shown its tendency to underfund important programs and rely on faulty (or cooked-up) intelligence to make key decisions on national security.
Further, Democrats are the ones who understand that the invasion of Iraq, instead of sparking a democratic revolution in the Middle East, has in fact made the region even more unstable than it was already, and also placed the United States square in the middle of the target of thousands of more people around the world, many of them dangerous terrorists. The Iraq War has made us more vulnerable to terrorism, and the Democrats know this.
Democrats know that power is not simply military might. Power is also the ability to make people do things for you without having to resort to the use of force, and power is the ability to influence the world positively. This is soft power, and Democrats know that if we wish to retain our soft power, we must wield our hard power responsibly. That strategy is the best for our country, and is the strategy that has the biggest chance of keeping us safe and free from terrorism.
So, we can rule out this option. Democrats will not make us more vulnerable to terrorism. What is the other reason why Republicans could be right, that terrorists will actually strike if Democrats get elected?
2. Because terrorists know that Democratic control would drive down the worldwide demand for such murderous ideologies.
Smart terrorists know that if Democrats were in power, and we began to take soft power seriously again and worked with other countries, worldwide anger against the United States would subside, fewer people around the world would revere terrorists, and more people would oppose terrorism in general, but especially against the United States. The world would do more to effectively deal with terrorism, but terrorism wouldn't pose as much of a problem anyway, because it wouldn't be able to enlist as many people to the cause as it is right now. They would be shunned.
Indeed, like all people who have power, terrorists and terrorist organizations want to retain control and power, and so if they are smart, they will realize that if Democrats lead the country, terrorism would hold less currency around the world. Therefore, in an attempt to maintain control and power over many people in many countries, if Democrats appear to be close to victory, terrorists will strike out in the short-term to scare people and put Americans back in fear mode, and hand the election to Republicans (who will make terrible foreign policy decisions that will produce more terrorists and terrorists ideologies in the world).
If the Republicans realize this, then they are nothing less than diabolical, and do not have the best interests of the United States in mind (if there were any dispute in the first place). If they realize what smart terrorists already know, and they refuse to alter their policies accordingly, then they are dangerous people who will do anything to secure their own power, including sacrificing the long-term safety of the country.
If the Republicans don't realize this, then they are stupid, and they are also fearmongers, and are too caught up in the struggle for power and to realize how to protect us most effectively, and should NOT be leading the country.
So either way, whether the Republicans realize this or not, they are not fit to lead. That's the bottom line. One, if they do realize what smart terrorists already know, they're sociopathic, dangerous people, and should be in prison, not elected office.. or two, if they don't realize it, they're too obtuse to know what is best for the country. Either way, we need smart and decent people who will serve the public interest. We've been waiting far too long.