In a time of war, it is understood that even political adversaries join together to support the Commander-in-Chief. That has not been the case for several leading Democrats and what they are saying of late treads extraordinarily close to being treasonous.

“The situation in Iraq and the reckless economic policies in the United States speak to one issue for me,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi last week, “and that is the competence of our leader. These policies are not working. But speaking specifically to Iraq, we have a situation where -- without adequate evidence -- we put our young people in harm’s way.”

Without adequate evidence? Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait? The dozen United Nations resolutions? The gassing of the Kurds? The eight-year war with Iran? The widely held belief that Saddam had or was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction?

Representative Pelosi could not have been more reckless. Her statement could only lend aid and comfort to the enemies of this nation who would love nothing more than to see the US withdraw from Iraq. It would be a defeat that would destroy this nation’s reputation as a defender of liberty and it would doom the Middle East to the despotism that is the cause of the worldwide Islamic Jihad.

To suggest President Bush is incompetent is also to ignore the way the previous occupant of the Oval Office utterly degraded it with his misbehavior involving a White House intern, his failure to address the growing menace of the Middle East as well as North Korea. Not surprising, a former Democrat president, Jimmy Carter, judged to have been the most incompetent in modern times, is also reflecting Pelosi’s and other high ranking Democrat views being aired.

As Steven F. Hayward, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, pointed out in the Washington Times, “In a recent interview in the American Prospect, Mr. Carter commented, ‘Now is seems as though it is an attractive thing in Washington to resort to war in the very early state of resolving an altercation; a completely unnecessary war that President Bush decided to launch against the Iraqis is an example of that.” This is the same man candidate John Kerry suggested he might select to be his official envoy in the Middle East. He tried to back away from that after Mr. Carter expressed blatant pro-Arafat sympathies.

Perhaps, though, the most reckless statements about President Bush and the invasion to liberate the Iraqis from a cruel, psychopathic dictator came from Senator Ted Kennedy. “This war was made up in Texas, announced in January (2003) to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud,” said Kennedy in September 2003.

In October 2003, Kennedy said, “The trumped up reasons for going to war have collapsed and the President’s war has been revealed as mindless, needless, senseless, and reckless.”

If this did not lend “aid and comfort” to those opposing the rise of a democratic Iraq, the provision of civil and human rights to a people who Saddam Hussein’s regime jailed, raped and killed in vast numbers, than I don’t know how else to describe it. Surely the most reckless statement to date, however, was Senator Kennedy’s comment after the revelations about Abu Ghraib prison mistreatments of some prisoners. “Saddam’s torture chambers have reopened under new management.” Kennedy literally equated George W. Bush with Saddam Hussein!

What have we witnessed from the leadership of the Democrat Party? (1) We have seen them deliberately seek to undermine the credibility of the Commander-in-Chief. (2) We have seen them attempt to undermine the effectiveness of the Secretary of Defense and the US military. (3) And their statements must surely have had some impact on the morale of the troops in the field.

This goes far beyond mere partisanship, a disagreement over the reasons for the war. These statements and those that continue to be issued represent a vicious attack on the President during a time of war when any such comments are sure to stiffen the resistance to US objectives; primary among which is the extension of democracy throughout the Middle East.

The doctrine of preemptive war was established after 9-11 decisively demonstrated that America was no longer safe from attack. Would we have asked less of our President than to take steps to protect us from the threat?

The House Minority Leader calls him “incompetent.”  The Senate’s leading voice compares him to Saddam Hussein. A former President derides the need to exert our military power to protect this nation. And a former Vice President, Al Gore, calls for the resignation of those directing the war and responsible for homeland security.

Treason? Maybe not, but perilously close to it. The Democrat Party, despite having granted wartime powers to the President, is engaged in a political policy that smells of retreat and defeat. Whether enough Americans will come to this conclusion in November is the big question that will determine our future.

Alan Caruba is the author of Warning Signs, published by Merril Press. His weekly commentaries are posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center.

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