Cheney's criticism of war critics is wearing a bit thin

The Washington Post's liberal guy, E. J. Dionne, via the Houston Chronicle:

Cheney seemed terribly impatient with democracy Sunday on Meet the Press when he suggested that those who oppose President Bush's Iraq policies are helping — excuse me, validating — the terrorists.

Our allies in the war on terror, Cheney said, "want to know whether or not if they stick their heads up, the United States, in fact, is going to be there to complete the mission."

Then the punch: "And those doubts are encouraged, obviously, when they see the kind of debate that we've had in the United States. Suggestions, for example, that we should withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, simply feed into that whole notion, validate the strategy of the terrorists."

Meaning what, exactly? If Cheney doesn't like "the kind of debate that we've had in the United States," is there any other "kind," short of a lockstep endorsement of all of Bush's choices, he'd endorse?

Click here for the rest.

If only Dionne had been writing like this back in 2002 when it really mattered.

I, for one, have never fully understood the whole criticism-equals-endangering-troops line of thought. I mean, I understand the assertion: our enemies hear about domestic opposition, which somehow makes them feel like they're winning, which emboldens them to fight all the more aggressively. Putting aside free speech issues for a moment, I think it's fair to ask if that's what actually happens. That is, how does Cheney know that's the case? I'm pretty certain that there have been no studies on this issue done among the Iraqi insurgency, so, to the best of my knowledge, Cheney's assertion about war criticism is simply an interesting, but totally unproven, idea. My own thought is that the insurgency simply wants the US the hell out of Iraq, and they're going to fight until they're dead or we leave, which is exactly the kind of enemy the US was facing in Vietnam over three decades ago. Indeed, the Vietnamese had been fighting against imperial occupiers for decades before we even showed up; they didn't care who we are or what we wanted--they just wanted us out. So it seems entirely fitting that Cheney's and other right-wingers' point of view is so utterly Nixonian. Really, as with Nixon, attacking war critics is far more about domestic power than about winning in the colonies.

And, of course, in a democracy, if that's still what we are, public debate about important national issues like war is vital. Without it, it's not democracy. But then, I'm sure my definition of democracy differs greatly from that of the Vice President.

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