Blame America First Democrats: They’re Baaack

In 1984, a recovering Democrat named Jeane Kirkpatrick coined an immortal descriptor for those who had taken over the party she once shared with national security-minded leaders like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Ronald Reagan.  The then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations called them “Blame America First Democrats.”

That characterization seems particularly apt today in the wake of the release of the latest edition of the State Department’s “Country Reports on Terrorism 2009.”  On that occasion yesterday, Foggy Bottom’s Counterterrorism Coordinator, Daniel Benjamin, expressed concern that U.S.  “actions are going to result in the creation of more terrorists.”

In fairness, other U.S. officials – notably, some from the George W. Bush administration – have wondered about whether, for example, there were more terrorists coming out of the pipeline than were being killed.  Still, Team Obama seems to be signaling that it is going beyond the sensible desire to avoid missteps that set back the realization of our national goals.

Instead, this president and his subordinates appear to have embraced the view promoted by, among others, the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies/apologists on the American left, that “violent extremists” are intent on attacking us because of our policies, conduct or deployments.

For example, Benjamin told a State Department press conference on Thursday:

It will certainly condition how we view any use of force and kinetic action because I think we have a more precise understanding about the relationship – I won’t claim we’ve fully cracked the code on this but we have a better understanding of the relationship between the use of force and the radicalization of those watching it.

There’s a wide range of different circumstances in which we find terrorists, but the question is, ‘What’s the appropriate way to deal with them?’” Benjamin said. “What threat do they pose to us, what are the long-term implications for our security, but also for our ability to work with countries in that region?

Such statements suggest not only a proclivity to see in our actions the cause of our troubles.  They bespeak a blindness on the part of the Obama administration to the wellspring of the vast majority of violent attacks to which we and our freedom-loving allies have been subjected in recent years: the theo-political-legal code the authorities of Islam call Shariah.

According to Shariah, the mere fact that we exist – let alone prosper – as a non-Islamic state, ruled by man-made Constitution and laws, conferring upon women, homosexuals, apostates and others rights incompatible with the barbaric and repressive laws of, say, Saudi Arabia and Iran is enough to require our forced submission or destruction.  Failing to understand and act upon that reality is what we should blame for our present state, and future threats to our country (whether of the violent form of jihad or the stealthy, “civilization” kind) – not America.