HERE'S HOW THE DEMS PLAN TO WEAKEN US FOR YEARS TO COME

From Newsweek's interesting article on the hunt for Bin Laden (hat tip: Charles Johnson):

In Pakistan, President Musharraf was wary of his American allies in the War on Terror. In 2002, he told a high-ranking British official: "My great concern is that one day the United States is going to desert me. They always desert their friends." According to this official, who declined to be identified sharing a confidence, Musharraf cited the U.S. pullouts from Vietnam in the 1970s, Lebanon in the 1980s and Somalia in the 1990s.

The refusal of the Democratic Congress to fund our South Vietnamese allies after 1974 was what caused the fall of Saigon, not the withdrawal of the last American combat trooper in 1973.

And I know that America's precipitate and ineffectual retreat from Lebanon was President Reagan's call -- his one major foreign policy mistake, I think.

But running out of Somalia with his rail between his legs, after what was by any rational measure a stunning victory in the streets of Mogadishu, was how Bill Clinton signaled Bin Laden that Americans would be easily pushed over.

What a contrast from President John F. Kennedy's ringing promise:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Every action that every country takes has consequences.

We paid for years a heavy price for the Democrats' desertion of South Vietnam. Our allies around the world paid a heavy price.

Our troops in the field are today paying the price for the Democrats' vacillation and pusillanimity today. Every time a Democratic leader, particularly a Democratic presidential candidate, promises retreat and surrender, the enemy is emboldened and strengthened.

An American surrender in Iraq and/or Afghanistan would provide jihadists around the world with inspiration to continue and escalate their terroristic war for years to come.

We must make the Democrats understand that the only way we can -- at the ballot box. A vote for any Democratic Party candidate at any level is a vote for the jihad. We may not agree with the GOP on every issue that comes along, but we can not afford to encourage the enemy.