New Media Alliance - Jeff Lukens

By Jeff Lukens

They say if it bleeds, it leads on the nightly news. The recent silence from the mainstream news media on Iraq, however, is speaking volumes. While the war remains unpopular, our success there has been unmistakable. The Iraqi people, with the help of the U.S. led coalition, have succeeded in establishing the world’s first Arab democracy. Their achievement is a milestone in the war on terror and for the cause of liberty.

Beyond the Iraqi Constitution and the elections, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has emerged as the true leader of the governing coalition. He has battled and won against fellow Shiite and problem child Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia. The Sunni, Shiite and Kurd people work together in a national Iraqi Army. Together, they are taking their county back from the foreign insurgents that have invaded their homeland. Iraqi troops took the lead in clearing Basra and Sadr City, and are now finishing off the insurgent remnants.

No one likes to go to war, but even an elective war is sometimes necessary. With all the consternation these past years, President Bush may finally be able to say “Mission Accomplished” to what he originally set out to do.

This we know, Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction. He even gassed his own Kurd and Shiite populations in the 1980s. What happened to those chemical weapons? Who knows? Whether they buried them in the ground somewhere or trucked off to Syria, we had every reason to believe he had them.

In the months leading up to the war, Saddam acted as if he were hiding a nuclear program by obstructing UN inspectors visiting his installations. We have since concluded that his nuclear program was still in its infancy, but we could not have known that then. Saddam’s power was in his bluff, but his bluff was called.

Following 9/11, we had to show we meant business in the fight on terror. Afghanistan fell quickly, but it was a sideshow. Look at any map of the Middle East and smack in the middle of it is Iraq. Think about it, if we could flip Iraq form a dictatorial state that sponsored terrorism to a democratic republic, there would be profound implications throughout the region. When most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, we needed to show Saudi Arabia, as much as anyone, our resolve. Regime change in Iraq was militarily and politically feasible, so Iraq was where Bush chose to make his move.

Saddam fell quickly too, but the subsequent insurgency dragged on for another five years. Though our casualties have been mercifully low, the political angst against Bush has grown virulent. Maybe Bush could have handled the occupation better, and the war should have been over more quickly, but our reason to go there was strategically sound. Bush made the proper decision with the urgency of 9/11 still fresh, and with the information available to him at that time.

In the early years of the Civil War, Lincoln lost battle after battle with a revolving door of generals who could not or would not fight Robert E. Lee. Lincoln finally found his general with Ulysses S. Grant who took after Lee’s army and ground it down.

Bush had a similar problem with Don Rumsfeld and generals who would not adapt to insurgents who did not wear uniforms and hid among the people. Bush finally replaced Rumsfeld and found his Generals in David Petraeus and Ray Odierno. The counterinsurgency strategy they employed made quick work of our enemies in Iraq.

Back in the U.S., however, liberal opposition to the war has at times reached hysterical levels and threatened to unravel all that we sought to achieve. Some things do not change. They have been acting this way since our days in Vietnam. And like our experience there, instead of finding ways to win they sought the worst possible outcome by unilateral surrender.

Liberals have never considered Bush a legitimate president. They have never gotten over the myth that the 2000 election was stolen. For them, Bush’s decision to enter into an elective war that took longer than expected was just too much. His presidency is too emotional a subject for them, and reasoning with them about any aspect of it has become nearly impossible. But for anyone who still cares and is willing to listen, what we are seeing in Iraq today is exactly what we set out to accomplish from the beginning — establish a beachhead for democracy in the Middle East.

Before the war, state sponsors of terrorism in the Middle East were Iran, Syria, Libya and Iraq. Today, only Iran and Syria remain — with a democratic Iraq located between them. And in the information age, don’t believe for a moment that the infectious seeds of freedom are not being sown in those countries and throughout the region. The promise of freedom for the oppressed is America’s greatest strategic weapon in this war. In due time, tyrants in those countries may come to fear their own people more than any army that may threaten them.

We must remember that the struggle in Iraq is only one campaign in the larger global war on terror. History will intimately judge, but yes, early indications are that President Bush’s victory was a worthy step in that overall goal.

Radical Islam is at war with the civilized world because of our tolerant values toward women, different lifestyles and different religions. For Americans, understanding the threat posed by this enemy, finding ways to triumph over them, and mobilizing public opinion to support that effort remain as challenges for the years ahead.

By Jeff Lukens

As the leader of the free world, the United States has a responsibility to lead. This has been our reality as a nation since the 1940s. As such, we need a well-funded military. Today, however, our military forces are desperately in need of recapitalization and modernization. We have been on a “procurement holiday” since the end of the Cold War, and catching up will be expensive.

During the 1980s, the active duty Army had 18 combat divisions. Since 1994, there have been only ten. In that same time, the number of tactical air wings in the Air Force has fallen from 37 to 20; and the Navy has been reduced from 600 ships to less than 300 today.

Our defense budget hit a postwar high of 14.2% of GDP in 1953 during the Korean War. At the height of Vietnam in 1968, it was 9.5%, and it was 6.8% in 1986 at the height of the Reagan buildup. In 2000, defense spending reached the lowest point on 3.0%. Today, seven years into the Global War on Terror, we are still spending a paltry 3.7% of GDP on defense.

Our procurement needs will, if anything, grow in the years ahead. For example, our primary air-supremacy jet, the F-15, is old, metal-fatigued, and coming apart. Stress cracks from age and overuse are causing them to crash. Many were built before the pilots flying them were even born. Now, one-third of all F-15s are either grounded or headed to the scrap yard.

The Air Force consists of roughly 6,000 aircraft, and is replacing approximately 60 piloted aircraft per year. You don’t need to be a math wiz to figure out that it will take 100 years at that rate to modernize our air fleet.

The need for increased military funding, however, does not stop there. Long term, we may need to station 30 to 50 thousand troops in Iraq as we have done in Germany, Japan and Korea. Yes, we are going to be there a long time, and it is vitally necessary no matter what Democrats are saying. When a quarter of the world oil flows through the Persian Gulf, we need to be there to take care of business when things go haywire.

The entire world economy rests precariously on the flow of oil out of that region. That part of the world is already a hotbed for extremism, and Russia and China are meddling there too. Deploying troops overseas in large numbers is expensive, but it is vitally necessary we have a presence there. Moreover, we need a larger Army to ease the deployments of individual soldiers to manageable levels.

Iran in particular is a problem that no one wants to face, but hasn’t gone away. Contrary to last year’s National Intelligence Estimate, Iran did not stop its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Instead, they are working overtime to make a nuke, and when they have one their tone will noticeably change. Tehran will then be able to threaten its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may finally be able to carry out his promise to annihilate Israel.

With our commitments around the globe and the rising strength of would be adversaries, our Navy could soon be stretched beyond its capability as well. Trans-Pacific trade surpassed trans-Atlantic trade in the 1990s, and will continue to grow in the years ahead. US Naval strength is essential along key trade routes to keep world peace.

The Asian export powers - China, Japan and South Korea - all are among the top economies in the world. In each case, however, their dependence on energy and other raw material imports, and access to overseas markets for their exports, have grown beyond their military reach. The need for secure resources and market access drive them, and especially China, away from their natural inward focus toward a more proactive international involvement.

And, still, our military challenges keep coming. Russia may be slipping back to the bad old days of the USSR. Washington’s challenge, in sum, is to transition our alliances and military capability to meet these ever-changing economic realities and military threats of the 21st Century. One thing for sure, current budget limitations severely restrict the Pentagon in meeting these needs.

The United States will be hard pressed to make up the lack of funding of its military since the end of the Cold War. With the growing pressure of entitlement spending on the federal budget in the years ahead, restoring military funding to adequate levels becomes an even greater challenge.

Naturally, our resources are limited and must be used wisely. Although our NATO allies would rather push responsibilities off on us, perhaps we should step back in places like Kosovo and other places in Europe. The Cold War is over and they can handle these places for themselves.

Korea is probably another place that needs a plan for a drawdown of ground troops as well. In recent years, Korean defense policy and capability has seen a significant shift with South Korean forces taking a larger role in defense of their peninsula.

Perhaps the current economic stimulus check we are receiving courtesy or the US Treasury should be spent for more ships, planes, and tanks – and for more troops. At least then, our country would have something to show for it. But such is the lack of foresight in Washington. Seeking votes long ago replaced responsible governance for most politicians.

When we inadequately fund our military, we plant the seeds of future conflict. Strength begets peace just as weakness begets war by would-be aggressors. When the inevitable crisis comes, we may be forced to pay in blood and treasure many times over what we could have paid today with sufficient military funding.

By Jeff Lukens

“The Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.” - General Prologue to the Wycliffe Bible in 1384.

Our country and its laws were established on the fundamental belief that our morality emanates from God. While the Constitution begins with the line, “We the people,” it does not contain any religious words. Some people cite this as evidence that America is a secular country. Not so. America has always combined secular government with a society based on religious values. Many settlers in the 1600s came to what they considered this new promised land seeking religious freedom. They identified with the biblical Jewish Exodus from Egypt because they had left Europe and its values as well. Ours is the only country to identify with many Jewish beliefs, and is why our culture calls itself “Judeo-Christian.” These values include the importance of laws, fighting for justice, and a belief in judgment by loving and forgiving God.

The Founders understood there is a divine order that rises above the human order. By the 1770s, they sought our freedom from the British Crown with reliance upon, what the Declaration of Independence calls, “Nature’s God,” the “Creator,” and “the Supreme Judge of the World.”

The First Amendment was never intended to exclude all references to God from government institutions and public debate. It simply says, “Congress shall not establish a religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof.” The word “establish” meant the creation of a state church, as in the Church of England. It is nonsense to say the founders intended the First Amendment to exclude all religious expression in public places.

They knew that if we, as a people, ever lost our biblical foundation, no amount of Constitutional protection would preserve the republic. They recognized that without a Divine influence, their struggle for freedom would be in vain.

John Adams wrote: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.”

The Founders also knew the government they were establishing could last only if it was set in a moral framework that only the church provides. They knew that without God there could be no prompting of the conscience. Only those humble enough to admit they are imperfect before God could bring to democracy the tolerance it requires to endure.

In the 1850s, abolitionist minister Theodore Parker frequently used the phrase “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” His sermons and writings inspired many people, including Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address used the phrase as well while affirming the values of human equality espoused in the Bible and in the Declaration of Independence. We now regard that speech as one of the greatest in American history.

There are countless other examples throughout our history of politicians evoking God’s will or God’s blessings in their speeches. Every president has spoken of them. “The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the Hand of God,” President Kennedy said in his inaugural address. Kennedy’s remarks offended no one then, why should anyone be offended by such remarks now?

As this election year unfolds, the role of religion in society is sure to be discussed. Candidates’ beliefs and endorsements by religious leaders will be scrutinized, as John McCain and Barack Obama have discovered. Religious beliefs may differ, but voters should keep in mind that church and state, though separate, should be mutually supportive.

The rigidity of the law alone cannot bring order and unity to society. Its foundation rests on the voluntary consent of its citizens. God’s authority and eternal laws are the prerequisites for human rights and democracy. While our justice system often allows us to do as we please, the conscience of believing citizens keeps them from committing what is rash or unjust.

Of course, such talk is enough to make the secularists shudder. But their attempts to suppress all reference of God in public are contrary to what the Founders had in mind. While the Founders did not intend that we have a religious government, it is an exaggeration to declare they wanted all mention of God removed from public speeches, buildings, currency, pledges — or even from high school commencements and football games — as some today would have you believe.

We mandate no belief in this country. We are free to believe or not believe whatever they want. The ACLU and other secularist organizations, however, do not have the right to destroy the norms that have characterized our nation from the beginning. Any mention of God annoys them, but the Constitution does not deny free speech simply because someone is annoyed.

Longer term, the issue is whether our country continues in its founding traditions as “one nation under God,” or becomes a secular one like those in Europe and Asia. If the public at large has anything to say about it, our traditions of freedom of religion and freedom of speech will remain a compatible part of the public debate.

By Jeff Lukens

Talking tough on terrorism will not be enough for Senator John McCain to sustain his candidacy. McCain fashions himself as a maverick, or should we say liberal, on many issues. Liberals, however, long ago relinquished the intellectual agenda to the Right. Now they frequently react to conservative ideas on the economy, the military, the role of religion, and how big the federal government should be. Mitt Romney is a better-suited candidate to address economic issues, but for better or for worse, John McCain is now our nominee. As such, McCain should take the lead in advocating policies for the economic well being of our country.

For starters, we could use some straight-talk that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid require an overhaul. The gap between the entitlements promised to baby boomers and the tax revenue to pay for them is estimated in trillions of dollars. Providing the full benefits will probably be impossible.

The grievance and nanny-state programs Democrats have cultivated the past fifty years is beyond old but is still being sold to us in many variations. Universal healthcare is the latest twist. But it is all bunk. Only low taxes, spending discipline and market solutions unhindered by Washington red tape can provide the answers to the economic problems we face. The dynamics of free enterprise by American people will do the rest.

The United States is basically a conservative nation, especially when compared with those in Western Europe. Over the years, the rugged individualism of the American people has fueled unparalleled growth. We were conceived as a conservative culture some 230 years ago, and changed to one that experimented with socialist ideas from the 1930s through the 1970s. With much of the civil rights agenda and the large-scale expansion of the federal government under LBJ complete, liberalism ran out of steam.

The impact of budget deficits, inflation, and high taxes had taken their toll in the 1970s. The growth of the federal government was the main reason the US economy stalled. By 1979, Senator Pat Moynihan, Democrat from New York, said that conservatives had won the war of ideas. The next year, Ronald Reagan was elected president, and ever since the political winds of our country have been shifting rightward.

Now more than ever, we need low taxes and spending discipline in government. Not only are we unable to pay for entitlements, the 2003 tax cuts will expire soon, which will inhibit further growth. The stimulus relief package soon to become law will only widen the deficit, not reduce it. To his credit, McCain has opposed wasteful congressional earmarks for a long time.

We need a sound strategy for energy independence as well. We export our dollars overseas to import oil that we refuse to drill for ourselves. Conservation is always a good thing, but economic growth requires fuel that, at present, only oil provides. Alternative energy sources will take decades to become economically viable. For now, we need to drill in ANWR, in the Gulf, and on the continental shelf.

McCain has opposed energy independence measures every step of the way and has bought into the junk-science hoax of global warming. On this score, he is 180 degrees out of phase with what we need to grow the economy. It seems that drinking the environmental Kool-Aid on this matter is more important to him than supporting the needs of the American people.

As the trade deficit grows, the value of our currency is reduced. Moreover, the trade deficit produces excess US Dollars in the hands of ever more Chinese, Saudis and other foreigners. US debt in the hands of foreign governments is now about 25% of the total. Currently, China holds over $1 trillion in dollar denominated assets (of which $330 billion are US Treasury notes). As the Fed lowers rates to keep our economy going, the return for those foreign investors is lowered as well. Eventually they will look elsewhere for higher returns.

Once foreign investors start shunning our T-notes, the Fed may then have to raise rates again and stall the economy to keep them form divesting US debt. A financial crisis could be upon us. The only way out of this mess is by balanced trade, balanced budgets, and more productivity by our workforce.

On many fronts, we are literally in a race for our financial lives. The high-tech age is requiring ever more people to have a high degree of skill in some technical vocation. Gone is the time when folks could make a good living as unskilled laborers. Lacking such skills, economic conditions for many people will get even worse, especially for the poorly educated underclass.

The next president must dare to be honest about the new economic world order. In a flat-world economy, he or she must advocate ways to generate wealth for working people. Economic reality has moved beyond class struggle and race relations in America. Does anyone think the Chinese and other Asian countries are standing still while our country falls further behind in the productivity race? The loss in jobs and lowered standard of living for many people is already reflecting it.

The economy will likely be the biggest challenge faced by the next president. As can be expected, Democrats have been totally void of substance so far in the campaign, except for advocating more socialism. The way ahead does not lie in nostalgia for more Great Society programs. If the next president is John McCain, he will need to give this extremely complex issue the attention it deserves.

We must never lose sight that conservative principles have been the reason for America’s exceptionalism. While Republican prospects are uncertain for November, we must still define the party in a way that reflects conservatism and sound economics. John McCain is the leader of our party, and whether we win or lose, we need him to promote low taxes, balanced budgets and pro-growth solutions that will unleash the productivity of the American people.

By Jeff Lukens

To understand Watergate, we need to understand the times in which Richard Nixon was president. Nixon was the only president of the 20th Century to face an unyielding and organized resistance to a war. LBJ had handed him a war without end Vietnam, and consequently, great unrest at home. Washington was regularly filled with thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of protesters. The counterculture movement, born in those days, was bent on overturning the very foundations of American life.

Skillful at old-time politics, Nixon was ill-equipped to oppose the guerilla war being waged against him. Wiretaps and IRS audits were no match for a force whose foot soldiers worshiped sex, drugs and rock and roll. Many called Nixon paranoid because he saw himself surrounded by enemies. But his enemies were real, and they were waiting for the opportunity to ruin him.

He had been a target for the Left ever since the Alger Hiss case in 1948. The worst thing that anyone can do to the press and the liberal establishment in Washington is to prove that they were wrong, and that was exactly what Nixon, as a young congressman, had done. Hiss was a sophisticated career State Department diplomat, but he was also a communist spy. The case also begged the question on whether or not there was a communist influence in Washington. With the help of Whittaker Chambers, Nixon exposed Hiss. But Hiss was one of them, the liberal establishment, and they never forgot it.

Consequently, the rules of discretion and respect the media and Congress applied to previous presidents did not apply to Nixon. In his position, he knew he should have been careful not to do anything wrong. Instead of accepting the double standard and holding himself to a higher level, he took for granted he would be treated in the same way as they treated Kennedy and Johnson. That was his first mistake.

The Origins of Watergate

The road to Watergate began in 1971 with the Pentagon Papers case. Nixon was outraged by Daniel Ellsberg’s leaks of classified information about the Vietnam War to The New York Times. When he tried to block the press from publishing any more of the story, the liberal Burger Court ignored the law and ruled against him. One senator even went as far as to enter the documents into the Congressional Record. It was truly outrageous. Nixon’s anger at the reckless disregard of national security by many people was quite understandable, but his response to it was not.

He pushed White House staffers to do something to stop the leaks. He pushed them so hard, in fact, that he effectively forced them to act outside the law. The “Plumbers” were formed and soon afterwards broke into in the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist hoping to gain embarrassing personal information on Ellsberg in which to discredit him.

That was over the line. Warrantless break-ins of any sort are unacceptable. We halfway expect this sort of behavior from the agents of the Left, but not from Republicans. Republicans, and conservatives overall, must call to a higher standard.

But why would Nixon risk so much to gain so little? Well, for one, leaks threatened to blow the confidentiality of his prize project, the secret diplomacy of Henry Kissinger. But there was more to it than that. Like so much else in Washington in those days, emotions overruled rationality. Nixon was apparently striking back in a fit of rage.

He should have known that break-ins would eventually cause something like Watergate. Although he denied it, there is a high probability that Nixon had prior knowledge of the Ellsberg break-in and may have even ordered it. At the very least, he was responsible for the actions of his subordinates. He compromised himself under pressure, and set a precedent that lead to his political destruction.

Break-in at the DNC

Even now, we can only speculate on the possible motive for the Watergate break-in. It has been alleged that Nixon’s wanted to know what the Democrats knew about a $100,000 donation from Howard Hughes to Bebe Rebozo, who passed the money through his Florida bank to the Nixon reelection campaign. Hughes Aircraft Company had many government contracts, and it was good business to have the president on your side.

Nixon may have been worried that the Chairman of the DNC, Larry O’Brien, would pull an October Surprise by revealing the payoffs from Hughes. Nixon’s ties to Hughes had hurt him in his losing 1960 and 1962 campaigns, and he did not want it to happen again.

The Watergate break-in likely came about by Nixon telling Charles Colson to find out what O’Brien knew about Hughes. Colson assigned the job to Howard Hunt who with Gordon Liddy used campaign resources to repeat the precedent of the earlier Ellsberg break-in.

There were two break-ins at the DNC Headquarters at the Watergate complex. The first break-in occurred on May 28, 1972. When the bugs that were planted then failed to yield substantive information, Hunt and Liddy planned a second break-in three weeks later. It was the second break-in that made history. That break-in likely failed because Democratic Party operatives may have suspected it was coming and were ready for it. It is doubtful, however, that Nixon knew the details of the plan.

At the time, wiretaps were legal, so we can take no issue with them. After news of the story broke, Nixon was just trying to contain the political damage. One falsehood lead to another and soon it became a cover-up. Legally and morally, a cover-up of a break-in was wrong, and on a practical level, it was almost sure to fail. He and his people had taken many foolish risks, and too many people knew too much. When faced with jail time, many of them decided to save themselves no matter the cost to anyone else. This was especially the case with John Dean.

The Tapes

Nixon meant the tapes to be a private record of his presidency that he could later use for his memoirs. Many hours of the tape involve Nixon with his aides brainstorming and searching for ideas, both good and bad, to solve the problems they faced.

Years later, Nixon privately admitted it was a mistake not to destroy the tapes. Without the tapes, the evidence on Nixon would have been circumstantial and gone nowhere. Rather than serving as personal recollections, his own words becoming the basis for his fall.

Nixon also admitted later that he shouldn’t have discussed, or even thought about, cover-ups or hush money. While his opponents were quick to point out that he had discussed such things, they ignored that he rejected them as wrong a few sentences later. Although he discussed possible obstruction of the FBI investigation by the CIA in the “Smoking Gun” tape, no obstruction actually occurred.

Revenge Politics

As a political force against communism, and resolute in his convictions, to the liberal establishment, Nixon had to be brought down. The political firestorm that resulted was a coming together of many political factions. Congress, the press, the intelligence community and the federal bureaucracy all had reasons to see that Nixon fell. With the tapes available as evidence, Nixon gave his opponents the sword they needed to take him down, and they did.

Those who were after Nixon for Watergate had been after him for a long time. Watergate was just the pretext. They sought to prosecute him as aggressively as he had prosecuted Hiss and the Vietnam War. The relentless deluge of accusations hurled at Nixon day after day, both true and false, ultimately undercut his ability to govern. While the Ervin Senate Select Committee on Watergate held center stage, cuts in South Vietnamese aid, and limitations on what our military response could be, were being quietly slipped through congress.

In his 1990 book, “In the Arena,” Nixon writes:

“We remember as the Watergate period was also a concerted political vendetta by my opponents. Anyone who knows the workings of hardball politics knows that the smoke screen of false accusations - the myths of Watergate - were not at all accidental. In this respect, Watergate was not a morality play - a battle between good guys in white and bad guys in black - but rather a political struggle. The baseless and highly sensationalistic charges, blatant double standards, the party-line votes in congressional investigating committees, and the unwillingness of my adversaries and the media to look into parallel wrongdoing within Democratic campaigns, all should tip off the causal observer that the opposition was pursuing not only justice but also political advantage . . . When a balanced historical appraisal emerges, the partisan political dimension of the investigation and prosecution will stand out as the feature of the period . . . The smoke screen of false accusations magnified tenfold the public’s perception and outrage over the wrongdoing that actually occurred.”

A National Tragedy

After two years of Watergate paralysis, the nation braced for months of impeachment in the House and trial before the Senate. Maybe he could have survived by a vote or two in the Senate, maybe not. But they had marginalized Nixon, and the nation needed a full-time President. His final service as president was to resign rather than put the nation through more anguish.

Nixon, once a brilliant politician, would always be seen as a man shattered by his own determination to succeed. The Watergate scandal severely disappointed his supporters. I was one of them. It also portrayed Nixon as an invalid force in American politics, which was not true.

He had been correct about his opposition to communism. He had been correct about Alger Hiss and how to end the Vietnam War. But what did that matter to the Left? Watergate was the result of Vietnam, and the collapse of South Vietnam was the result of Watergate. The upheaval that followed his presidency in Southeast Asia, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere proved that his policies had been correct all along.

Nixon was devastated in an epic calamity partly of his own making, and partly from a liberal assault on a successful politician who represented traditional American values. It is an assault that continues to this day. Conservative politicians might earn the animosity of those who oppose them, but their methods and politics must always be above reproach to avoid a fate similar to that of Richard Nixon.