Violence and pain are two things our party has a hard time dealing with on the national level. There are plenty of Democrat Attorneys General, sheriffs, and police chiefs at the local, county, and state level out there who use and authorize violence and pain to coerce people into doing what we as a society deem necessary. But when it comes to national politics, Democrats can't do the heavy lifting to reconcile our aversion to violence and the necessity of using violence as a part of our foreign policy.
Fact is, our party is seen as being the naysayers of any military action without putting up our own plans for how to use the military effectivly. Just saying "I would have done it better" is unacceptable. If we are going to drawdown troop levels in Iraq what do we do with them? The best thing to do would be to send them to Afghanistan to bolster the forces that are spread too thin in that country. I haven't heard one Democrat say this. Instead its just, "We should have stayed focused on Afghanistan and never invaded Iraq." Ok, great, but now we need solutions for today's problems and solutions for the future, not constantly harping on the mistakes of the past.
Talk about creating new military occupational specialties like civil police (as opposed to military police), creating peacekeeping units (from platoon size up to division) whose focus is on counterinsurgency and law and order. Talk about enlargening the Defense Language Institute in Monterey and spreading effective language training to other installations. Talk about increasing the number of soldiers by spending less on unnecessary, expensive weapons systems and platforms. Articulate how violence and the threat thereof can be used along with diplomacy, trade, and cultural exchanges to bring about the realization of our shared goals and interests. Those are just a few for reforming the military and reforming our message as a party.
Of course, we are all waiting in anticipation for the fall elections, expecting big gains, maybe a majority in one or both houses. That is certainly possible without adopting the ideas I present here. But in order to be a party that wields power in Washington for long periods of time, the natural party of government if you will, we need to become more comfortable with the idea that we have to kill some people in this world if we wish to continue to uphold our standard of living. That's a stark way to say it, but its the way the world works, no matter who is in charge and we have to stop pretending like it doesn't happen all the time, in our names with our money. Not just in war, but in various clandestine operations and through proxies. And if we want it done right, our party needs to be in power. To be in power we have to let people know we are not afraid of these concepts, while at the same time we try to lessen their necessity.
That means instead of simply saying, "Run away!" like the knights in Monty Python's "Holy Grail" we have to offer solutions for our current situation. Once we regain some power in Washington, our party needs to show voters (and soldiers) that we are serious about the inevitable need to kill some people. If we can do that I think it will go some way toward regaining credibility with the uniformed servicemembers and a long way toward reclaiming Reagan Democrats and a governing majority of Americans.