America fought Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and won. America faced down Stalin and Krushnev and their nukes and won. Empires with millions of soldiers, sailors, pilots, factory workers and scientists, empires with tanks and submarines and missiles, empires that spanned time zones and dominated entire continents have challenged us and failed. Now, we face a pitiful handful of religious kooks, and, encouraged by craven leaders, we tremble in fear.
According to President Bush, America's greatest enemy has no state, no navy, no air force, a tiny and pathetic "army" good for nothing but guerrilla warfare. It is funded and supplied exclusively through underground channels and openly supported by almost no one. Yet, despite the pathetic state of our "opposition," the Republicans continue to insist that defending us from them should be the primary goal of government, that everything else should be pushed aside in the name of security. They want us to give up our rule of law, to relinquish our rights, to ignore the very Constitution that makes this country the great place it is--all to protect us from the weak, pathetic spectre of Islamic terrorism.
This is because they are cowards.
In the pages of history, only a select few nations can stand next to us, yet any of those historical superpowers would have laughed at how we now behave. If, say, the Roman Empire had been attacked by these terrorists, they would have destroyed their base of operations like we did in Afghanistan, then pursued the remnants. But, they would otherwise have gone alone with their business--an imperial Roman, like a citizen of colonialist Britain, classical Macedonia, the Mongolian empire or Han China, would have seen such a weak enemy as nothing more than a mild irritant, a gnat to be brushed aside absentmindedly. "Why," they would ask, "should we fear an enemy that can never defeat us?" By all logic, our nation should do the same. Undoubtedly, given our power and our enemy's weakness, the only way terrorists can hurt us is to provoke us into doing it for them. So far, with the complicity of the terrified Republican party, they have succeeded in doing so. Their strategy, however, will only work if we let it.
Now, I'm not truly writing this to fellow Kossacks. If I were, I'd marshal facts and nuances and argue them methodically. Knowing of the excesses of World War II (internment camps) and of the Cold War (HUAC, COINTELPRO, Vietnam, Iran-Contra, numerous interventions in Latin America), I probably wouldn't bring them up. If I were writing for Kossacks, my tone would be less triumphant and I'd be sure to acknowledge Britain and the Soviet Union's role in World War II. I would attribute the GOP's behavior to craven submission to the military-industrial complex and their collective need for America to have an enemy, not to cowardice. I might note the symbiotic relationship between neoconservative imperialists and Islamic terrorism, how they rely on each other to justify their own existances.
However, as my username implies, I was born and raised in a rural area. I still go back to visit regularly, and maintain many friendships there. While I consider myself a progressive, I still hold the traditions and values of the sticks dear; I feel at least as much kinship with the barnstorming midwestern socialists of the early 20th century as I do with the average modern liberal. That part of me--the part that recognizes that for all its flaws, America has acted more benevolently than any comparable historical empire, despite unparalleled power to do evil--resonates with this argument, based as it is on American power and history. Similarly, I've found it to be very successful with those who don't pay much attention to politics back home. These are rural, blue-collar folks whose natural aversion to elitism makes them susceptible to the right-wing's jingoistic war-whoops. When the Republicans frame things like the FISA fight as liberals protecting the terrorists, they listen. However, when you point out that the threat of Islamic terrorism is pitiful, that making them out to be a deadly enemy is beneath us as a country, they listen just as intently.
GOP policy is so manifestly wrong on this issue that it can be attacked from the perspective of a patriotic nationalist almost as easily as it can from that of a socially-conscious pacifist. We would do well to use this to our advantage, and tailor our arguments to appeal to our specific audiences--we certainly do not need to cede patriotism to the fearmongers. Good luck, and god bless America.