In his 2004 book The Case for Democracy former Russian dissident Natan Sharansky presciently called the 2006 American midterm elections for the Democrats. He wrote:

“[N]o democratic government will be able to fight a protracted war that the majority of its citizens does not support. This is especially true when the costs of war are felt close to home. If democratic peoples believe there is an alternative to war — whether that alternative is real or imagined is immaterial — they will demand that their government pursue it. And a democratic government that does not heed the will of the people will sooner or later be replaced by one that does. …

“For this reason, democratic leaders also have a propensity towards appeasement. Their first instinct is to seek a peaceful solution first, and they are slow to relinquish this approach. War is almost always seen as an expensive, disruptive last resort, and few democratic leaders embrace that prospect with anything other than extreme caution. Indeed, so strong is the popular antipathy to war the democratic societies are at a disadvantage when confronting threats that require preemptive military action. In response to their voters, most democratic leaders will be inhibited by a pacific reflex, be slow to act, and be overly cautious. This propensity for appeasement can be extremely dangerous if potential threats that could have been nipped in the bud are instead allowed to grow more dangerous.”

TRY (The Random Yak) previously wrote that the restructuring of society through the war in Iraq resembles the inter-Christian Thirty Years War in Europe, 1618-1648, that resulted in the Treaty of Westphalia, the first legal, political agreement to ensure a form of religious liberty. The Iraq war also reflects the forces of the French Revolution, in that the entire political structure and much of the social structure of society has been destroyed and redesigned with the objective of establishing humane and democratic institutions, but the French Revolution of 1789 led to the reign of terror, the dictatorship of Napoleon and many failed interim governments before a stable democracy finally was established in the 1870’s.

The achievement of the Republicans to hold the will of the democratic people in America to suffer and sacrifice for the freedom of others in Iraq even through two elections was remarkable. President Bush took enormous political risks to go for nation building in Iraq (something he eschewed in his debates in the first presidential election) in an attempt to forge a long term strategy for peace in the Middle East and for peaceful religious coexistence in the world for Muslims everywhere. He appears to have lost that mandate now, but he may yet win the larger war for democracy. Perhaps not in this generation but after a generation or two, as with the Thirty Years War and the French Revolution, freedom may yet flourish where it has been so courageously planted. The irrational militancy and political autocracy of the prevailing Islamic theology and culture cuts against the desire for freedom innate in every human being by natural law.

To our President and our courageous troops, especially the slain and injured and their families, we at TRY offer our humble and sincere thanks and ask God’s blessings on you all and on our nation.

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This system included variable transmission power in both no down boat loan stations and the telephones (controlled by no down boat loan stations), which allowed range and cell size to vary.