The latest blind person leading the blind is Cindy Sheehan. At a time when our most urgent need is unity (given the life or death struggle forced upon us), we have people like her calling our President a liar and a terrorist, people shamelessly protesting outside Walter Reed Army Hospital, along with those in Crawford, people demanding we cut and run from Iraq, an action, if heeded, spelling disaster for the Iraqis and seriously compromising our security. Sheehan and her ilk are Takers, obviously selfish in their orientation, myopic in their vision, muddled in their thinking.

They take away from the sacred sacrifice of our fallen heroes.

They take airtime to demoralize our people and our troops.

They call terrorists "freedom fighters" and American freedom fighters "terrorists."

They take the moral high ground from an amoral point of view.

They take decorum out of public life by engaging in vicious hate-speech.

They take hope away from the sufferers living under the tyranny of Islamofascism.

They take support away from the forces of good, and fuel the forces of evil.

They take the truth and call it a lie, and they use lies to denigrate good people.

These anti-war activities are especially destructive in at least two directions: they injure the very men and women in uniform fighting to protect us by damaging morale, and they give aid and comfort to terrorists worldwide, individuals who know they can never defeat us unless they acquire significant support from demonstrators in America. It's the old story, learned by the North Vietnamese so well: divide, and conquer. More Americans will die than need be thanks to those Americans who encourage the terrorists by protesting at home.

The protestors claim to support the troops as they decry the war, failing to consider our military people volunteered for service, volunteered to accomplish the mission, in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere, i.e., win the war on terror. Objecting to the mission our soldiers swore an oath to carry out, the demonstrators spit in the faces of our brave men and women in uniform. Opposing their mission is hardly supportive. Certainly to say one supports the people but not their mission is the very definition of "oxymoron."

What is especially dispiriting is all this comes at a time when the Iraqis are on the verge of agreeing on a constitution leading to elections and the formalization of their democracy. At a time when we are on a goal-line offense against the terror threat in Iraq, when we should be cheering on our troops and the Iraqi people yearning to breath free, we hear the voices of derision and denigration rise to fever pitch.

There are Takers, and there are Givers.

My son volunteered for the Marine Corps more than a year ago. He has served one tour in Iraq. He returns for a second tour soon. He is a Giver. After 9/11 he felt patriotism rise in his heart, prompting him to enlist. His main motive was to defend our country, support our President, and help people abroad who want to live in freedom. Last week as he drove back to base he saw the demonstrators along the road with candles. He stopped and gave them a piece of his mind.

President Bush is a Giver. He has literally sacrificed his life in service to our country. He has suffered the most grievous verbal assaults anyone can imagine. To his credit he continues to lead according to principles, refusing to return evil for evil. He calls it like he sees it, and acts in conformity with his words, the definition of integrity.

Now we learn the former administration, the vanguard of the extreme Left now leading the anti-Bush charge, knew about the 9/11 terrorists long before the attacks, but refused to act, and the very Justice Department official primarily responsible for this lack of intervention was placed on the 9/11 commission, perhaps to mislead the public concerning the truth about 9/11. All these matters known as Able Danger go largely unnoticed and unreported. After all, delving into Able Danger doesn't serve the purposes of the opposition, focused on two goals: destroy Bush, and keep abortion legal. The Takers of life will now apparently say and do anything to achieve their goals, including character assassination activities directed against another good man, another Giver, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, who recently received the highest rating possible by the American Bar Association.

The liars, the Takers, now have the gall to say this administration lacks integrity, and those of us who truly support the troops are misguided, victims of propaganda.

The Clintons still run the Democratic Party, a party which has become radicalized thanks to the Clintons, a party containing seditious elements such as MoveOn.org, People for the American Way, Michael Moore and so on. They take and take and take, and never give back, greedily feeding at the public trough or at the hands of wealthy benefactors, demanding the rest of us allow them (the minority) to impose their morality on us (the majority). And yet they claim to embrace democracy.

The Givers, the vast majority of Americans, both military and civilian, understand a simple truth, uttered by Benjamin Franklin upon the occasion of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a statement applicable and relevant today:

"We had better hang together, or we will certainly hang separately."

We also understand that service, honor and country are the province of the Givers. It is a higher calling the Takers know nothing about, oblivious to the value of sacred sacrifice. It should come as no surprise. How can we expect low life to heed a higher calling?

Article © 2005 Allan Erickson