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By CLIFF RIEDERS
"The loyal opposition" is a term from 18th Century England. It was intended to connote the party out of power respecting the jurisdictional right of the ruling party to carry out necessary national policies.
In the United States, the term has been used during war to describe the party out of power, supporting the national security efforts of the ruling party.
With the United States just having assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the question is just how loyal is the loyal opposition. There has been a hue and cry suggesting that President Trump has violated the War Powers Act, was reckless and is at the cusp of starting a war in the Middle East with the dreaded Iran.
In other words, confronting a criminal and safeguarding national interests of the United States is regarded by President Trump's opponents as dangerous and provocative.
The United States is at war with international terrorism. This is a war that has been going on since the time of the Barbary pirates. It was a war fought by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and has continued right up to the present.
No one is saying that the President of the United States has a right to act, during times of war, with absolute discretion.
Even where the United States has fought undeclared wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, the loyal opposition has not always been so loyal.
During the time of the early republic, there were those who supported the French over the British or the British over the French. It was not clear whose European wars the United States was going to become involved with.
President Washington wanted the U.S. to be neutral during all of the European conflagrations that were taking place during his administration. Unfortunately the United States was dragged into conflict because its ships were attacked and its sailors impressed into foreign navies.
Finally, John Adams had enough and began to build a proper Navy to safeguard American interests. Thomas Jefferson, a fierce opponent of the Federalists, did not shrink from his duty in protecting Americans when he became President.
In the runup to World War I and World War II, there were those who opposed United States intervention on behalf of its allies. Prior to World War I, the Bolsheviks and socialists opposed the United States' propping up capitalist regimes in Europe. Before Pearl Harbor, isolationists and bigots of various stripes, did everything they could to keep the United States from helping Britain and France during that horrendous conflict.
General Eisenhower essentially ran against Adlai Stevenson, not so subtly blaming the Korean War and its carnage on Harry Truman. Richard Nixon claimed a "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam, crediting that misbegotten conflict on Lyndon Johnson.
President Obama was proud of killing Osama Bin Laden, who was linked to the 9/11 World Trade Tower attacks.
However, when President Trump killed Qassem Soleimani, who was a much more powerful and dangerous figure than Bin Laden, "protests broke out in dozens of American cities", according to the New York Times.
Many in the opposition party seemed to be sending a not so subtle signal to Iran that it should retaliate so as to weaken Donald Trump in the upcoming election. Is it possible that the Democratic Party in this country is playing the same role as Thomas Jefferson did in the XYZ Affair?
Thomas Jefferson allegedly shared national security information with three (3) French spies, designated XYZ, in order to support the Francophiles in this country who claimed that Washington and Adams desired the British monarchy in America. Jefferson thought he was saving the Republic from reinstitution of a king on the North American continent.
The attempt by President Trump to eliminate the world's worst terrorist, thus safeguarding Western interests, has been met with a suggestion that Trump is mentally unstable, dangerous, and has the sheer insane audacity to think that he could protect American interests in the face of an all-powerful Iran. Iran can cause collateral damage directly and through proxy warriors, but cannot begin to endanger the United States.
The United States has turned a blind eye to Iran's nuclear ambitions, and thought previously that it could buy off the fundamentalist Islamic regime with money and open trade. That did not work. Instead, the money delivered by the United States to Iran in bags containing cash did nothing except to help finance the agenda of the Mullahs to see a nuclear cloud over Western civilization.
President Trump has been designated by the opposition as both a loud-mouthed, bullying coward who threatens but does nothing, and, at the same time, is a reckless egomaniac whose actions endanger the interests of the United States. With the killing of the warrior Qassem Soleimani, the United States has engaged in yet another round of a continuous set of battles. We have not won the war by eliminating this dangerous warrior, but the actions of the United States certainly will have an impact.
President Trump's clear message that 52 sites in Iran are targeted, should there be retaliation, is fair advance warning. In war there is no such thing as a stalemate. Wars are won or lost based upon the organizational strength and commitment of the nations doing battle. While Iran has a great deal of pride and religious fervor, the United States and her allies are in the best position to assure a world peace which is both substantial and continuous.
There are many around the globe delighted that Iran has lost its visionary and chief military leader, who has done so much damage and who had promised so much destruction in the future.
Hopefully, the "loyal opposition" in the United States will express its views as it has every right and responsibility to do, but will not continue to signal to Tehran and to our enemies in general that retaliation against the United States would be in the interests of the Democrats and to the detriment of the Republicans.
That would elevate the loyal opposition into the disloyal opportunists.
Cliff Rieders is a board-certified trial advocate in Williamsport, is past president of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association and a past member of the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority. None of the opinions expressed necessarily represent the views of these organizations.