Asking responsible questions is a patriotic duty - American Thought - United States Senator and Vietnam Veteran discusses U.S. foreign and military policies - Column

The U.S. finds itself--thanks to the effort and sacrifice of all Americans--the sole superpower on the of the planet. With this unique status come burdens and responsibilities that extend far beyond our borders. Our choices at home directly affect our domestic and international security.

Gone are the days when foreign and domestic policy rarely mixed. Today, we have what I call a Main Street policy that stretches from Wall Street to Warsaw, a new global environment where the world is connected as never before. From environmental standards to economic figures, our domestic policies have as much impact internationally as our diplomatic relations and foreign policy.

Responding find dealing with this new reality requires a vision that understands it and incorporates its vagaries to offer a well-defined road map to achieve its stated goals. Yet, for the Bush Administration, the last year and a half have represented a curving mountain path, with frequent cutbacks, reverses, and near catastrophes. Its failure to lay out or follow any discernible domestic or foreign policy has left our country, as well as the world, confused and uncertain about where they stand.

That is why I believe our nation needs an alternate vision, one that recognizes the realities of the new world. We need a better vision for how the U.S. deals with the rest of the world; how to build relationships; how to structure our military forces; how to fight a war and win it; and for accepting the responsibility of being the sole superpower of the world.

These questions are not aimed at the Administration or the Republican Party alone. Asking them is an American fight and an American duty. We must resist a new orthodoxy that forwards the belief that asking questions is not only bad politics, but bad patriotism.

Tree leadership is not addressing 50% or even 75% of the issues. Leadership--the leadership of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy--is the process of raising and answering all questions. It is leading on all issues. It is laying out an alternative vision, that possibly, as in the case of Lincoln and Truman, is a postwar vision that includes rebuilding our former enemies. It is tackling a depressed stock market, ensuring retirement security, and responding to our great military questions like Roosevelt did. What it is not doing is tearing at the fabric of our noble history of domestic and international engagement and leadership.

Our country faces a prolonged and uncertain war which no one knows how or how long we will be fighting. That's why I believe--like I discovered 30 years ago when I returned to a country torn asunder by war and struggling to adjust to a new reality and watched my fellow soldiers and friends raise their voices--that during times of war, remaining silent is not an option. Conventional wisdom must be challenged so that we can update and modernize our political, military, and diplomatic options to this new war, and this can only be accomplished by raising questions.

A few months ago, when I raised questions about the war against terrorism and asked specific ones about the logistics of the battle of Tora Bora, then-Minority Leader Trent Lott expressed shock that U.S. senators might question the direction of a war while our soldiers were fighting it. This contrived, planned political response was a great overreaction because no one in Congress has done anything except express support for our troops and honor their service. Nevertheless, as I told Sen. Lott and House Majority Leader Tom Delay at that time, and reiterate here, one of the lessons I learned in Vietnam fighting in a war they did not have to endure and one of the vows of commitment I made to myself is that, if I ever reached a position of responsibility, I would never stop asking the questions that make our democracy strong. I would never stop or fail to seek to protect our troops and our national security.

My politics, like many of my generation, were formed in the years during and after Vietnam--years when, day by day, more and more Americans drafted out of the rural poor and inner cities were coming home in wheelchairs and body bags. In America at that time, there were two types of people, those who saw what was happening here and abroad and decided to do something about it--speaking up, organizing, writing letters, making phone calls, and raising questions--and those who did not want to see what was happening, did not want to face the realities of a country at war with itself, and chose to stay silent. For those of us who saw what was happening, it made us angry, but also made us believe that, if we knocked on enough doors and spoke out, things could be different. I still believe it made a difference. That is why it troubles me greatly that few are willing to ask some of the most-basic questions that help keep America safe.

It is right to ask Democrats and Republicans why, when given the country's full support to do whatever was necessary to destroy Al Qaeda, were our troops held back from achieving that goal? In the war on terrorism, we must remember, the primary target was not the Taliban. The Taliban were a collateral target, in the way on the road to the destruction of Al Qaeda. When the President declared war, I expected the full might of America's military to be called into action, especially recalling the Administration's promise not merely to fire missiles into the desert, but to do whatever was necessary to smoke Osama bin Laden and his terrorist thugs out of their caves. Yet, when given the opportunity to destroy Al Qaeda in the mountains of Tora Bora, the President turned not to the best military in the history of man, but, rather, to Afghan warlords, who only a week earlier were on the other side, and entrusted them with the responsibility of seeking out in the mountains the world's number-one terrorist and criminal, who was responsible for leaving over 3,000 Americans dead.