Will the Real "Surrender Monkeys" Please Stand Up

It is interesting to me that the right continually try to label those who oppose the Iraq occupation and the "war on terror" as cowards, appeasers, cut & runners, defeatists and "surrender monkeys", when they are the ones who surrendered almost immediately following September 11th-bear with me here.

What is the definition of "surrender"? Here is one way to put it:

n 1: acceptance of despair 2: a verbal act of admitting defeat

Can we all agree that this is a fitting description of "surrender"? If so, I refer back to the above contention that those on the right are the true "surrender monkeys". How else can we interpret their insistence that the world somehow changed permanently on September 11th, 2001, and that as a result we must scrap cherished American liberty, traditions, laws and values in favor of the "post 9/11" society of fear and perpetual war?

Let's be specific. The political right maintains that the so-called "war on terror" may last multiple decades, while at the same time claiming that the under the authority of the "war on terror" the president can ignore laws (such as the FISA) and treaties (Geneva Conventions) as he/she sees fit. Many on the right, among the punditry, Congress and even the White House, have suggested that members of the press should be prosecuted for reporting ANY information they deem "secret". They believe that torture should be official US policy, as well as "pre-emptive" warfare. Vice President Dick Cheney has even suggested that we are "encouraging" terrorists simply by exercising our right to vote for representatives that reflect our values, wants and needs. And the list goes on and on… no really, it does.

If the above examples don't suggest surrender to terrorism, I don't know what does. This is true even by their own standards. The Bush administration, their neo-con handlers and rubber stamp Republican Congress claim, wrongly might I add, that Islamic terrorists target America because they "hate our freedom". Now let's assume for a minute that this simplistic and childish opinion is valid. If we accept this, then we can only come to the conclusion that the Bush administration has surrendered to Al Qaeda, because they have set aside our American Constitution, diplomacy, our moral authority and even our ability to vote without fear.

Meanwhile, those of us on the other side of the political spectrum-the people they accuse of treason, appeasement and cowardice-have argued that we should not give up the afformentioned freedoms or values. The so-called "left" has maintained that torture should be condemned and outlawed in America and abroad. We have demanded that the President conform to the Constitution, not the other way around. We have demanded that our sons, daughters, fathers and mothers should not be sent to kill and be killed for the benefit of war profiteers and chickenhawk concocted theories of world domination. We, as Americans, believe that our world should not be turned upside down even when faced by the tragedy of 9/11. If the Constitution could withstand thousands of Soviet nuclear warheads, it can withstand radical Islam without modification or surrender. The time has come for all Americans to reject the radical right and return to the American system of laws and values,