If you’d heard the GOP response to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s (D-S.D.) remarks about the ever-expanding war on terror last Thursday, you’d have thought Daschle had just declared a fatwa upon the American public. The storm of criticism that followed was immediate and brutal:

“Disgusting,” said Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

“[Daschle’s] divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit division in our country,” said Rep. Thomas Davis (R-Va.).

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) reacted with equal shock and disdain. “How dare Sen. Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field? He should not be trying to divide our country while we are united.” As if after Sept. 11, political parties and the freedom to dissent had been vaporized along with the Twin Towers, Republicans reacted as if Daschle’s questions about the expanding scope of the war and “lack of exit strategy” were borderline treasonous.

Oddly enough, Daschle’s words sound like a direct cut-and-paste from the days of Clinton-era nation-building, whereupon Republicans tore our their hair and beat their breasts, lamenting Clinton’s never-ending crusades to every corner of the globe. “We have no exit strategy!” they cried. “When can we know we’ve achieved victory?” they bellowed in despair.

Meanwhile, then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle silently remained complacent, occasionally firing back a salvo or two at the Republican vanguard to “support our president and our troops.”

Indeed, how times do change.

The president who campaigned upon the policy, “We don’t do nation-building” has now committed troops to remote places such as the Philippines and ex-Soviet republic Georgia for the purposes of “anti-terrorism training” all while rattling sabers at every two-bit dictator with a suspected nuclear arms program.

Where did the GOP’s sudden disdain for campaigns of global hegemony go? The same way Daschle’s taste for nation-building went – partisan politics. It’s a well-known fact that Bush’s domestic policy is a hobbled patchwork of programs and appointments to appease both the conservative base which got him elected and the so-called “moderates” that are essential to his re-election chances in 2004. Thus, the war on terror has been the only thing keeping Bush’s stratospheric approval ratings afloat.

Naturally, the Democrats are far from oblivious to this idea – in fact, every protestation of Bush’s domestic agenda by Democrats has been muted both by Bush’s approval rating and the danger of “attacking our leaders in a time of crisis.” Daschle knows quite well that the only way to sink Bush’s re-election campaign at the moment is to deflate Bush’s “war on terror.”

Who pays for Washington’s hubris, though? Our soldiers.

While Democrats and Republicans squabble and switch sides every presidential term over foreign policy, it is our soldiers who pay the price. Even in Bosnia to this day, thousands of American troops are stationed there for “peacekeeping” purposes. Chances are, our soldiers will spend decades in Afghanistan, where tribal warlords continue to skirmish with the newly “installed” government.

So while our elected officials proselytize to one another about the evils at home and abroad, it is quickly forgotten that it is our soldiers risking their lives for our freedom, not Washington. It is our soldiers that come home in body bags, not our senators.

The president has serious questions to answer, perhaps best summed up by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), “If we expect to kill every terrorist in the world, that’s going to keep us going beyond doomsday. How long can we afford this? We went to [Afghanistan] to hunt down the terrorists. We don’t know where Osama bin Laden is or whether he is alive or not. We don’t know where Mullah Omar is hiding. When will we know we have achieved victory?”

So to Trent Lott and all his cronies, how dare you cast admonitions upon those who take into account the welfare of our soldiers abroad while you make wars in every two-bit dictatorship with such cavalier discard for human life? How dare you dismantle the freedom of political dissent that men and women fought and died for to this day?

To Daschle and his followers, where were you when Clinton committed American troops to “keep the peace” in nations that have been killing each other for centuries, commitments to which we are mired in to this day? How do you retain any “moral high ground” to come off criticizing what you were complacent to only four years ago?

Both parties in Washington have much to answer for, for their rank hypocrisy and brazen disregard for the welfare of our troops simply for the sake of the next election cycle.

Steve Skutnik is a senior in physics from Palm Harbor, Fla. He is the GSB election commissioner.