In his Oct. 26 op-ed "Democrats AWOL on foreign policy," Tobias Harris leveled a sweeping attack on the Democratic Party's view of foreign policy. He claimed that ever since they nominated George McGovern and his "Come home, America" message in 1972, they have been uneasy about the use of American force. He also said that, in nominating McGovern in 1972, they rejected the hawkish liberalism of people like Henry "Scoop" Jackson. Harris seems to forget that, though McGovern may have been personally incompetent, his message of coming home from Vietnam was by no means wrong. In fact, Scoop Jackson, for whom Harris seems to have so much admiration, was also calling for unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam when he ran in the 1972 primaries against McGovern.

Not only that, but what McGovern was proposing in his campaign was essentially what Richard Nixon actually did at the start of his second term. By 1972, the Vietnam War was a lost cause. If Harris does not think unilateral withdrawal was justified after 58,000 died, I wonder how many of our boys he thinks need to die in vain before pulling out becomes acceptable. Hawkishness, when it comes to foreign policy, means being willing to use force when the situation calls for it, not supporting any war at any time.

Harris goes on to praise the Reagan administration for its commitment to the promotion of democracy aboard. This assertion does not reflect reality. The Reagan administration recognized one enemy: communism. Their foreign policy represented not a principled goal, but a realpolitik which has generally typified the conservative approach to foreign policy. There were no humanitarian wars fought when Reagan was president.

Anyone who was against the communists was treated as our friend, regardless of their own internal human rights records. Reagan fought the communists by propping up the Taliban in Afghanistan, selling weapons to Sadaam Hussein and giving money to Nicaraguan terrorists. A terrorist, whose enemy happens to be a communist, is still a terrorist. It is this kind of shortsightedness in foreign policy on the part of the Republican Party that eventually led to the events of Sept. 11 and much of the mess America is in right now.

On the other hand, Walter Mondale, the Democrats' nominee in 1984, recognized that there were more enemies that just the communists. Like his mentor, Hubert Humphrey, he was committed to winning the cold war. However, he also called for not playing favorites between dictators. He promoted a foreign policy based on values and not short-term convenience. How much better off would America be today had Walter Mondale been elected president?

During the first Gulf War, Richard Nixon wrote an opinion article justifying the war on the basis of it being in America's economic interests. To the liberal, this sort of justification was never necessary. The mere fact that Hussein was gassing the Kurds in his own country was sufficient reason enough, to a liberal, to go in and stop him.

This tradition of liberal interventionism-or simply put, just liberalism-characterized the foreign policy of the Democratic Party during the Clinton administration. It was Clinton who fought humanitarian wars in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo, with the Republicans always chastising him for it.

These different approaches to foreign policy have found their way into the Bush administration as well. Bush had to justify the current war on the basis of weapons of mass destruction and made up connections to al Qaeda. To a conservative, the notion of fighting a war strictly for humanitarian purposes hardly even crossed his mind.

Left-wing supporters of the war like Joe Lieberman made it clear from the beginning that Hussein's human rights violations were their major reason for supporting the war, and not the alleged weapons of mass destruction. Sure, Bush talks about human rights now, but only as a last resort after his other justifications fell through.

It must be noted that there is an important qualitative difference between a humanitarian war and a war of immediate necessity. A war that needs to be fought because your immediate security is directly threatened is fought without asking questions. You don't worry about U.N. resolutions or allied support because you need to defend yourself right away.

With a humanitarian war, on the other hand, liberating a people is not worthwhile unless you can replace what they had with something better. This is why the United Nations, our strongest allies and a genuine postwar plan are necessary. The war was not about fighting off a direct threat, but about building a better society for the Iraqi people, which is made infinitely more difficult by the fact that most of the world opposes what we are doing.

This distinction has lately only been recognized by Democrats. John Kerry has said, on numerous occasions, that when our national security is at risk, not the U.N. nor France nor anyone else, will have a veto over what we do to defend ourselves. However, he recognizes that whenever possible, a war can be fought more effectively when we have friends working with us.

The Democrats' value-based, go-it-alone-only-when-we-have-to approach to foreign policy is far more responsible than the Republican realpolitik that seems to take special pride in going alone. The Democratic party of today is truly the party of Joe Lieberman, Scoop Jackson, John F. Kennedy, Harry S. Truman and Franklin Roosevelt. And it has shown itself to be the only party that ought to be trusted with America's security in the post-9/11 21st century.