Article III, section 3, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution relates that "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, GIVING THEM AID AND COMFORT."
http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html

On December 4, 2005 Senator John Kerry told Bob Schieffer of the CBS television program 'Face the Nation', "There is no reason, Bob, why American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the middle of the night, TERRORIZING kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the - of the historical customs - religious customs - whether you like it or not."
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/face_120405.pdf

The following day, Howard Dean, the Chairman of the Democrat National Committee stated on a San Antonio, Texas radio program that the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is JUST PLAIN WRONG," and "I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam."
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47753

Back in June of this year, Senator Dick Durbin remarked, after reading from a report that Guantanamo Bay detainees had been chained to a floor, forced to listen to loud rap music, and endure uncomfortable temperatures in their cells, "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this MUST HAVE BEEN DONE BY NAZIS, SOVIETS IN THEIR GULAGS, OR SOME MAD REGIME - POL POT or others - that had no concern for human beings."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/796AA4AC-531C-4E6F-B855-7FBC52506824.htm

In May of 2004, Representative John Murtha was quoted as saying that "the direction [of the war] has got be changed or it is UNWINNABLE," going on to state that "WE CANNOT PREVAIL in this war as it is going today."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/06/murtha.iraq

That same month, Senator Ted Kennedy remarked, "shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's TORTURE CHAMBERS REOPENED UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT: U.S. MANAGEMENT," referring to the Abu Ghraib prison story which recounted the humiliation of suspected terrorists by a few rogue American service members.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119546,00.html

Abraham Lincoln once wrote that "Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged," and I couldn't agree more with that assertion. To even suggest that American soldiers are "terrorizing" innocent people in Iraq, or that the war they are fighting is "unwinnable" amounts to treason, as it does indeed give "aid and comfort" to our enemies, and further endangers the lives of those fighting men and women to whom the Congressmen mentioned above owe their very way of life.

Lincoln also wrote, following the arrest of Representative Clement Vallandigham for "treasonable utterances" by the Ohio Volunteer Infantry, "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier-boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? ...I think that in such a case to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional, but withal a great mercy." Once again, I find myself in complete agreement with the former President, and I am hard pressed to find any sympathy within my heart for those who do not.
http://home.mindspring.com/~mtmitchell/Vallandigham.html

I often hear leftists proclaim that disagreeing with the President is not unpatriotic, yet elected officials who go out of their way to demonize, devalue, or degrade U.S. troops during wartime are not merely disagreeing with a particular policy initiative. It's one thing to say that President Bush has mismanaged the war, but it's another thing entirely to refer to the people who are charged with defending our country against the worst ideological plague to beset humanity in my lifetime as the equivalent of Nazis and Stalinists.

Is there any doubt whatsoever that when Representative Murtha called our military personnel "broken, worn out" and "living hand to mouth" during a recent speech in Pennsylvania that this absurd and fallacious account encouraged terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan to step up their attacks against not only our troops in the field but the civilian populations of those countries as well? What good can such a statement possibly do for anyone other than our enemies? If Murtha were truly sincere in his belief that American soldiers are not as well equipped as they should be, or that their morale is in decline, how does publicly humiliating help to rectify the situation?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051201/ap_on_go_co/congress_iraq_murtha

If I were a Congressman, and I believed that our military was not getting the supplies it needed, or that troop morale was low, the first thing I'd do is get together with my colleagues, and demand a meeting with the President behind closed doors to discuss increasing the war budget. I'd then give a speech on the floor of whatever house I belonged to, and congratulate each and every branch of the armed services for their tremendous efforts, in spite of the many hardships which they endure on a daily basis. I'd pledge to do everything in my power to see that they are as well equipped as possible, and do my best to inspire them with words of appreciation and affirmation. After all, isn't that what our brave troops deserve?

I can tell you one thing for sure, they absolutely DO NOT deserve to be called torturers, mass murderers, or ineffective warriors by the very people who sent them into harms way in the first place! Nor do our barbaric enemies deserve to be emboldened by the irresponsible and often completely false claims of liberal politicians, who have decided that trying to gin up support for their party's candidates in the coming elections is more important than protecting the lives of the most noble and courageous individuals our nation has produced.

In my opinion, each one of the perpetrators of this most foul and pernicious sort of propaganda should die a coward's death for the treasonous posture he has chosen to strike. There is no honor in defeatist rhetoric, nor is there patriotism in the demoralization of even one American soldier at war. Those who encourage retreat in the name of political expediency are nothing less than parasites festering within the belly of this great nation, deserving of eternal shame at the very least, and, if I had my way, far worse than that.

By Edward L. Daley
Owner of the Daley Times-Post
http://www.times-post.com