Posted on 07/07/2005 4:07:03 PM PDT by CHARLITE
President Bush's speech at Fort Bragg on June 28 was an overdue and thoroughly welcome report to the American people on the progress of the war in Iraq. It was appropriately sober. He didn't make any wild promises of early victory. He simply pointed out the vital importance of winning, and pledged that America will press on until victory is won.
Since Bush is going to be president and commander in chief for 3-1/2 more years, he has the wherewithal to make his pledge stick. In strictly military terms, there is no way the United States can be defeated in Iraq. The jihadists who are setting off the bombs there can make life uncomfortable for the Iraqi government and its armed forces, and even for their American trainers, for the indefinite future; but it is clear that they cannot topple the government, or drive out the Americans.
There is, however, one remaining way in which they might, conceivably, win, and it is obvious that they know it and are counting on it.
In previous columns I have noted that, since at least 1960, or in other words for nearly half a century, America's military ventures have been fodder for the nation's partisan battles. Forget about "politics stopping at the water's edge." Beginning with Vietnam, opposition to the country's wars has been a staple of political combat – first by leftists operating largely outside the two-party system, but increasingly between the two major parties, as the Democratic Party has progressively internalized this opposition.
You can be sure that Muslim fanatics like Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi watched with fascination as domestic opposition to the war in Vietnam swelled to a point where it simply overwhelmed Nixon (who had inherited the war from the Democrats) and a Democratic Congress finally forced the withdrawal of American forces and then cut off all further military aid to our South Vietnamese allies. Mighty America simply cut and ran.
True, Bush 41 ousted Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. But he stopped short of ousting him from Iraq, and subsequent U.S. military expeditions in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo underlined the reluctance of President Clinton to expend so much as a single American life in pursuing his various military adventures. The strategic response suggested itself: Make America pay, in lives lost (not many, necessarily, but steadily), and domestic pressures will do the rest. The American people are rich, self-indulgent and impatient; they like their wars short and painless. If one lasts too long, the domestic opposition will take up the issue and force an end to it, whatever the cost.
That is plainly what they are betting on in Iraq. American deaths have been remarkably low (less than 3-1/2 percent of those we sustained in Vietnam), but that very fact has enabled the war's opponents to dwell piously on each one, while the media interviews members of the bereaved family.
I do not want to understate here the basic stamina of the American people. Most of them loyally supported the war in Vietnam until it was clear that Lyndon Johnson had no plan for winning it at a cost he deemed acceptable. And despite artfully phrased polls that suggest otherwise, it is by no means clear that a majority is (yet) ready to pull out of Iraq regardless of the consequences.
But neither dare we underestimate the destructive effect of a Democratic Party, many of whose leaders are prepared, and allowed, to undermine the war effort at will. Ted Kennedy has denounced it as a "quagmire"; the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Sen. Durbin, has compared our treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo to the Holocaust, Stalin's gulags, and Pol Pot's killing fields; and several leading figures, overwhelmingly Democrats, have demanded a "timetable" for America's departure from Iraq – presumably so Zarqawi will know how long he must wait.
Bush is right: We must persevere. For if we do not, then, as Winston Churchill warned of a similar back down 67 years ago, it will be "only the first sip – the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time
William Rusher is a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. If you wish to write to Mr. Rusher, you can contact him c/o United Media; Editorial Dept., 4th Floor; New York, N.Y. 10016
Char (:
the president mentioned in april at fort hood that iraqi troops outnumbered u.s. troops. at this rate we'll be able to leave maybe by next year, and it won't matter how much the dems whine!
It's a lot less likely that we will be willing to lose after today.
Aiding and abetting the enemy in time of war should still be considered treasonous and punishable as such. I’m not in favor of controlling information the way the military did during WWII, but if our “fifth column” main-stream media and irresponsible liberals don’t cease and desist with their sympathy for the enemy, I could be convinced. There’s a lot at stake here, and allowing this country to be sold out by the likes of Dick Durbin, and others of his ilk is not an option.
I by we, you mean Americans, we have already lost. Only a few political opportunists will profit.
WOW! And is that Number higher than PRE-Operation Iraqi Freedom levels???
So...if, and a Big IF, the People of the Nation of Iraq TRULY <<>>
"Politicians are the lowest form of life on the earth. Liberal Democrats are the lowest form of politician."
- G.S.Patton -
I totally disagree with your statement in so far as I can understand your meaning.
and it isn't just the liberal dems... what's with the Cato Institute?
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/politics/1207...
We'll be pulling 7 out of the 17 brigades in Iraq by late summer, 2006.
you heard it here first.
A loss for the United States is a win for jehadis, terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists.I think after yesterdays attack on our friend in GB we will see more support from others on the Iraq war..
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