Churchill said something about facing down an enemy before he gets so strong that you have to fight to preserve your nation, or even to fight knowing you're going to die because it's better to be free and dead than to live as a slave.
Looking at the gathering conflagration with a speck of objectivity, I'm becoming more and more convinced that politically you can not convince a free people to engage in total war on the basis of what may happen. Even though the gathering barbarism and brutality of the enemy becomes more flagrant every day, and we can see it as plainly as the nose on our faces, there are too many people who think this is just international politics as usual, to turn our ship-of-state onto a total war footing at the present time. Churchill was scorned for years until France fell and Dunkirk happened, then they wanted him "on that wall."
Simply put, things aren't bad enough yet for us to do the things that are necessary to put this down.
"Looking at the gathering conflagration with a speck of objectivity, I'm becoming more and more convinced that politically you can not convince a free people to engage in total war on the basis of what may happen. Even though the gathering barbarism and brutality of the enemy becomes more flagrant every day, and we can see it as plainly as the nose on our faces, there are too many people who think this is just international politics as usual, to turn our ship-of-state onto a total war footing at the present time. Churchill was scorned for years until France fell and Dunkirk happened, then they wanted him "on that wall." "
Let's add that Bush - the Churchill of our day - has gotten pummelled for fighting a 'pre-emtive' war where the impending threat was analyszed and now, post-facto, judged by some to be wanting (ie the "Bush lied, people died" mantra). ... By scorning just the kind of leadership that can save us from grave crises in the future, the democratic orders (and the Democrat party) has GUARANTEED the creation of grave crises in the future.
To wit: We will not fight Iran, etc. until it is too late to make it any easy fight.