"Iraq is NOT like Vietnam, the NVA and Viet Cong did not follow us home. The islamofascists will."
Nope but communisim did, and in a big way. Visit most any college campus, news room, etc.
I wish someone would tell me, if this war is SO important, and I believe it is, why the constant pussy-footing around? It's becoming apparent we are not in this thing to win. Wea re too PC a country to win any more wars. We can win the hell out of some battles but our days of winning wars are pretty much over, IMO, stricly because of PC politics concerned more with image than substance.
Write your congressman and ask him to put the symmetry back in warfare.
My answer's just a tad different than yours: It's because America fights conflicts since WWII in a way that will not disrupt our citizens...and particularly not disrupt our economy. The calculation, particularly in regards to the middle east since the 70's when that region held the key to the survival of Europe's and America's economies, has consistently been that America has much more to lose from a general war in the middle east than anyone else has...that's more true than ever with our enemy being the rabid islamofascists that live in squalor and deprivation and consider a badge of honor to do so.
So we fight our wars at low simmer, because we don't want the logical results of a big messy general war where all hell breaks loose...because our own people will not tolerate the sacrifices that will come from that. So we fight in a way to control the damage to our economic way of life...because in a democracy the people will get what they want the most. So to me, that's why we fight like we don't really mean it. Our people will tolerate many things, but a depressed economy is not one of those things.
As I've said many times, PC is eventually gonna cause a cataclysmic loss of American life. It now controls every facet of this society, ESPECIALLY its leadership, and that control runs the gamut from boards of tiny towns to the White House. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we changed the name of our retaliatory operation so as not to offend our enemies, and everything since then has taken on the same flavor of appeasement.
Until we shake off the PC constraints, we have no realistic shot at defeating the enemy. To be clear, we have no realistic chance of defeating an enemy we don't even have the courage to NAME.
MM
Rove anticipating a possible 2006 Dem win? The Dem's "Withdrawl Plan" won't take place by 2008, so we'll still be at war.
For example, Clinton needed an issue on which to run to keep his base—so Clinton was happy to have gun control lose!
Same thing happened to the British after the Boer wars in 1898. The British press villified their troops for creating concentration camps of Boer women and children.
The British empire went downhill not long after.
BUMP