Tell Me

So today SecState Rice is in the UK, with a typical crowd of venomous and inane protesters in attendance, and states that "thousands of mistakes" were made in Iraq.

Tell me - what did you expect?

Mistakes, accidents, and reverses are nothing new. Look at World War Two - coming on the heels of the victory in landings in Niormandy and moving from victory to victory across France, the Allies experienced two major disasters in less than four months - Operation Market Garden and the attack in the Ardennes (which led to the Battle of the Bulge). The first was a daring operation that could have worked - but its execution was botched. The second was a combination of major failues - failure of intelligence, of judgement, and of preparation.

War is a vile creature, and once loosed the random chaos bites both target and master.

But that's not a surprise. We were told up front that Iraq could very well be a generational commitment. That the American people and far too many of their elected representatives have already forgotten this speaks more to their failings than that of George W. Bush. And there's more to this campaign than simply Iraq.

Tell me this - does the potential cost of simply pulling up stakes and going home cause any concern at all?

Read this and this, please. And then continue.

OK, thanks.

Tell me, what does the American military legacy of the last forty years entails? Basically, if it gets too hot, America quits and goes home. Vietnam, Iran, Lebanon, Somalia...

And the enemy is counting on it. They don't need to defeat the American military on the battlefield. The most vital battlefields for the enemy are in the American court of public opinion.

What it means is that now we are atoning for the sins and mistakes of our fathers. Every time their hearts faltered, the hearts of those who oppose the United States were emboldened. We must hunt them down and destroy them where they live, or they will return the favor. The war will be hard, expensive, and long.

And the war will go on. It continues in Iraq, in Afghanistan, off Somalia, and in places that will never make the front pages of the newspapers. It will go on until one side is beaten, humiliated, and hammered into defeat and ruin. And that will be the end, even if we surrender long before then. The war will go on - for they understand us better than we understand ourselves, and they have the resolve to see it through.

Tell me - do we?

Posted as part of The Friday Furo Questus, a weakly weekly feature of The Wasatch Front.