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Happy Thanksgiving! This is not an article about Thanksgiving except to give thanks to that small group of men and women from this country who understand the threat because they are facing it on the frontiers of civilization. To the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, thank you. To all the people who stand ready to defend this country thank you. It is also an article to apologize to those very same people for the behavior of their fellow citizens. The brave do not blame others for their faults, but those whose lives are cushy because of those brave men and women do. We blame everyone but ourselves for the retreat we are now facing in our war. We blame our politicians, members of our own parties, the opposition, the press and just about anyone else except that one person we have control over, the person who stares back in the mirror at us. Is there blame to be apportioned to others? Absolutely but beware:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

So this article was born. It will probably be futile but nevertheless it has become an article of faith of mine that all avalanches start with but a single pebble. Perhaps this is the pebble that will cause all of us to remember, we have an enemy out there who wishes us all dead. Not just conservatives or liberals or leftists or libertarians. Blaming each other accomplishes nothing.

Now this article doesn’t offer any solutions. It offers a stark question that needs to be answered. Has our country become filled with people who love our lives so much that we will turn away from danger out of fear? Is that what drives the opposition to the war? If so then we had better address it.

As I type these words the United States finds itself in an titanic struggle with forces modern man refuses to believe can still exist. A war with barbarians whose markers of victory consist of videos where innocents are savagely beheaded to the chant of “Allah Akbar”. But beware this is an enemy who understands that the more horrible he is the less likely those of us in the west facing him will be able to acknowledge his intent.

Some of us have likened our war, with these thugs out of ancient history, to those we have fought in recent past, in particular WW2, but I believe that is misguided. After all even though the Germans occupied France for years and murdered hundreds of thousands France did not disappear, it remained  France.

No if one were to look for an example of where we might be headed then we have to go a bit farther back in history. A much more useful comparison, a comparison that puts on display all the terrible consequences of defeat, would be what happened to Constantinople in particular and the Byzantine Empire in general. There we see the very foundations of Western Civilization in that area destroyed and cast asunder. But getting people to face such an existential danger is almost impossible given our present level of wealth and comfort. We simply refuse to consider that we can be defeated and that is a terribly dangerous refusal, there is no such thing as being unbeatable especially considering that wars are not won by hardware but by will.

So perhaps this is the dangerous dilemma we find ourselves in at the present. We must rouse the populace to their danger and yet a combination of arrogance and willful ignorance is keeping the populace from considering what happens if we lose. Aside from a few lone voices in the wilderness I see no long articles defining what defeat might look like. If I had the wits and knowledge I would certainly attempt such a thing but I am not clever enough by half to even begin. But someone must accurately outline the possible outcomes should we lose. No not what happens in Iraq because that is merely a battle that must be won. I mean what happens in the United States in 4 years should we lose the Battle of Iraq and the coming Battle of Iran.

Surely it is merely arrogance that drives them to act as if their can be no such thing as defeat. Surely when they are deciding whether to face our enemy or to face defeat it is merely their arrogance that leads them to believe that defeat holds no consequences other than a spot on 60 minutes someday in the future discussing such a terrible thing.

But perhaps it is worse. Perhaps they do not face into the eyes of the enemy out of sheer bloody fear. Perhaps it isn’t that they believe defeat is not possible or that our defeat only means more grist for the cocktail hour that causes them to look away when our enemy beckons, perhaps it is sheer bone shaking fear. Perhaps they already know what lies ahead if we shirk our responsibility to defend Western Civilization and it is that fate that causes them to look away. Some stand up and fight when they see a wild animal coming, some simply lose hope, lie down and die. Instead of deciding to rise up sword in hand they have decided to close their eyes and click their heels chanting there is no place like home. That is a terrible thought…that is a thought that Mark Steyn has not yet addressed, because perhaps even for the Voice in the Wilderness the prospect of that nightmare stills his pen. The cowardice of a majority in a nation as powerful as ours might be an impossible thing to acknowledge but I would be a lot more comfortable if people would acknowledge the possibility and prove to me that my worry regarding my fellow citizens is baseless.

Mark Steyn: As it is, we’re in a very dark place right now. It has been a long time since America unambiguously won a war, and to choose to lose Iraq would be an act of such parochial self-indulgence that the American moment would not endure, and would not deserve to. Europe is becoming semi-Muslim, Third World basket-case states are going nuclear, and, for all that 40 percent of planetary military spending, America can’t muster the will to take on pipsqueak enemies. We think we can just call off the game early, and go back home and watch TV.

It doesn’t work like that. Whatever it started out as, Iraq is a test of American seriousness. And, if the Great Satan can’t win in Vietnam or Iraq, where can it win? That’s how China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela and a whole lot of others look at it. “These Colors Don’t Run” is a fine T-shirt slogan, but in reality these colors have spent 40 years running from the jungles of Southeast Asia, the helicopters in the Persian desert, the streets of Mogadishu. … To add the sands of Mesopotamia to the list will be an act of weakness from which America will never recover.

Some like to say that it is the politicians fault and indeed there is much to recommend that idea and blame since it is our leaders responsibility to lead. But can we say that we have not been warned by President Bush that this struggle would be a terrible fight that would go on for years? No we cannot because even though he has shied away from naming our enemies, he has not shied away from saying how hard this fight would be. Surely some say that he is not eloquent enough or that he does not clearly illuminate the target with his words and all of that is true, but many of us know the danger. How did we get there and others have not?

Some say that it is the Mainstream Media’s fault and indeed blame can be laid at their doorstep and yet others have managed to understand the threat. Others have a very clear eyed view of the threat and they were subject to the same Mainstream Media propaganda as the rest of those cowards who now shirk the responsibility to stand erect and say this far and no farther. Why did some of us come to understand the threat and others not?

Some say it is the fault of the Neo Cons or the far right or the far left or the middle of the road or the undecided. I say it is the fault of us all. Because whether we stand together or not, we will hang together. The enemy we face understands none of the distinctions we see amongst ourselves. They do not hear Michael Moore’s plaintive and asinine pleas for them to attack Red States or Red Cities. To our enemies we are all enemies. When we all look into the mirror tomorrow morning we can each accept part of the blame for the fact that Democrats are in power now. Our enemies rejoice and that is enough to allow us the confidence to state plainly that a mistake was made in our last election and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Our enemies have plainly stated their intentions.

We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.Hussein Massawi, a former Hezbollah leader.

“Hostility toward America is a religious duty, and we hope to be rewarded for it by God . . . . I am confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America. Time Magazine Osama Bin Laden

“The pieces of the bodies of infidels were flying like dust particles. If you would have seen it with your own eyes, you would have been very pleased, and your heart would have been filled with joy.” — At the wedding of his son in southern Kandahar about the 17 sailors who died suicide bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen. Osama Bin Laden

It is beyond saying that there is one group of people in this who bear no blame. Our military has stood on the frontiers of civilization bearing the brunt of our enemies attacks. They have done so on a budget that would have been cause for shame had a Democratic President been responsible for it. Had a Republican Congress been dealing with a Democratic President who proposed to not raise military spending past some of the lowest points of the Clinton Years that Democratic President would have been ridden out of town on a rail. And yet here we stand 5 years into a 2 front war spending less than Clinton. Had a Democratic President stood by and allowed secrets to flow like water out of our intelligence agencies Republicans would have rightly demanded investigations into the Counter Intelligence arms of our intelligence agencies. Instead we are treated daily to secrets being paraded like cheap whores on some seedy corner of a dying city by an assembly of bureaucrats who seem to think that nothing will happen that no matter what burden we place upon our country we can win. But I digress that is a story for another article.

Right now the crucial aspect is this…we are entirely too confident of victory. Speaking as one who has fought a great deal against other men I will say that overconfidence is a deadly fault to carry into a fight. Better to overestimate your enemy and underestimate your capability and to constantly look to shore up your morale. We have squandered much in our arrogance. But worse than our arrogance has been our absolute refusal to blame the people most responsible for putting us into a position where we might actually lose the war, ourselves. 

Source: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Mark Steyn :: U.S. must prove it’s a staying power

Technorati tags: iraq, terrorism, terrorist, iran, muslim, islam, democrat, republican, US Senate, Allah, United States, Bush, Cheney, Leftist, moonbats

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