Many years after the Vietnam War, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the North Vietnamese military commander, wrote, "if it were not for the disunity created by
stateside protest, Hanoi would have ultimately surrendered." Former North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin explained, "Through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win." With the help of certain journalists who couldn't tell the difference between victory and defeat on the battlefield, the communists prevailed. While antiwar activists were spitting in the face of our returning troops, the people of South Vietnam were being slaughtered by the thousands.
Militant Islamists understand recent American history, and they understand that the only way to defeat America is to turn her against herself. Although President Bush handily won reelection, the defeatists have decided to continue their apoplectic campaign. Formerly known as liberals or progressives, the defeatists apparently prefer the status quo of despotic power over the prospect of liberty.
On the eve of Iraq's first democratic election since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Senator Edward Kennedy stated, "We must recognize what a large and growing number of Iraqis now believe. The war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation.
The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution." Not to be outdone by the senator, Rep. Lynn Woosley (D-CA) sponsored a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Although this pathetic piece of legislation will never see the light of day, the timing was remarkable, as millions of Iraqis risked life and limb to participate in voting, a watershed moment in history. It's a right that Woosley and other liberal lemmings have taken for granted since birth. The ever-prescient Woosley explained to those of us less familiar with warfare tactics that, "The insurgency will slow down as soon as they don't have the U.S. military as their target." But leaving Iraq now would assuredly create a power vacuum, and some dangerous people would be willing to fill it. Iraq's interim President Ghazi al-Yawar doesn't seem to agree with the American defeatists, stating that it would be "complete nonsense for them to leave in this chaos." Premature military withdrawal would embolden terrorists around the world because America would be seen as weak. Somewhere, General Giap is smiling. |