U.S. Must Prove It's A Staying Power

by Mark Steyn - November 12th, 2006 - Chicago Sun-Times

Their [the islamofascist] view of America is roughly that of the British historian Niall Ferguson -- that the Great Satan [America] is the first superpower with ADHD. They reasoned that if you could subject Americans to the drip-drip-drip of remorseless water torture in the deserts of Mesopotamia -- a couple of deaths here, a market bombing there, cars burning, smoke over the city on the evening news, day after day after day, and ratcheted up a notch or two for the weeks before the election -- you could grind down enough of the electorate and persuade them to vote like Spaniards, without even realizing it.

And it worked.

You can rationalize what happened on Tuesday in the context of previous sixth-year elections -- 1986, 1958, 1938, yada yada -- but that's not how it was seen around the world, either in the chancelleries of Europe, where they're dancing conga lines, or in the caves of the Hindu Kush, where they would also be dancing conga lines if Mullah Omar hadn't made it a beheading offense. And, as if to confirm that Tuesday wasn't merely 1986 or 1938, the president responded to the results by firing the Cabinet officer most closely identified with the prosecution of the war and replacing him with a man associated with James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and the other "stability" fetishists of the unreal realpolitik crowd.

I am worried about America. The democrats did not offer any serious argument that we are losing the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. They simply argue that the cost of victory is more than they are willing to pay. So they want to admit defeat and leave. That strategy is "cut and run". Only the Boston Globe has said it publicly, but that is because most democrats are not willing to admit to being defeatists. They don't mind being defeatists, they just don't want to be called that.

Mark Steyn is right. If we once again "cut and run", America is finished. That will assure the next sight you see will be mushroom clouds over American cities.

And that will mean it is time for another civil war. The irony is that the democrats will use our military and police to attack those who are fighting to be free but will not fight here any more than they will fight abroad. So the civil war, when it comes, will be fought between those who want to be free and those who want to protect freedom.

Insanity.