Sgt. Hook posts this stirring letter from Iraq. This is must-reading for anyone who wonders what the steady stream of whining and cowardice we see in the Congress and the main-stream media does to our troops.
Cut-n-Run Liberals - n. Spineless creatures that surround themselves with a hard shell to keep the real world out. Synonyms: Arthropods, useful fools, fifth columnists.
Instapundit has interesting comments in its entry for November 19th, 2005. Part of his post talks about a book by Taegan Goddard called “You’ve won, Now What?” It’s a how-to book on governance. Instapundit mentions it in the context of the vote yesterday on the Iraq resolution (defeated 403 - 3, thank God!) The Republican majority should answer that question regarding the war in Iraq.
In a later paragraph, Instapundit mentions the “Three Year Rule,” with a link to the article.
“…the Three Year Rule. In all of America’s wars, popular support for the war effort sharply declined after three years. Even though the government said, from late September, 2001 on, that the war on terror would be a long one, this has not changed the impact of the Three Year War. If you can’t get it over with within three years, you are going to face more and more voter opposition to the war effort. Go back and look at the history of all of America’s long (over three years) wars and you will see this play out. It’s happening in the war on terror, and the various theaters of conflict (notably Afghanistan and Iraq.)” (copied from the article mentioned on Strategy Page).
We Americans had better learn to be more persistent and stay on course. Our many enemies in the world watch this sort of thing closely. They no doubt see this as one of our weak points. We must not let them be right about this.
The administration must pay attention not only to who and what the enemy is, but to who and what we, the American electorate are. We are as much a part of the global landscape as anything else.
Note also that this 3-year rule doesn’t seem to affect our military troops. They continue to have high morale and strong esprit de corps. Maybe what we Americans need is to see what we’re doing clearly (note to MSM, a steady stream of bad news only articles and TV segments is only part of the story - lying by telling half truths), and to remember who and what we’re fighting for. This is as much a PR war as any of them have been.
Maybe this is the time to look at our enemies to see how they keep focus and maintain their sense of “duty.” I don’t mean that we breed fanatics like some of their whackos. I mean, how do insurgencies keep up their sense of mission? We should learn from them as much as they do from us.
