December 07, 2006

A day that will live in infamy

Yesterday Hugh Hewitt interviewed Chris Hitchens on the ISG report. Check out his post here on that report. During the course of the interview he made the comment that he believed we are in the reverse of the 1940s. A decade that started with little resolve to fight the imminent threats but which ended with the will to fight the Cold War. After 9/11 the U.S. had much resolve to fight and win, but that will has waned.

I cannot imagine what my grandfather, who joined the Marines after Pearl Harbor and was slain on a beach in the South Pacific, would think of a generation which would send its citizens off to war, not to win, but only to flee because the fight was hard.

It seems to me that most Americans do not know that the people we fight in Iraq today are terrorists. In hindsight, I would not have invaded Iraq. But we did. And today those we fight are not simply doing so to expell us. They are fighting the dully elected government. They are fighting to set up a Taliban like state.

We have already experienced what the Taliban were capable of. 9/11 was the consequence of a US policy which did not directly challence them. This is why we must not let the African Taliban of the Islamic Courts Union solidify power in Somalia. And this is why we must not leave Iraq until both the Salafist insurgency is crushed, and the Khomeinst death squads are put to heel.

9/11 was this generations Pearl Harbor, yet we have forgotten its lessons.

Today, I'm going to devote as much space as possible to getting out the news that the American military thinks is important. Many of the posts above will be straight out of the MNF Iraq and CENTCOM. UNEDITED. As they were intended to be published.

Thank you to our men and women fighting terrorism around the world. My wife, my three children, and I sleep better at night because our men and women in uniform do what is necessary to keep us safe abroad.