The Will to Fight

Has the US lost the will to fight? Have we lost the will to stand up for what we believe in? Some have … I call them the ‘peace at any price’ crowd.

They are willing to throw our hands in the air and come home in defeat rather than fight a difficult battle to achieve victory. They are willing to encourage our enemies with their words even as our troops struggle to bring order and peace to another people. They are willing to sell out the sovereignty of this county and its people out to the anti-capitalist UN.

You have Senator Ted Kennedy calling for US Troops to be removed from Iraq because “There will be more serious violence” if we don’t. Leaving aside the fact that without a crystal ball no one can KNOW what’s going to happen if we stay, there is only ONE way that troops should be removed from Iraq – with their job completed and the new Iraq government established and secure.

Anything else is tucking our tail between our legs and retreating … not for military or strategic reasons, but because of caving to political pressure and fear.

Never mind the fact that a US withdraw from the region is strategically BAD. Never mind the fact that it would leave Iraq in a situation of vulnerability and the region more unstable than it was. Never mind the fact that it would equate to a victory for the terrorists which would embolden them further and endanger American lives around the world.

Most of that is, after all, based on a projection of the current situation … Just as Senator Kennedy’s statement is.

Let us take a look back at some of the other conflicts that we have pulled out of for political reasons. Specifically, let’s look at Vietnam and Somalia. Many veterans of these two conflicts hold some bitter resentment, not because they didn’t feel that they should be there, not because they didn’t agree with the mission, but because they were pulled out and kept from completing their mission because of politicians that didn’t have the spinal fortitude to let them complete the job.

But Senator Kennedy isn’t interested in the well being of our troops … he doesn’t care that a significant majority of US Military personnel in Iraq agree with the mission and feel that they are helping to appreciably improve the living conditions of the Iraqi people. He doesn’t care about any of the strategic analysis that I mentioned before.

He has one goal in mind - A US Military failure. He WANTS Iraq to be another Vietnam … he WANTS the troops to come home defeated, not by the enemy, but by political pressure. He wants it because it would hurt Bush and the Republican Party and he is willing to encourage terrorists around the world to do that.

To be fair, Senator Kennedy is not alone in his goals, Senator Kerry, Senator Boxer, and an American Mainstream Media that refuses to show the successes in Iraq all support the cause, as do many special interest and protest organizations in the US and abroad.

Kennedy is entitled to his opinion, and is certainly free to say it, but I believe that people in leadership positions have a responsibility to take care in what they say. What is said by Senator Kennedy, or any of the others, is reported around the world … to our allies, to our enemies, and to our troops. Statements like that embolden the enemy and lower the moral of our troops … they BECOME self-fulfilling prophesy.

This is not going to be an easy fight. I didn’t think it was going to be easy when we initially invaded … these types of things are never easy. US troops occupied Germany for about seven years, fighting hold outs of Nazi forces and SS after WWII. Will things get harder for our troops in Iraq? I expect that they will, especially with the media breathing down their neck, questioning everything they do and ignoring success. With reports of an Al-Qaeda member trying to buy nuclear material in Germany of late, I dare say that the terrorists are looking to ‘up the ante’ so to speak.

An animal fights the hardest when it is cornered, as the attacks increase it is likely because the enemy is getting desperate and wants us to withdraw … hoping that we don’t have the strength, the guts, the will, to fight it through and achieve our goals. Now is not the time to withdraw, it is the time to press for victory and show that we have the strength to stand up to our enemy and defeat it … to show that will stand against their attacks and that we will not falter.

Now is the time for victory.