The Reality Of The Situation
How ironic it is that Republican Nebraska Senator and Presidential wannabe Chuck Hagel accuses the White House of being disconnected from reality with regard to the ongoing conflict in Iraq.
In comments he recently made to U.S. News and World Report, the Senator added his voice to those who are trying desperately to convince the American people that we are losing the war on terror. However, as one looks at the current struggle in the context of history, he can’t help but be struck at how the face of defeat has changed over the years.
Certainly, members of America’s two greatest generations – those of the 1770s and the 1940s – knew what impending defeat looked like. And it didn’t look much like what we face today. In those days, Americans faced enemies that were quite literally driving them from the fields of battle early on in their conflicts. Nevertheless, the ultimate victories America won for itself – as well as for many other nations – in these conflicts are still points of pride to generations yet unborn at the time of their conclusion.
By contrast, in the current struggle, America has seen her armies topple two totalitarian, terror-sponsoring regimes, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Indigenous governments are being established within these countries, and their peoples are accepting their responsibility to learn to protect the innocent within their borders – witness the recent thwarting of an assassination plot against the U.S. Ambassador in Afghanistan and the rescue of the Australian contractor in Iraq, both of which were accomplished by native forces. And certainly, it takes no small effort for one to miss the fact that the total number of successful terror attacks on American soil since September 11, 2001 comes to – zero. These are hardly the sort of circumstances that would have led earlier – perhaps more hearty – generations of Americans to declare defeat, and the need to withdraw from the fight.
And yet, one must be willing to acknowledge that, even as these earlier generations turned almost certain defeat into victory, this generation is still quite capable of turning almost inevitable victory into defeat – if it is willing to say that the blessings of liberty and safety are not worth the costs required to procure them. America has faced long struggles in its past, struggles in which it found itself on the bottom at first, and having to fight its way to the top. Yet here America finds itself on the top, fighting to crush the current enemies of freedom once and for all. And contrary to what the naysayers looking to score political points and further their personal ambitions say – the reality is that America is not losing in this fight.
The real problem where the chicken-littles of our nation are concerned is not that we are not winning the war – we are. The problem is that we are not winning it fast enough. After over two years in Iraq, and over three years in Afghanistan, there are still elements within both countries looking to carry on the fight against us and carry their acts of carnage back to American soil.
And it may very well be that we are not winning this war as fast as we could. One could certainly make the argument that it has been fought with one hand tied behind our back from day one. There has been no massive mobilization of the American people to focus their energies on the war effort, as there was in earlier conflicts. Whereas those generations were urged to make bandages or donate rubber and aluminum, this generation has been asked to visit Manhattan and attend a Broadway show – hardly the kind of sacrifice one would expect in the midst of a total commitment to total war. Which may, by the way, explain why the numbers of Americans who believe the troops should start coming home is starting to climb – Why send Americans to die on foreign soil when it doesn’t appear that we are really fully committed to war anyway? But that’s a discussion for another time.
In any event, failure to eradicate our foes within a certain timeframe hardly qualifies as an indicator of impending defeat. And while the loss of a single American life at the hand of such bloodthirsty adversaries is the source of much heartache for all Americans, it is really quite remarkable to consider how little this war has cost us in terms of human life. Over the course of three years of fighting, America has lost fewer lives than it did in one day at a time it wasn’t fighting. If this is what American defeat looks like, America’s committed enemies will truly have something to tremble about when they see what American victory looks like.
In comments he recently made to U.S. News and World Report, the Senator added his voice to those who are trying desperately to convince the American people that we are losing the war on terror. However, as one looks at the current struggle in the context of history, he can’t help but be struck at how the face of defeat has changed over the years.
Certainly, members of America’s two greatest generations – those of the 1770s and the 1940s – knew what impending defeat looked like. And it didn’t look much like what we face today. In those days, Americans faced enemies that were quite literally driving them from the fields of battle early on in their conflicts. Nevertheless, the ultimate victories America won for itself – as well as for many other nations – in these conflicts are still points of pride to generations yet unborn at the time of their conclusion.
By contrast, in the current struggle, America has seen her armies topple two totalitarian, terror-sponsoring regimes, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Indigenous governments are being established within these countries, and their peoples are accepting their responsibility to learn to protect the innocent within their borders – witness the recent thwarting of an assassination plot against the U.S. Ambassador in Afghanistan and the rescue of the Australian contractor in Iraq, both of which were accomplished by native forces. And certainly, it takes no small effort for one to miss the fact that the total number of successful terror attacks on American soil since September 11, 2001 comes to – zero. These are hardly the sort of circumstances that would have led earlier – perhaps more hearty – generations of Americans to declare defeat, and the need to withdraw from the fight.
And yet, one must be willing to acknowledge that, even as these earlier generations turned almost certain defeat into victory, this generation is still quite capable of turning almost inevitable victory into defeat – if it is willing to say that the blessings of liberty and safety are not worth the costs required to procure them. America has faced long struggles in its past, struggles in which it found itself on the bottom at first, and having to fight its way to the top. Yet here America finds itself on the top, fighting to crush the current enemies of freedom once and for all. And contrary to what the naysayers looking to score political points and further their personal ambitions say – the reality is that America is not losing in this fight.
The real problem where the chicken-littles of our nation are concerned is not that we are not winning the war – we are. The problem is that we are not winning it fast enough. After over two years in Iraq, and over three years in Afghanistan, there are still elements within both countries looking to carry on the fight against us and carry their acts of carnage back to American soil.
And it may very well be that we are not winning this war as fast as we could. One could certainly make the argument that it has been fought with one hand tied behind our back from day one. There has been no massive mobilization of the American people to focus their energies on the war effort, as there was in earlier conflicts. Whereas those generations were urged to make bandages or donate rubber and aluminum, this generation has been asked to visit Manhattan and attend a Broadway show – hardly the kind of sacrifice one would expect in the midst of a total commitment to total war. Which may, by the way, explain why the numbers of Americans who believe the troops should start coming home is starting to climb – Why send Americans to die on foreign soil when it doesn’t appear that we are really fully committed to war anyway? But that’s a discussion for another time.
In any event, failure to eradicate our foes within a certain timeframe hardly qualifies as an indicator of impending defeat. And while the loss of a single American life at the hand of such bloodthirsty adversaries is the source of much heartache for all Americans, it is really quite remarkable to consider how little this war has cost us in terms of human life. Over the course of three years of fighting, America has lost fewer lives than it did in one day at a time it wasn’t fighting. If this is what American defeat looks like, America’s committed enemies will truly have something to tremble about when they see what American victory looks like.
posted by JeffreyH | 11:54 AM
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