Iraq is for the American People to Lose

The naysayers prophesizing that the Iraq war is another Vietnam War casually throw out the term “quagmire” as a description and explanation. Just what quagmire is it that they are referencing? A quagmire is a bogging down, a lack of progress. The American military suffered grievous losses in Vietnam, but it is dishonest to suggest that they were not making significant progress in prosecuting the war. They were not bogged down. The quagmire that caused the American withdrawal from Vietnam was a political loss of heart by the American people. The military withdrawal from Vietnam represented a disgraceful lack of American principle and a failure to understand that it is the U.S. that must shoulder the yeoman’s job of advancing the principles of freedom and peaceful coexistence. When we don’t do it, no one else will. And, we may be in today’s difficult times in part due to our failure to take affirmative actions. Victor Davis Hanson wrote:

One could just as easily make the argument that it was the absence of such principled American advocacy — and instead the prevailing realpolitik of the last 50 years — that helped bring us to the crisis of 9/11.

Relative to the Vietnam War, the American public was bamboozled by the rhetoric of Communists, leftists and pacifists. For some reason, the generation that showed such intestinal fortitude during WWII failed to raise a generation of children with the patriotism that was demonstrated in Europe and Asia. The WWII generation and much of its progeny failed to stand up to the rabble calling for the eventual disgraceful behavior of withdrawal.

Despite the polls and their allegations that the American public is opposed to the Iraq war, we have yet to reach the spineless example of the Vietnam era. Again from Hanson:

We have not yet experienced a sizable antiwar movement coalescing around Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore. Donald Rumsfeld has not done a Robert McNamara sweaty-brow resignation.

Will we repeat the errors of the Vietnam era or will we find the fortitude to make the necessary sacrifices? Hanson concludes his piece:

So here we are — close to victory abroad, closer to concession at home.

Iraq is for the American people to lose. Will we again abandon a people who are just beginning to hope for true freedom? If we do, the American people have lost the essence of being American, and we will not deserve to consider ourselves as honorable. We will no longer be able to hold our heads up high with moral authority. We will have become a shallow shadow of our once great heritage. We will be undeserving of the freedoms for which so many fought, bled and died. Great nations rise and fall, and freedom lies within the heart of the people. Is it time for us to start writing the epitaph of our own great nation?