Wheat and Chaff

Den Beste has put words to the frustration I've been feeling over the last few days. Why can't we seem to get a handle on this Fallujah situation? It doesn't seem all that difficult. Of course, I'm sitting here in my comfortable chair, and I'm sure it's a very different world over there. And I'm willing to cut them a lot of slack doing a very difficult job. But it does seem, like Den Beste says, that we're just being way too nice. This is a war. Fallujah was the heart of Saddam's support. We're not likely to win any hearts and minds there. They need to be put down, and hard.

The other thing that is increasingly frustrating me is what appears to me to be the resolve of the American people to see this thing through. I don't have a lot of evidence here, but it seems like the media's becoming successful in turning the minds of people against this war, and against the resolve to win. I hope that's not the case. The only way this becomes Vietnam is if the people lose heart. That's the only reason Vietnam became Vietnam. We lost Vietnam because they were in it for life and we weren't. They were willing to lose everything to win and we weren't. It's the same in Iraq. Our enemies there- the Baathist holdouts, the terrorists, the Iranian-sponsored Shiites- they've got nothing to lose. They'll fight to the end. We need to remember why we went there, why we went to war, and remember what we've got to lose if we fail. We have to get in this to win, or we will certainly lose.

It certainly seems like Bush is in it to win. But it seems like there's a lot of folks around him who aren't. Maybe it's time for a purge.