Retreat In The Face Of Adversity....

I have always said, "Out of adversity, there is created opportunity." I think that this is ever-so true in Iraq today. Also,

He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.
Adversity
Fosdick, Harry Emerson
1878-1969 American Minister

If you're going through hell, keep going. ~Winston Churchill

The essence of these quotes is that we have to make the best of what was [Hussein era] and what is [al-Qaida in Iraq]a bad situation. And out of this we will become stronger, better and more human. However, the recent debate on our intervention in Iraq has quickly melted down to one of silliness. The incredibly stupid idea of immediate pullout from Iraq advocated by the Democratic party in the US, is one that will fail on several levels. But most prominent in my mind is one elucidated in Captains Quarters....

The difference is that in the eight years between our run from Somalia and 9/11, most of us learned the bitter lesson that retreating in the face of Islamists does not connote reasonableness and humanity, but cowardice and powerlessness. Combined with our spinelessness in Teheran, Beirut, and in caving into hostage demands from Hezbollah in the mid-80s, the pattern clearly gave Islamists the accurate depiction that Americans could not stand any sort of casualties in war and would quickly retire after the first bloody nose.

Most of us learned that retreat means that the Islamists simply follow you home. The first WTC attack should have taught us that, but even though the Clinton administration insisted on treating it as an organized-crime case, other battles followed: Khobar Towers, Tanzania, Kenya, and finally an attack on the USS Cole, a daylight attack on our military that went unanswered. Each silence that followed each attack only emboldened our enemies more. They do not want peace -- they want a war, and will take it to our shores if we don't give it to them elsewhere.

Whether to agree or disagree with the reasons for going to war, is one for history books. But the US has a chance to change the calculus of the Middle-east, an area populated with hundreds of millions of losers. The past strategy, Clinton's non-intervention after screwing up in Somalia was to ignore the problem. This clearly did not work as Islamists escalated culminating in the 9/11 attacks.

Who, among us, after that, thought that these kookie Muslims were going to stop there and go home? I think and you probably think that these kinds of attacks were likely to continue unless something was done about it. So we did something about it, we invaded Afghanistan.

Who thought, that after the corrupt and inept UN Iraq sanction regime fell apart, that the kookie Saddam Hussein was going to miraculously become a good global citizen? Those willing to take that bet were bound to lose and was a risk that I would be unwilling to take.

So now we are in Iraq. Lets make the best of it while
we have a chance. The US and the Iraq is moving forward with a purpose. And that purpose is to create a peaceful and productive nation where people have the opportunity and can try to achieve their dreams. We have sacrificed a lot as a nation and to withdraw now is just a plain old bad idea.

Maybe the Democrats are actually deploying this strategy...

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

But I doubt that. The Democrats are just pussies.