Protesters, the 60's and now

In the recent months I have heard from the Demo counterparts the mantra that we are in a quagmire, like Vietnam, that we are in a war we cannot win. The mental results for these good folks is one response vilify Bush and call for retreat.

I grew to some level of adulthood during those conflicting years where the left fought itself over Vietnam and foreign policy. Remember it was Kennedy-Johnson as Democratic Presidents who expanded and deepened our commitment in Vietnam and it was Richard Nixon, of whom all on the left love to hate, who closed and got us out of Vietnam. It was the deception of Kennedy who hid his involvment in the invasion of Cuba, the Bay of Pigs, which was a major failure because of his lack of resolve. And the sense that Johnson had no purpose and commitment to the concepts that sought to protect a free Vietnam that gave the foundation of protest and the sense that our government always "lies" to us. They lied about Cuba, Vietnam and then by gosh the fellow who got us out of Vietnam lied about watergate. They all lie, right?

Today Vietnam remains a Communist backwater that has none of the foresight of the Chinese and all of the Moscow like weakness of Communism keeping a society one century behind. The result was the never ending chinese water torture of protest after protest by ever angry and ugly protesters and the American public growing weary of night by night awful messages being transported across the nation by the televison media. It was the gruesome pictures of bombs exploding and the loss of American life that eventually eroded the generations of resolve that had fueled our passion to defeat oppressors in an evil world. World War II brings little discussion that the world would have been better if Hitler, Tojo or Mussolini had offices in St. Louis. We persevered through the United Nations mess of Korea, a war still being played out upon the national and international scene. But we faltered, retreated and failed eventually to walk away from Vietnam. They were just Communists and hell what made the difference when your Political Science teacher was a Communist as well.

We had a few forays of military force internationally since. Jimmy Carter, whose main view of the milatary was to be sure someone got him on Air Force One, tried to rescue the hostages in Iran. He looked weak. The world knew he was weak and so it began where the opponents of freedom began to know that if they could keep media pressure upon politicians and the American mindset they could win. Americans were soft. Somalia and the answers to the bombings of the Cole and the Twin Tower trade center of the 1990's gave even deeper impetus to this thinking. Clinton was weak. He could not fathom being compared to Carter or Johnson. Who would?

What is the result? In Iraq a view of the Islamic Fundementalists that if they keep blowing things up and keep the news in the United States about who has detonated what, that eventually the resolve and purpose of a populus who spends the majority of their thinking time to who is going to be voted off the island will weaken in the same fashion that it has for thrity years. So far my bet is on those who are blowing up Iraq. They seemed to have pegged us properly. We are weakening. At this point the Islamic fascists are blowing up mostly Iraquis and most recently Jordanians. The result "protests" which says for the most part, when you are doing that to weaken the United States that is one thing but to attack other Muslims, NO, NO, no not acceptable and the resolve of the Jordanians comes through. I have to hand it to them at least they stood up better than the crowd CNN reports about ready to "cut and run" again!!