Kowabunga

I've been doing some reading up on one of the greatest generals who has ever lived: General George S. Patton. One piece I found is at the Library of Congress, and is a transcript from Patton's diary, dated May 1, 1944. In it, he recounts a meeting he had with Ike that day, and what his future role in the war might be, as well as the impending invasion of Europe. During the discourse, Ike acknowledged some of Patton's concerns about the plan, but there was pressure from the United States to continue with the plan as written. It was an election year. There is one very striking sentence in this diary entry:

It is sad and shocking to think that victory and the lives of thousands of men are pawns to the "fear of They", and the writings of a group of unprincipled reporters, and weak kneed congressmen, but so it is.

This statement rings as true today with the ongoing war in Iraq (and on other significant issues of national import) as it did over 60 years ago in the days leading up to the Normandy invasion. Congress filled with people concerned about their own careers and petty political ambitions rather than putting the good of the Country (and the world) first.

The weak kneed in Congress today are, without a doubt, the hardleft-liners who are calling for abandoning the fledgling democracy of Iraq, leaving it to fall into chaos and civil war, by drawing down our troops and ending the so-called "occupation." They want to see another American "Vietnam."

So it might be. The Democrats control Congress, and may well use their majority to fulfill their claim that Iraq is just another Vietnam. Abandon those who look to the United States for both leadership and guidance. They would change America from being the "Beacon of Liberty" to "unreliable ally." The Democrats brought us Vietnam. Abandoned our allies in Southeast Asia to the communists in 1973. By mid-1975, South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia had all succumbed to the darkness that is communism. While a Republican presidents (Nixon and Ford) could do nothing more than stand by and watch; their administration's hogtied by a hostile majority that refused to live up to treaties that were made with South Vietnam.

Today, as we are on the brink of a new year and a new Congress, the chickendoves on the left hope to achieve similar results, this time in Iraq and possibly spilling over into Afghanistan. Civil war and the return of totalitarian control; this time in the hands of Islamic Fundamentalists. The results will be disastrous; for the people of Iraq, the U.S. and the rest of the world. Most especially for the people of Iraq who have only in the past few years been able to taste Liberty for the first time in decades.

America led the way in the liberation of both Afghanistan and Iraq. America can do no less than lead these fledgling governments through their current challenges and help them prevail over the terrorists and Islamic Fundamentalist insurgents that would much prefer to see these countries once again shrouded in the darkness of totalitarianism.

One has to wonder what Patton would say if he were with us now.