Lesson two: The Long War

How soon we forget. It seems like only yesterday that "Bush lied, kids died" and perhaps that's another reason the youth vote swung Barack Obama's way. And Obama originally campaigned on the fact that the surge didn't work and he would have the troops out of Iraq shortly after taking office.

But shortly after taking office, Obama instead put in place a 16 month timetable for withdrawal, which brings the date reasonably close to the cutoff date prescribed by the Iraqi Parliament in 2011. Instead, Obama wants to ramp up the cause in Afghanistan on a mission to capture Osama bin Laden.

Naturally the Left clamored like the rest of us for bin Laden and dismissed Iraq as simply revenge sought by GWB for an assassination attempt on his father by Saddam Hussein. (This was in between the mantras of "no blood for oil", equating Bush with Adolf Hitler, and making movies about Bush's own demise.) They cried out about there not being weapons of mass destruction nor was Iraq seeking yellowcake uranium (both charges were instead proven true.)

Apparently since BHO took office warfare is now hunky-dory among the youth. We're not seeing much outcry amongst the Code Pink crowd about beefing up troop levels in Afghanistan, despite the fact that wiping out the Taliban is proving to be a much more difficult task than subduing the al-Qaeda forces and their allies in Iraq. In fact, many of these same liberals would love to see us intervene in Durfur to quell the human tragedy there while we're over that way.

So let me ask: was the torture and mayhem perpetrated by the Hussein family in Iraq any less despicable? Bush sent our troops there and wiped out all three of those miscreants yet got zero credit for that achievement, not to mention sending a lot of other jihadists to see their 72 virgins - you'd think they'd be running out up there with our success rate.

Here's the way it is, kids. We have a national interest in what goes on in the Middle East because much of the free world (including a number of our European allies) gets their oil from there and will do so for the foreseeable future. My apologies to the green crowd for that inconvenient truth. Unfortunately for Africa, there's just not a whole lot of reason to get involved on that continent, which, alas, is also cursed with more than its share of tinhorn despots and thugs. Even once-great countries like South Africa and the former Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and under the thumb of the despot Robert Mugabe) have devolved into the morass the remainder of that continent inhabits.

In theory we could militarily overpower anyone else on the planet, but choose not to. The Long War was an exception in recent American history, because the last four protracted confrontations (Vietnam, Korea, and World Wars 1 and 2) were all started or escalated under Democratic administrations, with the last two ended under Republican administrations. Unfortunately, neither Korea nor Vietnam ended with the desired result a lasting American victory would have provided. Too many wanted peace at any cost.

Early on President Bush warned America that this would be a lengthy conflict against Islamic terrorists, who were essentially stateless but had a number of allies. "You are either with us or against us," he warned.

When American interests are at stake, partisanship should end at the water's edge. It's only one party which has violated this rule, and the youth tend to belong to that party. But you can change that very easily at your local Board of Elections.

No one likes to go to war, and conservatives are no different in that respect. But America was attacked under George W. Bush, and dissed as a "paper tiger" by Osama bin Laden. Forceful action was needed, and forceful action was taken. If Barack Obama can keep us safe from a terrorist attack during his term in office, I'll be the first to congratulate him for that. But don't believe that some in the world will stop planning America's demise just because we elected him and not the military veteran John McCain.

And yes, there's more where that came from. I'm not done with you yet.