America's Frustration with the War

We Americans can take only so much bad news and bickering. When at war, we adopt patience for only a short period of time between victories.

Through the diligence of the Democrats, the UN, and the mainstream media, Iraq may well become the quagmire that all those on the Left have worked so hard to achieve. Religious zealots need but a modicum of hope and encouragement to complete their rapturous slide into insanity - and encouragement has been provided. President Bush has led ably for the most part, but his enemies in America have constituted an insidious second front from which even the best and bravest soldiers could not protect us.

And, President Bush somewhere made the fatal decision that we would fight a gentleman's war against animals from the dark ages. Never before in the history of warfare has so much advantage in firepower been sacrificed on the altar of world opinion.

The Left criticizes the President for his "cowboy image." But America loved the cowboy as we charged through Afghanistan kicking Taliban butt. We cheered him as he toppled Saddam with ease. But then the cowboy got a little soft. He allowed religious leaders in Iraq to form militias. He allowed whole cities to become harbors for terrorists. He allowed Syria and Iran to influence and undermine. He allowed our guns to fall silent before our enemies were defeated.

I sometimes wonder if history will judge President Bush to be a weak leader. I believe that he has been weak against those in Congress who, instead of being corralled, have been allowed to speak treason. He has been weak against those in the media who aid and abet the enemy by publishing information that makes us less safe.

I've wondered how the President's faith has led him in this struggle. I believe him to be a very decent man with a tender heart. And this, mixed with faith, might mitigate his responses to the evil that threatens us, and its facilitators on the Left.

I would council him by saying that governments were ordained by God, and to them the golden rule does not apply. We can be thankful for that. The golden rule makes very poor foreign policy when dealing with hate-filled pseudo-religious thugs.

Anything can happen in the President's last two years in office. Iraq may stumble forward into peace, or it may fall backwards into civil war. In November of 2008 will Islamic Fascism be on the run, or will we be facing a terror-sponsoring nuclear Iran?

It's hard to be hopeful when we are still frolicking with the United Nations, looking for our legitimacy. Watching the U.N. lie, subvert, and vacillate only adds to Americans' frustration and sense of futility. When we should be marching forward and striking at those who threaten us, we instead find ourselves fretting in the corner, lost in some identity crisis - with our confidence balanced in the hands of our Confessor Politic, Kofi Annan.

President Bush's policies may represent the last gasp of American autonomy. Let's pray that in his last two years we see a flourish of independent American resolve and a brash, vulgar, uninhibited display of military might.

That would soothe our frustrations quite nicely.