Reprise

What we feared the most about Iraq is beginning to become reality, in my view. It is becoming Vietnam for this generation. Despite the best efforts of anyone with the slightest appreciation of why fighting this war the right way and winning it was so critical, it has become what it’s detractors claimed it would be.

Let’s review the players:

Southeast Asia / Indochina – The Middle East
USA – USA
Communist Expansion – Islamo-terrorism
South Vietnam – Iraq
North Vietnam – Iran
Viet Cong – Mahdi Army
Punji Stakes - IEDs
The Ho Chi Minh Trail – The Iranian and Syrian Borders

And, reprising her role from 40 years ago, it’s Jane Fonda, playing the role of anti-war gadfly. Jane joined in with the usual leftist Hollywood crowd (Sarandon, Penn, et al.) to attend and speak at an anti-war rally in Washington D.C. last Saturday. In keeping with the 60’s motif, the rally was complete with anarchist ‘pacifist’ college students who apparently consider spitting on wounded servicemen and defacing government property and landmarks to be an appropriate and considered form of protest and dissent about the direction of our nation's foriegn policy.

I’m waiting for Ms. Fonda to show up for a photo-op at one of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s fancy new uranium enrichment facilities.

We have the grumpy and dissatisfied populace. We have a Congress that has turned on the war - even within the President's own party. Speaking of, we also have a President running the show who, for reasons inexplicable:

- waited for his party to be humiliated in the mid-term elections last November, largely because of his reluctance to act decisively in the management of the war, before deciding to shake things up and really get serious;
- cannot elucidate his vision for this war or its larger implications beyond the next few months aside from the same tired sound bites;
- waited until a completely unfriendly Congress was sworn in before deciding to replace military and civilian leadership, in an effort to get more results;
- waited for 3 ½ years and until after said de-pantsing at the voting booth before bothering to acknowledge that this proxy war is largely being equipped and supported by at least one (if not two) belligerent antagonist neighbor state; and
- continues to try and stay in the middle ground of this issue, neither admitting the unmitigated disaster that this has become and cutting losses nor acknowledging the mess and resolving to commit all (and I mean ALL) necessary resources to win.

Except that this time, it’s worse. In Vietnam, we didn’t really have to worry about the export of communism to our own soil. It was a proxy war with the Soviet Union and China, and we were able to fight it at arm’s length, choosing to sacrifice 58,000 or so of our own as a wager against the Red Menace - a way of taking out our frustrations, I suppose, without having to go "all in" and fire up the nukes.

This time, unfortunately, the stakes are much higher. Because Americans have short memories, delicate sensibilities, an aversion to reality and a fetish with unbridled idealism, we’ve already forgotten about 9-11. We (or some of us) have already given into the idea that perhaps there’s a way to negotiate with the enemy. (Maybe Paris can host again, just for old time's sake.)

It might be different if we made the commitment to seal off our borders and walk away from Iraq – I’d actually be in support of that approach if we actually had the stones to follow through. Yet we don’t have the stones. We won’t follow through on anything, even the security of our own nation and the safety or our children.

One of our pastors made an interesting, insightful and unnerving observation a few weeks ago – he said that if you want to see what America will look like in 10-15 years, look at Europe.

Our future.

This scares the hell out of me. And I don't think we have the courage to do a damned thing about it.