I was gonna write a column about it, but then Michael Tanji did it so well. I’ll let him say it in his own fine words:
– There are only two choices, fight now or fight later. Color them in whatever shade of pastel language you want. Draw comparisons to whatever past evil regimes you want. We ignored radical Islam and it crawled up and bit us in the ass. Keep ignoring it (read: apeasing those who ferment it) and it will come back to bite something more important to us.
– The difference between past battles won and lost is the will to win completely and totally. Thinking you can go light or cheap or “police” the situation leaves us with things like two Koreas (and that’s worked out swimmingly). No stomach for the full court press on those we’re now advised to talk to? Hope you can stomach the gore that will follow (tomorrow, next year, five years from now). How successful is talking? How many IL-PA peace deals/accords have been made and broken? What do they call it when you do the same thing over and over again expecting a different result?
People are against the war? No, people are against LOSING. We have the situation we have today because we have been sending men away to die; send them to win and we would have been that much farther down the road to forgetting who Baker and Hamilton were.