Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Why This War Isn't Like World War II.

Mark Levin's lets today's feckless "leaders" have it by contrasting how the agents of retreat and defeat differ from their forebearers of "The Greatest Generation". The sauce:

It’s time to reorient our thinking toward victory. In fact, it’s time to not only celebrate “the Greatest Generation,” as the media has characterized the World War II generation, but to emulate it in many respects.

For the past few years, we’ve watched the Senate debate, the Congress adopt, and then the president sign legislation that would confer constitutional rights on unlawful enemy combatants captured on the battlefield and detained at Guantanamo Bay, while we watch as our Marines are accused of war crimes at Haditha without the benefit of any due-process rights. (And notice, not a word from John McCain, Lindsey Graham, or Chuck Hagel.) We’ve watched as self-labeled human-rights groups have demanded that the Geneva Conventions be applied to terrorists, even though they’re applicable only to those who honor the rules of war. We’ve watched as the ACLU and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s offspring have brought lawsuits before activist courts challenging the conditions of the detained terrorists. We’ve watched as virtually every intelligence gathering technique is attacked as a civil-liberties and constitutional violation, from the Patriot Act and the NSA intercept program to data-mining and interrogating the enemy. We’ve watched as the Supreme Court and now lower federal courts have intervened in the president’s constitutional commander-in-chief duties, substituting their policy preferences for his despite their lack of information, experience, or competence. We’ve watched as the media have used every opportunity to undermine our war effort with flat-out false reporting (the phony story about flushing of a Koran down a toilet at Gitmo), the exploitation of Abu Ghraib (with overkill coverage), the promotion of irresponsible antiwar voices (such as Cindy Sheehan and Michael Berg), and the support of antiwar politicians like John Murtha (who went from a relative unknown to an overnight media sensation because of his shrill and irresponsible antiwar allegations). And we’ve watched as the media have splashed some of our nation’s most important war secrets across their front pages, and then give themselves awards for aiding and abetting the enemy.

No branch of government is acting as they acted during World War II. Rather than undermining the president’s leadership, Congress should be looking for ways to contribute to the winning this war. They’re few and far between. Rather than intervening in war-making decisions, the courts should acknowledge their limitations during war as past courts have. And even the administration appears tentative about using more military might to destroy this enemy, a hesitation which rarely entered FDR or Truman’s thinking. And, of course, whereas the media in the 1940’s focused their reportage on the evil that was the enemy, much of today’s media view George Bush as the real problem.

Meanwhile, two kidnapped U.S. soldiers were apparently brutally tortured and murdered today. And the question I pose to those who rightly honor the Greatest Generation is this: What would our country have done 60 years ago in response to this war crime? How would our political and military leadership have acted? By all accounts, they would have demanded severe retaliation and retribution. And by that I don’t mean “bringing the perpetrators to justice,” as if we’re talking about some law-enforcement response to a white-collar crime. No, I’m talking about a military response of such devastation that the enemy fears the consequences of future kidnappings and executions of our men and women in uniform. And that’s what’s missing in this war — the enemy does not fear us (at least not enough) and defeatism (rather than victory) is being preached from Capitol Hill and the news and editorial pages.
DAMN RIGHT!!!

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