AUSTIN BAY WRITES:
Now we’ve come to the long trial in Iraq. Dictatorships are the biggest cause of terrorism and the biggest cause of poverty on this planet. The Iraqi people have a truly blessed opportunity — the chance to build a democracy in the politically dysfunctional Middle East. However, defeatist poobahs chant, “No one told us the job would be tough.”
Malarkey. Early on, defense and policy analysts publicly vetted post-Saddam challenges. In a recent column, I trotted out a quote from an article I wrote in The Weekly Standard’s Dec. 9, 2002, issue. Forgive me, it must trot again:
U.S. and allied forces liberating Iraq will attempt — more or less simultaneously — to end combat operations, cork public passions, disarm Iraqi battalions, bury the dead, generate electricity, pump potable water, bring law out of embittering lawlessness, empty jails of political prisoners, pack jails with criminals, turn armed partisans into peaceful citizens, rearm local cops who were once enemy infantry, shoot terrorists, thwart chiselers, carpetbaggers and black marketeers, fix sewers, feed refugees, patch potholes, get trash trucks rolling, and accomplish all this under the lidless gaze of Peter Jennings and Al Jazeera.
Winning a war is difficult. Ask the World War II generation.
Every experienced strategist understands warfare is, at its most basic level, a clash of human wills. The motive will of a man who spends years preparing to smash a jet into a skyscraper is large in big letters. His cohorts are betting that America is a sitcom nation with a short attention span. We’ll change channels, cut and run.
Mature Americans recognize that everyone has a leadership role, especially in times of crisis. The cooperation and common trust demonstrated by Americans evacuating the World Trade Center not only saved thousands of lives, it was indicative of America’s capacity for individual leadership.
Self-critique is one thing, the acid of self-doubt spurred by lies is something else. It’s time for every American to be a leader, to bury these lies — from unilateralism, to quagmire, to “no one told us” — and get on with the hard business of winning the War on Terror.
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