When the going gets tough...

What did you expect to hear? The president's speech tonight has been described as "treading water". Of course he is treading water. What else can he do? He made it plain to us, over and over again, that this would be a long, tough fight. It should come as no surprise to anyone but the blind and the MoveOn/Michael Moore/George Soros crowd that we are in a fight that will not be won in years, maybe even decades. How else can we proceed? How else could we have proceeded?

We have created a magnet for the world's Islamofascists in Iraq and that means that some Americans will die. Many more of the jihadists will die, however. We will win if, and only if we stay the course and do not allow them to run us out. Calls for a fixed withdrawal timetable are laughable. If we said, "Ok, in ten years we will leave," the terrorists would simply hunker down and wait patiently for ten years to pass. For the United States to be victorious in this fight, we have to make the enemy understand that we will stay and continue hunting them and killing them for fifty years, if that is what is required.

I just do not understand the opposition. They have to know that every statement that accuses our soldiers of losing the moral high ground, the president of lying to get us into Iraq, that the American people want our troops out immediately, or that we are Nazis or Stalinists or Maoists or as bad as Pol Pot causes young American men and women to lose their lives. But they continue. What selfish bastards they are.

How can some jerk like Joseph Biden go to Iraq and then return and announce that the Iraqi reconstruction is a disaster? Does he want to be president so badly that he will try to do it through the blood of his fellow Americans? Apparently so.

And all of the huffing and puffing about enlistment and reenlistment rates being down? When I hear this I wonder just how stupid our politicians and their supporters think we are. Look at these statistics comparing the "just" war with the war in Iraq.:

W.W.II - 33% enlisted, 67% drafted

Initially only 21 to 35 year-olds were to be taken but not enough volunteers came forward so the draft was lowered to 18.

Iraq - 100% enlisted - there is no draft.

W.W.II - 4 year period- 350,000 draft evaders.

Iraq - 0 draft evaders - there is no draft.

W.W.II - Desertion "in the zone" Europe and Pacific theaters: 40,000 convicted servicemen. Prior to D-DAY the British jails were full of US deserters that were brought to dockside in handcuffs.

Iraq - 6000 since 2003 when war began - fiscal year 2004 desertion rates the lowest since 1998.

There is a war on. I'm a kid sitting at home talking to mom and dad and grandpa and grandma about enlisting. What advice do I get? What are mommy and daddy and granny and gramps going to tell me? 9 out of 10 will advise me on another career choice.

And now we've lost a Chinook in Afghanistan with 17 aboard, fate unknown. This is not going to stop for a while, folks.

If we cut and run, it will never stop.

Linked to: Eschaton, Sadly, No, OTB, The Glittering Eye, Flopping Aces, Posse Incitatus, The Political Teen - with video of speech, Decision 08, Alpha Patriot, Iowa Voice, Resurrection Song, Bennelli Brothers, California Conservative, Dean Esmay, Jeff Goldstein - going nucular, Blue State Conservatives, Blogs for Bush, In the Bullpen, Suitably Flip, Down Deep in Texas, ryanVOX, MacsMind, SoCalPundit, Gay Orbit, RantingProfs, CommonSenseDesk, Middle Earth Journal, Professor Bainbridge, PoliBlog, INDC Journal, The Jawa Report, The Captain, bRight and Early, Political Musings, BronxPundit,