A very sad state of affairs Stu....as I've stated before, the loyal opposition has somehow gotten to a place wherein the intent of their actions is more about political gain than national interest. The well-being of their country has taken a back seat. In time of war, they undermine the President at every turn and undermine the spirit, morale and support for our troops in harms way risking their lives to keep us safe....all in an effort to gain political standing. I daresay had we been unfortunate enough to have such opposition leaders during WWII, it's not unlikely that German would be the national language.
Politics and any war don't make good bedfellows unless the war is going overwhelmingly in our favor. While I wasn't old enough to know, I think the Korean War was mettled with quite a bit by the politicans, of course the Vietnam War hit an all-time high as the media started feeling their oats along with the liberal students/hippies of the time. The Gulf War was a huge success because it was over so fast and very few Americans lost their lives. Media didn't have time to ferret out anything negative, anti-war protestors didn't have time to get ramped up.
I don't know TOK....I think we live in a different time and have gotten too soft and don't recall the struggles necessary to gain and protect our way of life. For the better part of 1942, we and the rest of our Allies were getting our asses kicked from one end of the Pacific to the other.....American newsreels showed the fall of the Phillipines, and the Japanese taking of Burma and Thailand. Frankly it it wasn't till later in 1942 that the tide began to turn. I daresay in today's political and media environment, that I don't know if we would have the national will to prevail as they did in those times. The early returns from our fight against Islamic militants would suggest that we do not.....
I would agree that it was different back then and I do think we lack the will to see body bags comming home. I also think that back then with the attack on Pearl Harbor, you had a long surge of Patriotism that got us through the tough times till we turned the War in our favor. Plus as we all know no media outlet of the time would have been allowed to question war strategy, no congressman/senator would have been able to stand up and question the way things were done. Look what happened to a popular hero, Lindbergh, for his opposition to war. I often wonder how things would be different, or would they be, if we had found WMD's in Iraq?
The fact that the WMD debate has become the "only" criteria mentioned in bringing down the rogue Iraqi regime is compelling evidence as to how effectively the "loyal" opposition has hijacked the debate over the war on terror. It was never the SOLE reason for military action but in the absence of large stockpiles of WMD in Iraq it has become front and center for the opposition view. As a practical matter, what we found in Iraq in terms of the dual-use infrastructure, his intentions for his weapons programs, mass graves, his ongoing and active support for world-wide terror organizations, continued violations of cease fire provisions, etc., etc were more than enough to justify military action on their own merits. It's absolutely mind-numbing that we had a situation wherein what we did not find - which is not to say that it does not exist - was able to be turned against the Presidents action by an aggressive political oppostion who suggested that what was not found was more important than what was in fact found, even though what was in fact found posed a clear threat to our national interest.....go figure! :roll: