A Progress Report for the "Global War on Terror (TM)"

I supported the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, and I still do today. I would support this president over any alternative the DNC tries to foist upon us only because they could not do better and would certainly do a helluva lot worse.
However, I also think this war is being sloppily prosecuted and that our president is not living up to his pledge to lead it. President Bush should be taken to task for his wobbliness. He is not being the president he vowed to be in January '05... he is not tough on nations sponsoring terrorism, and as a result we are no safer than we were in 2001- and we are not being taken seriously when we say that we will take the fight to sponsor nations- because President Bush continues to play tiddlywinks with them. Why the hell is he trying to avoid offending the very people who want us dead?

The Dubya fan club needs to take off the roseate lenses and suck it up. We have a war to fight, and blindly defending an incorrect and misbegotten strategy just gets more of us and our troops killed- as does kissing the asses of nations who supply the people who aspire to kill us.

I contend that if we desire to make progress in this war, and if we desire to bring about a lasting and prosperous democracy in Iraq, then Bush had better stop being diplomatic with terrorists, start cutting off their supply train (Iran and Syria), and start prosecuting this war in a way by which the world will see it and say, "gosh, they really mean it!"

If you don't agree with me, I accept that. I respect the intelligence of my readers enough to be willing to take some flak from you on things with which we disagree. If you think I am wrong in my assessment, by all means tell me so. Maybe I am overlooking something that you can see from your perspective.

But please, do NOT tell me that Americans are safer now than in 2001 when this administration allows twenty radical Moslem Egyptian men to come in and vanish in 2006.

And please, do NOT tell me that this administration is serious about national security when they are unwilling to prosecute persons who leak information from within classified government organizations. (Where the hell is Alberto Gonzales!?)

And please, do NOT tell me that this administration is going all-out when the most significant thing they have done is to create another worthless super-bureaucracy.

And please, do NOT tell me that this administration is giving our military all the tools and support they need when any ragheaded pighumper with an RPG round and a bag of ball bearings can kill our troops with impunity.

And please, do NOT tell me that Iraq is more secure while our commanders over there sit and scratch their heads while the enemy keeps on coming in- because this administration has not committed enough troops to secure the theater from infiltration and did not respond quickly enough to the changing nature of the war.

And please, do NOT tell me that President Bush is tough on nations who sponsor terrorism when he has just inked a sellout of Israel to a terrorist organization, and has done nothing new to neutralize Syria and Iran that any other wobbly president has done in the past, which is to say, nothing.

I still believe the reasons we went into Iraq were good. I understand that prosecuting an effective war takes time. But I maintain that it also requires decisive leadership, a commodity that has been sorely lacking from President Bush with regard to this war against some nebulous concept he calls "terror."

Our president needs to open his eyes and face the fact that nebulous concepts aren't killing Americans- Moslems are killing Americans, and Moslem nations are helping them do it. President Bush's policy of making nice with such nations will not make these lunatics somehow drop their dangerous religious beliefs and decide to sing Kumbahyah with us. That's the Carter doctrine. It failed. Try something else.

I love America and I love our heritage, our call, and our position as the standard-bearer of freedom in a world full of coward-nations. And it royally pisses me off that this president does not seem interested in putting his whole heart into leading this nation in the fight for our survival. His wobbliness on the core issues leads me to believe that he does not take this as seriously as he should. And really, this is just my opinion. Nobody has to like it, and at this point, quite frankly, I don't give a damn if anyone does. I just want my Commander in Chief to do his freakin' job.

But if I am wrong on this issue, I'll adjust my thinking and drive on. It's as simple as that. But the problem is that this president is not doing anything to decrease my confidence that I am correct.