The American Spectator

The WSJ has a great editorial today (sub req’d) about the congressional cowardice on display this week. Money quote:

“There are many lessons of the Vietnam War, but two of the biggest are these: Don’t fight wars you don’t intend to win, and while American troops can’t be defeated, American politicians can be. Like General Giap, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his fellow terrorists understand the second lesson very well, and so his strategy has always been not to capture Baghdad but to inflict casualties in a way that breaks the will of American elites. He’ll only be encouraged by this week’s show of Beltway duck and cover.”

General Giap — the North Vietnamese commander who engineered our defeat — found he could rely more on American public opinion than his own forces. In Somalia, in 1996, Mohammed Fara Aideed learned that America can be outlasted, and defeated by the infliction of more casualties than its pollsters, newspapers and television newscasters would tolerate. Saddam tried to use that same formula and failed. The insurgents are doing the same now, and will succeed if we don’t act decisively to prosecute the war with all the resources at our disposal, in all the places in which they should be employed.

As I wrote yesterday, people such as Rep. Murtha cannot be ignored. If we were fighting this war to win it — instead of to not lose it — former Marine Jack Murtha would not be saying it’s time to throw in the towel.