There is an interesting article in the September 24th edition of the Weekly Standard by David Gelerntner, it is called, “Defeat At Any Price”. Mr. Gelerntner, among his other accomplishments, is a fellow at the American Enterprise institute. One of his points is that for the United States, the Vietnam war was our World War I. That is to say that Europe, as a result of the absolute horror of World War I was overcome with something called, “pacifist globalism”. Europe, as the old spiritual goes, simply decided,  “We ain’t gonna study war no more”.

Whatever one may choose to call it, something obviously  put European countries into an anti war, pacifist mode and World War I surely had much to do with it  Maybe because of their proximity to the war, European countries were more dramatically affected by it. The U.S. was certainly not totally unaffected by the war to end all wars, but then along came the second world war and Korea. The advent of modern communications media brought the brutal reality of those wars much closer to the U.S. than World War I had ever been. Then along came Vietnam. By then there were enough Pacifist globalism advocates crawling around in the woodwork of the U.S. to have deep effect on that country‘s taste for war.

So even though, as  Mr. Gelerntner points out,  that with the coming of General Abrams in May of 1968, the U.S. began winning the war on the ground in Vietnam there were many Americans opposed to the war, and at the same time the war was being lost at the peace table and in Congress. All of this is according to historian Lewis Sorley, who is quoted by Gelerntner.

OK, so unless you’re a pup still wet behind the ears, you know the rest of the story. Under pressure from rabble in the streets, gutless politicians and a growing appeasement, peace at any price, pacifist globalism movement and other lunacies,  the Unites States hands victory to the bad guys in South East Asia. All these years later, Osama and his henchmen can claim with glee that the U.S. is a paper tiger and has no stomach for a long fight. Please do not think for a moment that this line of reasoning is not a factor in every decision made today by the terrorists.


So the horrors of world war I plus World war II and Korea plus the nightly television news during the Vietnam war all made for dramatic increases in the number of people opposing war, period. The large anti war contingent was pretty quiet for a time right after 9/11, but inevitably  that was not to last. To believe that this is the whole reason for the anti war forces to want an immediate end to the war in Iraq is completely not the case. There is another factor at work that far out weighs a simple  distaste for the horrors of war.

It is, quite simply a complete, palpable, abiding and unending  hatred of George W. Bush, and the anti war movement of today is almost completely motivated by the desire for Mr. Bush to be discredited and the Democratic party to win back the white house.

Democrats and the left, not once but twice were certain they had a shoe in in presidential elections in 2000 and 2004. Along comes an enemy they see as some cowboy, bumpkin governor of Texas of all places. He whipped their best twice, and never has or never will be forgiven. The hatred of George W. Bush is a living, breathing,  reality. So dedicated is the true believing leftist to destroying this man that if their own country has to go down with him, then so be it.

 They hate the president so deeply that they  will have his hide even if it means destroying their own country. This is as vile as it gets, and is the real “Defeat At Any Price” Mr. Gelerntner hinted at in his article but never really got to.