Are We Serious About Winning the War?

Well, as requested by jihadi tracker, the "wordsmith" (his/her word, not mine) is back. How could I not return after such flattery? (Or was that mockery?)

I've been trying to decide what to write about for some time now. I think I have writer's block. Not the kind of lack-of-creativity writer's block, but more of the type where there are tons of topics that catch my interest, but I can't seem to get behind any of them enough to use my precious time to opine upon them. After all, I'm only alotted 2 hours of "Mom Time" per day by her royal highness, the almost 2-year-old toddler, Miss Emily.

So, after perusing the various news headlines and reading all sorts of infuriating "reports", I've decided to just go out on my own with an opinion piece. So, this one is for you, jihadi tracker.
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The question that has been floating around in my mind lately is this: Is America really serious about winning the war? The answer I have come up with is a resounding No. We are not serious about winning in Iraq. We are not serious about winning against illegal immigration. We are most definitely not serious about winning against islamo-facism. We are not serious about winning the moral battles here at home, either. As a whole, the nation seems content with the status quo. After all, if nobody's happy, then I guess neither side has won, right?

That's what it all comes down to in the end. We are once again so completely caught up in partisan political posturing that we are setting ourselves up for trouble. After all, hasn't this summer seemed eerily reminiscent of a summer about 5 years ago, before the single worst act of terrorism in recent history took place on American soil?

It seems to me that 5 summers' ago, American's were more preoccupied with the Chandra Levy mystery and the bitter political fight over the "illegitimate" election of President Bush than with terrorism. We never even gave it a thought.

Then September 11, 2001, happened. Suddenly, America had a new focus. We had been attacked. We had been dealt a terrible death blow. We had lost thousands of innocent civilians in an act of war. We were hurting. We were searching for answers and leadership. We were angry and we were determined to find and destroy whoever had done this to us. We were focused, determined and fairly united...for a little while.

We all agreed that we had to act, that we had to take the battle to the enemy. We all waved our flags and supported our troops and voted for the war....before it started taking too long. Then about half of us started to get impatient and in doing so, lost their focus.

Half of us continued in our support of the war and the troops and for victory. The other half grew weary of fighting and impatient, in part because they never really understood who and why we were fighting in the first place.

Over time, the discontent of the other half grew and deepened, causing a further lack of focus and political rancor became the battle of the day, instead of fighting a war for our lives.

As a result, the resolute half had to work twice as hard to pick up the slack, all the while fending off attacks from the other half who had given up on the real battle.

And so, this summer and even now, we find ourselves, our America, torn in two, with no real focus on what is truly important. Instead, our summer was filled with a preoccupation over the man who claimed he killed Jon Benet Ramsey and Tom and Katie's baby hysteria. We've spent the summer seeing which party can run the meanest campaign ads and we've argued on whether we are winning the war....all instead of trying to figure out how to win.

It's discouraging. We apparently have learned nothing.

Well, some of us learned our lesson. Some of us are still doggedly supporting our troops and our President and our country. Some of us still remember who attacked us and why we take the fight to them and why we must win and win decisively.

But the other half still hasn't figured it out. They will continue to call for our pullout in Iraq, which will be disastrous and will make all the human sacrifices of our men and women in uniform be in vain. They will continue to push for amnesty for illegal aliens, which will put our national security at risk. They will continue to bow to the muslim leadership and be too afraid to stand up to them, affording the terrorists civil rights they do not deserve and would seek to destroy for the rest of us. They will continue to push for homosexual "marriage" and abortion "rights" and free speech-so-long-as-you're-not-a-Christian rights and in doing so, further erode what makes America special. They will stand firm for all the wrong things and continue to distract the resolute half from focusing on winning the war for our future.

So, in short, we are not yet serious about winning the war. Apparently, losing over 3,000 of our innocent citizens was not enough. So what will it take? I don't think I want to know. But what I do know is this: Until we get serious about winning, until we identify and totally anihilate the enemy, we will be living in danger because the enemy is focused and determined and undistracted and they know how to use our distractions against us. I wonder when we will become that serious about this struggle for our freedom?