"...Mr. Vlahos's notion that the war can be lost is pretty silly too."

Someone should tell this to Bill O"Reilly. He seems to have lost faith too.

The war could be lost easily; all we have to do is give up. Look at Europe. Then look at Ned Lamont.

we don't matter to the war.

The only real question is whether this latest batch will end up like the German National Socialists and Japanese Militarists or the Russian Great Socialists, (destroyed and devastated vs. merely discredited and bankrupt), and will they finally provoke us into giving them the former treatment, which is what they seem to desire.

We should fight the War on Terror to keep the US (and the West) safe from random murder (eg. 9/11).

But it is strictly silly to think the the US could lose a war against the Arab (including Iran, Pakistan etc. for this purpose) World in any meaningful sense. It would be at worst like the Briish losing the odd colonial war over the years to the Zulus. No real impact.

Compare the strength of the US to the weakness of the Arabs in every single possible measure. They are far, far too weak and we are strong beyond measure.

The war currently is not even against the Arab world but a few thousand terrorists. Even if they had a hundred times their current strength, terrorists can't inflict a defeat on the US or even Europe.

A war to keep everyone safe from random murder? It started with Abel.

It was also inconceivable for the US to lose a war against a third world nation in the 1960s, yet we did. Study the reasons why, and learn.

Regardless of how one rationalizes it (blame the hippies, blame the psot-Watergate Congress for eliminating aid, say it didn't matter to the Cold War), South Vietnam fell and we did not want it to.

There have been plenty of cases throughout history where the more powerful army or country lost the war because the smaller side had a higher will to keep fighting. Especially when a country is rich and powerful, it is tempting to conclude "This isn't worth it." Essentially, this is what happened to Rome when they decided to simply let the barbarians settle within the Empire in the late 4th and 5th centuries. A far different period then when Rome raise legion after legion - regardless of disastrous defeat - when Hannibal invaded centuries before.

Europe is losing. The American left would surrender tomorrow. Democracies are only as strong as their cultures. 'Democracy' is not an end in itself.

Lots of people really don't understand Americans and American culture. If they manage to pull another 9/11 attack on us, they'll be given the same treatment as was given American Indians.

"Losing" in Vietnam was merely an embarassment to us. Of course, we didn't really lose that war--we just got tired of it and pulled out. They never attacked the US mainland nor wanted to. They were never any threat to us, so pulling out didn't increase any danger to us.

Not so the Islamicists. By word and deed they are a threat to the US mainland. Not an existential threat, but a threat nonetheless. Just as we won't tolerate rattlesnakes and rats to bite us, neither will we suffer the Arabs to harm us.

Chris:

That represents a complete misunderstanding of the Long War and present day Vietnam, which nicely illustrates its unlosable nature . You can't organize a successful state around communism.

If Orrin Judd sees this war as merely a replay of WWII then it is he who is being very silly, as well as dangerously naive.

This war is not about soldiers and tanks on a battlefield - if it was then the USA would win it in quick order. If the Islamists were to don uniforms and march on Washington they would get their clocks cleaned. But they know that.

Firepower is irrelevent to this war (which is not with Arabs per se but Islam) as it is an economic, demographic and political conflict. These are the weapons that Islam is using to good effect in Europe where they are winning. They may not win in the USA but only if people like Mr. Judd stop smugly assuming that this is just Iwo Jima redux and it will all be over by Christmas.

replay? Of course, not. It's merely the latest phase of the war that WWII was likewise a part of. It's comparatively quite bloodless and by any definition rather minor.

Islam will win in Europe. Islamicism won't win anywhere.

Mark Steyn sums it up:

Yet while Islamism is the enemy, it’s not what this thing’s about. Radical Islam is an opportunistic infection, like AIDS: It’s not the HIV that kills you, it’s the pneumonia you get when your body’s too weak to fight it off. When the jihadists engage with the U.S. military, they lose–as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. If this were like World War I with those fellows in one trench and us in ours facing them over some boggy piece of terrain, it would be over very quickly. Which the smarter Islamists have figured out. They know they can never win on the battlefield, but they figure there’s an excellent chance they can drag things out until Western civilization collapses in on itself and Islam inherits by default.

That’s what the war’s about: our lack of civilizational confidence. As a famous Arnold Toynbee quote puts it: “Civilizations die from suicide, not murder”–as can be seen throughout much of “the Western world” right now.

So, is it too much to hope that the CIA is working on a plan to sap the confidence (faith, resolve, willpower, whatever) of the militant Islamic world?

We know why the Euros are supine - what will bring that 'feeling' to the Islamofacists nutjobs?

Recall that it was the CIA that consistently overestimated the might of the USSR and built up the confidence of the Communists. It was Ike, Solzhenitsyn, Pipes, and Reagan who recognized it was a complete failure.

... South Vietnam fell and we did not want it to.

Sorry, there were plenty of "we" who not only wanted Vietnam to fall, but actively worked toward our losing in as humiliating a way as possible and for Communism to win triumphantly in Vietnam and round the globe.

Many of those "we" are in positions of authority in the financial world, in congress, in the media and in our colleges and universities. They are in a time warp still telling the same old lies.

It's no end of amusement to me that the Vietnamese like the citizens in the former eastern bloc countries learned the lesson of free trade and are on their way to economic prosperity which we know leads to more independent citizens who in turn want more individual freedom.

The only way we can lose a war is if we allow the left to cripple our morale and leave our country weak and defenseless.

Comparison to the wars against the American Indians is a good analogy. Much of the emnity the Indians recieved was because they kept intruding themselves beyond their own interests, into European/American wars (and with an uncanny knack to pick the losing side). They also kept the level of atrocities at just the level where retuning the favor became, over decades, a norm. They were also an enemy who were incapable of creating the weapons they used, but could use those they acquired fairly effectively. Victory over them finally came when the last holdouts accepted assimilation with special status, which was bascially what had always been the option they'd been offered.

No, it isn't. The Indians had no culture and had to be exterminated or converted. Islam needs a bit of Reform.

--Of course, we didn't really lose that war--we just got tired of it and pulled out. --

Just like the lobsterbacks during the Revolution.
Too much money, too many lives and the English people were tired.

According to The History Channel.

The English weren't fighting for anything meaningful, since we were already just like them.

The British were fighting for an economic ideology which they subsequently discarded as the industrial revolution took hold. The Islamists are fighting for a similarly outmoded, metaphysical belief system. It's primitivism is a ponderous. If it reforms, it will cease to exist in any recognizable way. The ideology of the earth-bound 'religion' is stifling, uncompetitive, an heretical, anti-historical interpretation of what came before. It's claim on Abrahamic monotheism is similar to Marx's claim on science: imaginary.

The Brits fought out of stubbornness. they quit when we proved more stubborn and their electorate tired of it.

Islam is true. It just needs a few tweaks, which has proved fairly easy from Turkey to Indonesia, and unnecessary within Shi'ism.

The brits wished to maintain monopolistic trade practices to which they believed their empire was entitled. Had they compromised, been a little forward-looking, there would not have been a revolt. They stubbronly insisted on low benefit, zero-sum economics which was the belief system at the time. Short-sighted dummies.

No, they just wanted us to pay our fair share for the security they provided. We threw a hissy fit over it, but they didn't have the stomach to kill fellow Brits over a mere tax matter. It harmed us both as we deserved.

'Islam is true'. The only way to judge a metaphysical belief system is by it's results as a tool for social organization. The statement 'Islam is true' is no more valid than it's opposite.

Central to the truth of the Abrahamic religions is that men won't organize their societies terribly well. Even recognizing truth we won't live it. Islam offers one of the better bases for our imperfect organizations.

Letting Britain decide the colonists 'fair share' for defense within a mercantilist trade policy framework is unjust on it's face. Are you saying the colonists were not looking for compromise prior to hostilities? If you are, you are uninformed.

Yes, the Colonists just wanted to dodge taxes.

The central tenet absent from islam is original sin. How can it be Abrahamic? The only obstacle to heaven on earth is original sin.

No, it isn't. The obstacle is that we alll always repeat the sin. It's not Adam's fault, it's mine.

Because you're an imperfect human being.

Claiming their rughts as Englishmen was a tax dodge?If Britain had been sensible the revenue side of their ledger would not have been a problem. Nor defense of the colonies.

It wasn't about rights, jus taxes.

Which is what Islam teaches.

Rights and taxes. You're kidding right?Islam teaches perfect justice. In THIS world.

yes and we don't achieve it because we sin. It's the same teaching just coming from opposite directions.

No, it's unacheivable. Change yourself, be concerned for others, don't worry about the world.

If Indonesia is your linchpin for the 'reformability' of Islam, the WSJ threw cold water on you yesterday. While the security forces there seem more effective (and motivated) than those in Pakistan, there are problems.

Also read yesterday that the Muslims in southern Thailand have killed about 4500 people in the past year, and are driving the police out of large portions of the country. Not good news.

Tom -

The main "doctrine" missing from Islam is grace.

That's why they hate the atonement, and have no idea what forgiveness is all about. It is also why freedom (as a political or theological idea) gives them such difficulty.

Grace is poison to a society, which is why we had to cook up the notion that your works demonstrate your being graced.

jim:

No, they demonstrate that it doesn't even need Reform.

Just because it's unachievable doesn't mean it isn't the proper end--we treat it as if it were.

First,unlike the totalist ideology of Islam, understand that it is unacheivable. War and conquest in the name of a 'religion' would cease. Defense is another matter. Why is Islam a 'warrior' faith? If it holds, as a fundamental tenet, conquest in it's name in order to reach an end of perfect justice and peace as opposed to the imperfect liberty and the responsibilty of free will imposed by the Judeo-Christian tradition in this world, then is it not an ideology, utopian in nature, of politics rather than spirit? To Islam, the human person is not of primary importance, only his belief and submission to that worldy ideology promising an afterlife of sensuality, of physical pleasure or pain rather than union with the divine or eternal alienation. Recounting the past sins of Christianity in an effort at equivocation is not helpful. Go to the source.

Why? We wage unending war in the name of our religion. The rest is equally silly, though unworthy even of argument. When the Islamic world can match our body count we'll worry about who disregards individual life.

We oppose freedom of ideas, imposing our own. Goods don't matter.

"Grace is poison to a society..."

Only if you are a 'realist'.

Which is why no one would ever allow a free marketplace.