The new struggle

After the cold war and the four day assault on Iraqis camped out in Kuwait were over, somewhere, someone must have written a note that America - or at least this generation of Americans - would never have to struggle again. The markets seemed to be on an unending streak of new highs. We had the peace dividend. Except for the occasional Islamo-terror-fascist bombing, all was seemingly right with the world.

Then 9-11 came along. But even then it wasn’t long before the markets were back up and the Taliban routed in Afghanistan. Then the war in Iraq came along. Congress and the American were wildly in favor of the war when American troops swept into Baghdad after a three week lighting assault.

Now four years into that war, the note that America need no longer struggle is cropping all over. 3,000 war casualties, a paltry figure by nearly any standard – length of conflict, enemy destroyed, land mass taken, people freed, politics and regional interests at stake – 3,000 war dead is now too high a price for America to expend to secure our national interests in a region of the world that holds our economic gonads in its hand. Gasoline is over $3 a gallon and people who live 28,000 square foot mansions and pay $4 for 8 ounces of sissified coffee are outraged. The once great America that built the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam and the World Trade Centers, today can’t even build an oil refinery or a fence on the southern border. Schools that once limited the honor roll to the top 5% of students now issue the ever present “My kid’s an honor student at” fill in the blank school with nearly every report card. Every kid not only makes the team but gets a trophy at the end of the season no matter how lousy he or his team played.

Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes things don’t go right. Sometimes you have to redouble your effort. It just seems to me that right now America doesn't think it ought to have to.