Do We Know There's A War On?

The answer, to judge by the rolling defeatism of the last week or so, is "No, most Americans evidently do not know that there's a war on." At least in the sense that the war that's on affects their daily life. As the steady drip of drivel continues unabated from the left, and as no real sacrifice shows up in the lives of vast numbers of Americans, it can clearly be seen that, in fact, there really is no war on at all in the sense that most would understand it.

That does not mean that the First Terrorist War does not rage on in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia, in the Philippines, in Europe, in Iran, and in dozens of other spots around the globe where the enemies of America work to undermine and destroy the only power that has a candle's chance in Hell of sustaining and forwarding freedom in this century. What is does mean is that, as time goes by and the drip of deaths continue distantly in Iraq, many Americans wonder more and more, 'Hey, what's in this for me?'

One could say, "Well, you and your children and your children's children get to live and continue to live in freedom," but a fish never notices the water until its pond goes dry, does it? Absent a clear and present danger and a daily call for sacrifice, it is little wonder that in the lives of most Americans, there isn't a war on. Because there really isn't.

Ask yourself what your day in this war consists of. Unless you are in the military, it consists really of very little other than the unremitting bad news about the war. You

Work, you shop, you watch TV, you putter about your house, you get and you spend, and, if you have the money, there is nothing on God's green earth that is denied you. Your sacrifice for this war amounts to, to date, absolutely nothing.

Your feelings about this war , unless you are very alert, are in the main manipulated and determined by the tacit collusion of several generations of ex-Vietnam/Watergate media professionals and their professional children and grandchildren. These people, now institutionalized, form what is for all intents and purposes both a Fifth Column and, more importantly, a Fifth Estate an unelected and self-appointed shadow government that was not envisioned by the Founding Fathers, and hence is not provided for in their system of checks and balances.

This Fifth Estate's habit of mind, coupled with an absence of either duty or honor in its thin traditions, has so long afflicted them that there is, literally, nothing else they can do except shape their narrative of events to parallel a long dead and highly irrelevant historical scenario. They cannot report or discuss this war outside of the strait-jacket of Vietnam because it is, quite literally, the only thing they know how to do. They have never been given an education in either their "Journalism" schools or on the job that allows them to think or report anything that does not echo their shallow catechism.

Those that know of other narratives are seldom, if ever, admitted to the mainstream media coven except as tokens. And then, you can be sure, they are only tolerated and shunned. Over the decades since Vietnam, our media has evolved into a self-sustaining series of institutions that literally cannot see anything other than their internal elite reality. This would be benign if they did not also have the power to inflict it on others. The destruction of this power is the real pivot on which the political fights of the next decade will turn.

Unless we run out of time in which to entertain this cute little internal cultural and political squabble. Unless, of course, many of us wake up one morning to find that there is, after all, a real war on -- one that can reach out and kill us at will.

In this manner, it is both tragic and yet hopeful, that our current war, in order to be really on, waits upon another September 11. For, it is clear now as it has been for sometime, that nothing absent another significant attack on the homeland will wake us from our media induced stupor. A war that takes place half a world away and requires no sacrifices at all from the majority of our citizens is, frankly, no war at all. It is only another in a long series of hamstrung and losing police actions. As it stands, it seems that all we are doing in this "war" is creating more Koreas.

That no further attacks have occurred upon American soil since 9/11 is, I am sure, seen by many in the current administration as a sterling accomplishment; something on which they can stand pat. And, taken by itself, it is that. But if it is coupled with a series of lackluster policies and a hampering of our military's will to fight, then it is only something that obscures the real build-up and the real ability of our enemy to kill us. At the same time, it allows the forces in this country who would weaken it to expand their collusion with our enemy. In this, the administration flirts with abject failure. And because this is so, the administration begins to give off the whiff of defeat even as its victories in Iraq mount.

The Republican administration of George W. Bush was given, along with many other things, a mandate to pursue this war last November. It has, along with many other things, failed to do so with any real alacrity or force since the invasion of Iraq. Instead, it has wallowed in the current policies and plans of "bringing Democracy." The successes in this regard have blinded it to the greater responsibilities it holds, not to the Middle East or the Muslims of the world, but first and foremost to our military and our citizenry and to this country.

As in so many other things, the Bush administration has shown itself to be unable to wield real power, to act rather than react. It may be that decades in the wilderness have left the Republicans without the real moral fiber and deep determination to finally use electoral power to effect real change. It may be that internal advisors counsel softer words and a smaller stick. Or it may well be that, canny as always to the mood of the public, the administration too is waiting for our enemy to make the one serious mistake it can still make an attack on the homeland.

If it is the latter reason, that would be as craven a motive as one can imagine, but not, knowing the internal souls of politicians, a motive that cannot be imagined.

So, in the final analysis, what will it take for America to wake up and to stay awake, and to finally and at last, "know there is a war on?"

Quite obviously and without a doubt, it will take thousands of dead American civilians: men, women and this time our children too. They will die here on our soil because we did not have the will, the policies, and the guts to pursue this war as a war, using all the terrible power that we command. The dead will be your family and your friends and your neighbors. They will be the cost of the current administration's vapid policies coupled with the unremitting agenda of the Fifth Estate.

That is precisely what it will take. Not one body more. Not one body less. And although our enemy will be at fault, we will have nobody but our own weak and fat souls to blame. After all, we won't be able to say we didn't see it coming this time.