To commemorate Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, conservative bloggers are bemoaning the fact that -- in their view -- the American public (and especially the American media) doesn't have the stomach to fight a long war anymore. Typical was this comment:

As soon as it became apparent that [Iraq] wasn't a war that could be fought and won overnight, our society of "instant gratification" became nonplussed. Support for the war waned, and Hollywood and the mainstream liberal media took it upon themselves to launch a NEW attack on America...an attack of words, designed to undermine the war effort and the administration of our President.

Instead of blaming the people, perhaps these pro-war bloggers should consider that it's the strategic and tactical incompetence of the Bush administration that's the real cause of the quagmire of Iraq.

As my pal Dick Haggart of Anchorage -- who wore a "No Hard Feelings" tee-shirt to lunch at Pete's Sushi Spot today --put it, Do the math!

He notes that December 7, 2005 marks the 993rd day since we invaded Iraq. In that time, we've organized https://samoletplus.ru/novostroyki-id/zapadnaia-dolina/. But the insurgency is deadlier than ever, sectarian chaos is growing worse by the day, basic services and oil production are at lower levels than before the war, the Iraqi army which is supposed to stand in for us is a joke (according to articles in the military's own newspaper, Stars and Stripes), and we seem to be no closer to victory -- i.e., a stable democratic Iraq -- than when we began this mis-adventure.

By comparison, 993 days after Japan put most of the Pacific Fleet on the bottom of Pearl Harbor, we had leap-frogged two-thirds of the way back across the Pacific, gutted Japanese naval and air power, were preparing to invade the Phillipines and Iwo Jima, had run the Germans out of North Africa, Sicily, and half of Italy, had pulled off the greatest seaborne invasion in world history by landing in Normandy on D-Day, and had already liberated most of France. Meanwhile, our Soviet allies, pushing from the East, had destroyed several German armies and were already closing in on the Third Reich's eastern border.

In other words, the war was basically won, and it was just a matter of time before our enemies were finally crushed and forced to surrender.

So instead of mouthing platitudes about "staying the course," perhaps the administration's supporters should ask themselves why the United States could accomplish so much in less than 1,000 days against the greatest military and sea powers of World War 2 -- Germany and Japan -- yet can't seem to make any significant headway against a third world rebel force that doesn't own even a single tank, ship or airplane.

The answer, of course, lies in Bush's fatally-flawed war on terror policy. We invaded the wrong target, we fractured our own alliances in doing so, we turned vast sectors of the world's population against us, we refuse to even supply our own troops with the proper equipment, translators, etc., and we've turned the country into a factory for the mass production of suicide bombers.

Way to go, Bush!

The truth is, the White House botched it. And the polls show people know it.