I have resisted the call of those who compare the “War against Terror” to Vietnam. Our early victories in Afghanistan and Iraq completely undermined their shrill cries of Quagmire. The claim that we could not succeed where the Soviet’s had failed seemed a dim reminder, not of the invincibility of the enemy, but of the sad state of the Soviet Army toward the end of the Soviet Union’s brief 60 year history. But that was 5 years ago. Things have changed and NOT for the better! Political Correctness has now overwhelmed our natural instinct for self-preservation.

America has never lost a war! However, once upon a time, we did walk away from one. After 30 years, there are still many who believe that we did the right thing by walking away. They pat themselves on the back for their courage in standing up to the evil war mongers. They take pride in the fact that fewer of our soldiers died because we brought them home, stopped the draft, and ended the war. Not a single one of them has ever, EVER acknowledged the horrific deaths (over 1 million!) at the hands of the communists in Vietnam and Cambodia after we left. In their rose-tinted view of history, they are heroes, deaf to the cries from the grave of all those we abandoned to the barbaric Pol Pot and Soviet backed Vietnamese. However, even if we were to grant them clemency for failing to stand by our allies; they should not be pardoned for the deaths of American soldiers caused by their criticisms during the war.

The demands by 60’s anti-war activists for restraint from attacking the enemy hiding in Cambodia, even as they were attacking us, killed American soldiers just as surely as if they had pulled the trigger themselves. The political constraints on our military to “hold the line,” but never advance beyond it to fully defeat and disarm the enemy led to many more deaths than should otherwise have occurred. The unwillingness of the anti-war critics to accept the consequences of their actions in the deaths of American soldiers in Vietnam has now blossomed into an even more arrogant, denial of the consequences of their politically motivated constraints on our soldiers in the current war being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is why we must now drop all pretense and openly denounce these anti-war leftists, as unpatriotic. When your own political desires outweigh the value of American soldiers’ lives, you are no longer a patriot!

The actions of the anti-war lobby have resulted and will continue to result in the deaths of American soldiers. Constraining our soldiers, with politically correct “rules of engagement” causes hesitancy. Hesitancy, in the face of enemy attacks, results in death for our soldiers, instead of death for the enemy. Furthermore, the constraints shackling our “rules of engagement” shield the enemy from our best opportunities for Victory, leaving them alive to attack and Kill us another day! It is this last consequence that has been exposed by the most recent events in Afghanistan, where a funeral attended by over one hundred Taliban was NOT attacked because of politically constrained “rules of engagement.”

We have left loose in our midst the very enemy we are there to destroy, and consequently, provided them many more opportunities to kill our soldiers. This action reveals more than any other how the anti-war leftists have truly succeeded in transforming the “War against Terror” into another Vietnam. God help us, but I will never, ever again leave the statement “Dissent IS Patriotic” go unchallenged! Our soldiers’ lives depend on it!