From the very beginning what has frightened me most about the Global War on Terrorism is this: that the United States and the West simply do not, in their present condition, have the stomach to bring this war to a successful conclusion. I have never really been given a satisfactory answer to the question, “how do you win a war against the enemy in front of you while ignoring the knife-wielding enemy behind you?”

At every step, the left – and its many allies on the rest of the political spectrum – have sought to obstruct all efforts to win this war. At every turn they’ve handcuffed our forces and circumscribed our options. Time and time again those of us, particularly including myself, who have been agitating for a more vigorous prosecution of the war have been forced to compromise in the face of the fear that, if we push too hard or do too much, our moderate support will melt away.

Everytime we have compromised, reconsidered, or conceded we have taken another step towards disaster. Instead of fighting this war as it should be fought we have engaged in a sort of half-war. But one cannot be part at war and part at peace when our enemies are all at war. The search for a successful war prosecuted half-heartedly is, to borrow from Lincoln, as vain as the search for a man who should neither be a living man or a dead one.

Resultantly, we have ended up in a terrible predicament. This was to be expected. As Von Clausewitz wrote, “in such dangerous things as war, the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst.”

There is no military crisis. The strength of the United States military is sufficient that the entire situation may be easily controlled. But there is a political crisis. And there is a public image crisis. In such days as these, that may be sufficient to bring about defeat.

Compromises with the self-appointed guardians of the public virtue have prevented us from waging the sort of all-out war that would be necessary to secure a triumph which might withstand even the assault of the fifth columnist media. Instead, we have been left in a holding pattern – a situation which, though militarily stable and relatively under control – can be abused by a media which has managed to convince an ignorant public that the only successful war is a zero-casualty one.

It may well be the case – as I certainly believe it is – that the insurgency is militarily impotent and has been more or less reduced to little more than a ragged band of killers who murder their own countrymen by the hundreds to get a few minutes on the evening news. But, when the media portrays every single murder as a great victory for the insurgency, how can we possibly win the battle for the hearts and minds of the American public?

We can’t.

One of the fundamental laws of warfare is this: to allow your enemies to freely operate from within a protected sanctuary is to invite defeat or stalemate. Yet we have, out of fear, done exactly that. We allow the murderers in Iraq to be supplied from Iran and Syria. We allow the Taliban to operate out of Pakistan. We allow the al-Qaeda 1.0 remnant to shelter there as well. We allow Iran and Syria to more or less openly supply Hamas and Hezbollah. We allow the advocates of Jihad to operate, free from fear and scrutiny, within their Mosques and “civil rights” groups within the West. We allow avowed enemies of our cause within the media and important public institutions to attack at will – and virtually without response.

All of this we have knowingly allowed. We have allowed it out of fear.

We fear a wider war. We fear the consequences of limiting civil liberties here at home. We fear the assassination of Musharaff and the seizure of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

But, most of all, our fears our political. All of us understand that we can do nothing to defeat the enemy without political power. This drives into us an unreasonable fear of the consequences of other actions. That is because, rather than join in the effort to defeat this enemy, certain treasonous elements within lurking here at home have seized the opportunity for their own petty political advantage – or, in certain cases, out of genuinely-felt but nonetheless objectively evil moral principles.

The enemy within acts as a form of heavy artillery on behalf of the wider enemy conspiracy. They keep us disoriented and unable to shift positions without risking a complete rout. Far better, it would seem, under such conditions to simply stay in our trenches.

But, amid the politics, we cannot forget what is at stake: millions of lives and, in all probability, the future of much of the West itself.

If we are forced to retreat in the face of the enemy, what conclusion do you think that Bin Laden’s successors will draw? Do you think that they will retire to build hospitals and debate the means of funding a universal health system? Or do you think that they will plan bigger and more spectacular attacks designed to break and bow us forever?

When liberals betrayed us during Vietnam and stabbed our soldiers and our allies in the back, the result was millions of dead. Not that many people noticed because it happened in a far away land about which we know little. But, if we let them pull off their betrayal this time, the millions of dead will be in our own cities. They will come from our own towns and our own homes. We will no them. No one will be shielded from loss.

It need not even be as spectacular as a mushroom cloud over Miami. The tactics – of random murder and collaboration with willing traitors in the media – which have worked so very well in Iraq will work well anywhere. Today there are already Moslem areas of Paris into which the police dare not venture. What will happen when the Mohammedans there move from torching cars to transforming them into bombs? Will we abandon the city to them?

Do you remember how long it took to capture the Beltway Snipers? Imagine the chaos that a dozen, or two dozen, of them could create. How long would it take to catch them?

And – what if they can’t be easily caught. Should we withdraw from New York into New Jersey and hope to contain the threat?

Of course, in the end, it wouldn’t come to that. The people would realize how thoroughly they have been betrayed at some point and stand up. But when – and at what cost?

What is required today is what has been required from the very beginning: an all-out and total offensive against the enemy on all fronts and without the least shred of compassion or restraint.

However, it’s getting late – so I’ll be outlining how that would look tomorrow.