During a recent lecture at The Heritage Foundation, Army Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker explained why. ?In Iraq, in my view, we?re making progress. And everybody there thinks we?re making progress,? he said. ?We have got extraordinary soldiers that understand what they?re in the army for.?
They?re in the army to fight. ?We deployed a company out of the Old Guard, the Third U.S. Infantry regiment that does the Tomb of the Unknowns, does the funerals, does all the ceremonies here in town. And you know what happened? For the first time in 10 years, the Old Guard made its reenlistment objective,? Schoomaker, the Army Chief of Staff, added.
In other words, soldiers were more likely to reenlist if they were going to see combat than if they were going to do safe duty stateside. Americans are willing, even eager, to fight when we know our cause is just.
Osama bin Laden has learned that, to his chagrin.
?The Americans are cowards,? he told an Arabic newspaper in 1997. ?If they even think of confronting me, I will teach them a lesson similar to the lesson they were taught a few years ago in Somalia.?
His view seemed to be confirmed when al Qaeda carried out attacks on two American embassies in Africa in 1998 and we responded weakly, using cruise missiles to attack some tents in Afghanistan and a factory in Sudan. Then in 2000, al Qaeda bombed an American navy ship, and this time we took no action at all. Bin Laden drew the mistaken conclusion that the United States wasn?t willing to fight at all, anywhere.
But since Sept. 11 we?ve been on the attack in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, after three years on the run, bin Laden has changed his tune. ?Your security is in your own hands. Any nation that does not attack us will not be attacked,? he whined back in October. In other words he now claims that if you leave us alone, we?ll stop bothering you.
Ah, but we won?t. Americans have the enemy on the run, and a key reason we haven?t been attacked here at home is because we?re fighting al Qaeda and other terrorists on their turf.
Our men and women in uniform know that, and that?s why they?re so willing to fight. Keep their confidence in mind the next time you read a gloomy newspaper account about the war in Iraq.