The Tree of Freedom

I’ve been looking for support for this theory of mine, but I try not to my post thoughts without at least some small amount of supporting evidence. Well, Talking Points Memo has provided me with just that in a post today. You can read the whole thing for yourself, and I could not agree more with what is stated there.

I absolutely do not believe that the American people will not support a “just war” merely because losses of American lives are involved. This country has always been able to “refresh the tree of freedom” and will always be able to do so.

I have maintained and will continue to maintain that the lack of support for what is happening in Iraq is not the loss of life, but rather that the American people have woken up to the fact that this is not a war of national defense but is a brutal occupation of a country that we conquered by a war of aggression.

Read the post. It sums it up thusly, citing continuous support for WW2,

…The death toll in the Second World War dwarfs the numbers of those killed in Iraq.

The reason the war is unpopular is because people don't think we are accomplishing anything that promotes our security or national interests -- indeed, quite the contrary. Not because we're not doing it right or not doing it well but because the whole concept is flawed. People can see that we're digging a hole into the Earth and a lot of them want to stop and climb out even though it will be messy.