In print, I've kept generally quiet about the war. For once, I haven't had a lot to say. The conservative columnists at townhall.com and elsewhere have done an excellent job of uncovering what the mainstream media have chosen to bury. With the exception of the occasional knee-jerk attempt to insulate religion against the attack by fundamentalists (who take religion dead-seriously), the quality of conservatives' analysis has been surprisingly good. It's also been surprisingly cynical.
For the first time in several presidencies, we have an administration which has promised military action on moral grounds, and has delivered on that promise. "We must rid the world of evil," Mr. Bush has said, and after making specific (if impossible to satisfy) demands to the Taliban, he kept his promise to them, and to us.
But still some fear that we are losing this war against terrorism. Some, it seems, even believe we have already lost. On one side of the activist coin, we have hippies protesting the war. On the other side, we have conservatives protesting the lack of one. I half-expect to walk down Madison Avenue and see some guy in a suit burning a peace sign.
So why the negativity from those who, unlike the hippies, actually love their country? The answer, I believe, is that some critics are judging our success in this war by our distance from their idea of perfection, rather than by the extent of our progress.
Some critics, for example, see the infamous food drops into Afghanistan as outright surrender. If we're willing to feed our enemy, they claim, we must necessarily lack the will to win the war. What they ignore, of course, are the other things being dropped. (The things that cause pain even when they don't accidentally land on your head.)
Some bemoan the lack of bombs, or the damage we "should have" done. These criticisms have been hurled almost up to the very minute the Taliban fled Kabul.
