MARINA DEL REY, CA--In spite of our recent extraordinary military successes, many reporters and editorialists seem to see only a futile quagmire ahead in the War on Terrorism. Why? Robert W. Tracinski was a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute between 1997 and 2004.
According to Robert Tracinski, a columnist for Creators Syndicate and a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, "the very same people promoting this defeatism also promote the policies that would actually lead to defeat"--such policies as creating political restrictions that deprive our soldiers of the tools they need to win, avoiding civilian casualties at the risk of our servicemen's lives, and forbidding massive firepower against the enemy for fear of appearing to escalate the war.
"Commentators in the press," Tracinski added, "have warned us that we have to fight the War on Terrorism with an eye on world opinion, in consultation with our squeamish European allies and our hostile Arab coalition, that we have to coddle al-Qaeda prisoners to maintain our 'moral high ground.' The only kind of war they think it is proper to wage is a restricted, non-lethal, self-effacing conflict."
"It is no wonder," said Tracinski, "that these same people fear that the war will end in failure. On their terms, it would."