Esprit de Corps

Good news. Our soldiers know what we're doing over there is worth doing, the constant attacks by the liberals notwithstanding:

The Army was 15% ahead of its re-enlistment goal of 34,668 for the first six months of fiscal year 2006, which ended March 31. More than 39,900 soldiers had re-enlisted, according to figures scheduled to be released today by the Army.

JASmius adds: The American public knows that as well, no matter what worrywarts like Tom Bevan think - and which he himself as much as acknowledges at the end of his piece this morning.

It took us four years to resurrect Germany after the Second World War, and seven years for Japan. Heck, the founding fathers themselves took a decade at least to get the Constitution written, ratified, and running. And we've just passed the three-year mark in Iraq with a constitution and elected government in place in Baghdad, and burgeoning Iraqi security forces holding the upper hand over an "insurgency" long since strategically defeated and not even able to generate much headline-grabbing violence anymore, which is why the Extreme Media meme has switched to discrediting the fledgling Iraqi government (i.e. "death squads" and the like).

There is, frankly, little or nothing about which to be dissatisfied about the President's handling of Iraq, at least not anymore. Iran is a whole other story, which could lead to the unraveling of all that has been accomplished in Iraq, but Operation Iraqi Freedom itself has to be categorized as as close to an unqualified success as it can get - just as it was always going to be provided that an unwavering commitment to patience and diligence remained in place. And on this George Bush has been a rock.

Soldiers know it. And so does the home front, which is why even the same skewed surveys purporting to show huge disapproval of our Iraq policy show no evidence of any public groundswell for quitting, but rather a resigned determination to see the mission through.

No matter what the press quislings try to portray, Iraq as an issue simply is not the eight-hundred pound gorilla that the conventional "wisdom" insists it still is. It would be gratifying if center-righties like Mr. Bevan could consider the sources of the polling on which he is staking his commentarial credibility. That way perhaps he wouldn't produce such self-nullifying posts.