The post at Commentary magazine entitled, " Who Owns the Vietnam War? " tells some uncomfortable truths that the left doesn't want to hear.

Betsy Newmark links to and expertly fisks a column in the Washington Post by Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska who seems to have lost his will. I commented beneath the article; I repeat my comments below for those who don't care to visit the WaPo.

Mr. Hagel, Mr. Hagel. I can't understand how members of Congress who supposedly understand American interests and geopolitics can spout this drivel over and over again.

1) "They will decide their fate and form of government." Mr. Hagel, the Iraqis have voted in election after election, with overwhelming support and in numbers greater per capita than our republic.

2) "Iraq is not a prize to be won or lost. It is part of the ongoing global struggle against instability, brutality, intolerance, extremism and terrorism." This is the only true statement in the article.

3) Apparently Mr. Hagel depends on the NYT headline writer for in-depth analysis of the news. Here are Dr. Kissinger's most recent and celebrated comments on Iraq in full,

"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible....A dramatic collapse of Iraq - whatever we think about how the situation was created - would have disastrous consequences for which we would pay for many years and which would bring us back, one way or another, into the region." It appears that Mr. Hagel and his allies would have argued against the occupation of Japan and Germany and against the many efforts in the Cold War that cost lives--including the Korean War--to restrain the Soviet Union. There were many setbacks during that period, and peaceniks and "know nothings" argued for rapprochement since the West could not defeat the Soviets and the ChiComs. Truman understood US national interests, as did Kennedy. Why can't today's Democrats?

3) "We are destroying our force structure, which took 30 years to build." This is high comedy. During the 90's, the "Clinton peace dividend" was used to shrink the number of troops, ships, air squadrons, etc. I think that counts as more deliberate destruction of force structure in my book.

4) While the cost of the war is high, and the loss of any member of the armed forces is one too many, the cost and losses compared to WWII is insignificant on a per capita basis. The bulk of our population carries on virtually untouched by the war. There are no war bond drives, no rubber drives, no gas rationing, no draft. The strongest argument against our policy in Iraq is that we are not fighting hard enough. We are lawyered up and in a politically correct straitjacket. During WWII, Patton's third army would bypass tough opposition and use artillery and air power to neutralize it. "Rubble causes no trouble."

If Mr. Hagel believes that validating OBL's assertion that America lacks the will to defend its interests over the long term, as Europe has shown, then he must be willing to spend fantastic sums at home to attempt to defend every possible avenue for attack and strengthen every possible vulnerability. If Mr. Hagel spent time listening to the speeches given by Islamofascist leaders and reading and watching their media, he would understand how badly that they want to follow us home. Utter defeat is the only lesson these people understand. We owe future generations of free peoples everywhere to defend liberty at all costs. We cannot defend it by running from the hot point of the conflict of ideas and ideals.

A very interesting criticism of foreign policy during the administration of President George H. W. Bush (41) appears in the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal section.