One of the psychological defenses our anti-war side uses to rationalize their advocacy of retreat is the comforting illusion that we are doomed to defeat. Urging retreat and defeat under those circumstances isn't cowardly or anti-American, but wise in minimizing losses in a losing effort.
These people urge us to retreat, always assuming that we have more room to run for safety at home.
But these same people are working to make our home less secure. Steyn hits it just right, in his article on Burqa Barbie:
The other day, George Jonas passed on to his readers a characteristically shrewd observation gleaned from the late poet George Faludy: “No one likes to think of himself as a coward,” wrote Jonas. “People prefer to think they end up yielding to what the terrorists demand, not because it’s safer or more convenient, but because it’s the right thing . . . Successful terrorism persuades the terrorized that if they do terror’s bidding, it’s not because they’re terrified but because they’re socially concerned.”
This is true. Resisting terror is exhausting. It’s easier to appease it, but, for the sake of your self-esteem, you have to tell yourself you’re appeasing it in the cause of some or other variant of “social justice.” Obviously, it’s unfortunate if “Canadians” get arrested for plotting to murder the artists and publishers of the Danish Muhammad cartoons, but that’s all the more reason to be even more accommodating of the various “sensitivities” arising from the pervasive Islamophobia throughout Western society. Etc.
These people really believe they are too smart and too sensitive to resist our jihadi enemies. Indeed, they are honored to be the victims of the jihadis.
I hope we are strong enough to endure the self-inflicted wounds that our Retreatist Americans give to America.
