Americans increasingly lack patience and perspective. A pastor I know used to call this a  'microwave mentality.'  We think everything should be as easy as heating a burrito in a convenience store.  Push a couple of buttons and two minutes later, lunch is ready. 

This form of luxury, as great as it is and as thankful as I am for it, spoils a free people and gets them accustomed to living in a life of comfort and expediency.  So, if I can order a pizza and have a guy five miles away have it at my front door in thirty minutes, shouldn't this 'Iraq thing' be stable in the same amount of time? 

Our capitalist economy has enabled us to enjoy comforts beyond the wildest dreams of our founders.  The media, Useful Idiots of terrorist groups everywhere, come into our living rooms and show smoke rising from bombed out cars, talk of more servicemen dying, and make a subtle effort to get you to believe that this war effort is either wrong, failing, or both.  And of course, they don't feel obligated to keep the story in perspective by reminding us of the improvements in the lives of ordinary Iraqis.

Let's put it in perspective for the Useful Idiots, then.

The world is an evil, hostile place. Tyrants are ready to sacrifice millions of lives to get their way. They hate us for our freedom, our prosperity, and the example we offer to their own oppressed people.

War is sometimes a regrettable necessity. Bumper stickers that proclaim 'war is not the answer' are simply wrong.  Unfortunately for the utopians, war is almost always the answer when you are dealing with evil tyrants who respect nothing but force and whose ambitions are boundless. Another idiotic bumper sticker says, 'If you want peace, work for justice.'  If you want justice, spread freedom.  As long as the free world winks at tyranny, there will always be injustice.

Since the end of the Ottoman Empire, when the British victors of the First World War carved out the nation of Iraq, the people of this ancient land have known nothing but coups, tyranny, revolution and fear. 

First the Useful Idiots predicted mass body bags for the liberation.  That didn't happen.  Then they predicted low voter turnout in the January 2005 elections because of the fear of terrorist retaliation.  That didn't happen.  Then they predicted low voter turnout for the election in fall of 2005.  That didn't happen.  Then they predicted disaster for the December 2005 elections.  The turnout was far better than most western nations. 

The record of the Useful Idiots isn't very good with these predictions.

For the first time since Saddam took power, the rape rooms and torture chambers are gone.  The brutal secret police do not terrorize ordinary citizens.  Media in Iraq are free to criticize the government, schools are open, hospitals are open, oil production is back up and running, and the Leftists in Iran, Syria and Egypt are taking notice.  Why don't you know about these things?  Because the Useful Idiots are too busy making sure you know about the latest car bombing and the Marines that died in the ordeal. 

The biggest threat to our success is this bad reporting.  Take note, America.

The Useful Idiots have no interest in the American people getting the whole story, just the parts that are deemed relevant by them.  If the Useful Idiots succeed in breaking the resolve of the American people and cause a premature pullout, and this war does turn into Vietnam redux, the blood of not only American Servicemen, but of hundreds of thousands or millions of innocent Iraqis deemed traitors and apostates by the thugs entering the power vacuum, will be all over the hands of the media and the antiwar Left. 

The most troubling aspect to me is how the American public — in fact, our culture as a whole in this day and age — view battlefield casualties.  The United States of America — its citizenry, mind you, definitely not its warriors — cannot effectively fight another major war if the deaths of brave warriors are turned into an argument against pressing on to victory.  Iraq has been a three year operation resulting in 2000 battlefield fatalities, liberating 26 million people from the clutches of a tyrant.  If 2000 deaths can send the public into hysteria, how will we fare if we face a determined enemy willing to sacrifice on the scale we saw in World War II, when battlefield casualties ran into the millions?   

Our World War II generation was an example for those that followed.  As thousands died on the battlefield, the American public kept everything in perspective.  I really doubt this generation's ability to do that, based on the reaction to the reporting of the Useful Idiots over the last three years. And based on our microwave mentality.

If I am right — that based on the hysteria over the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom, maybe Osama is right, that we don't have the stomach for the fight — God Help Us.