Submitted by Don Carlson, Nov 3, 2007 05:11

"For much of the duration of both wars [World War II and the 'Cold' War], Americans had a unity of purpose and a clarity of mission that now seems to be lacking, as some Democrats dismiss the threat from the Islamofascists as hyped or imagined."

A seeming majority of Americans exhibited that unity and clarity of purpose, but one can hardly believe that the majority was overwhelming. There was always a minority who were taken by the swagger of the Nazis and thought America on the wrong side. And there was that large minority of Americans, few of them communists, who were persuaded by the promises of socialism and held the Soviet Union to be the paradigm of future nations--and these militated unabashedly against America's becoming involved in a war against the Nazis so long as the Nazis were the allies of the Russian communists.

In the same way today only a minority of Americans recognize clearly the international evil with which their nation contends, while others vacillate, for the moment distracted by the siren-call of the 'peaceable' left. But the left, still persuaded by socialist tenets, still hating the American political heritage, still hoping to gain power, makes war on the presidency and on the nation's capacity for war, and does so without fear or shame. That is the difference from past times.

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