The President Cheers for the Home Team

by Lance Thompson

Pundits tell us that the defining issue of the next presidential election will be Iraq. Americans will have to choose between the party that wants to stop the war and the party that wants to win it.

Senator Hillary Clinton, who originally voted to authorize the use of military force in Iraq, now regrets her vote, and promises to end the war if she becomes president. Her chief Democrat rival for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama, has made stopping the war one of the few unequivocal goals of his ill-defined campaign. Congressman John Murtha has crafted legislation to limit reinforcements, replacements, funding and support for the war. Senator Russ Feingold wants an amendment to deny funding for the war. Senator Carl Levin wants to revise the original authorization with endless limitations on the president’s power to conduct the war. Now that every prominent Democrat finally has a plan, sponsors legislation, or promises his or her constituents that he or she will find a way to stop the war, not one has resolved to win it.

On the conservative side, President Bush resists time tables for withdrawal, insisting that the troops will be brought home when Iraq can "defend itself, sustain itself, and support itself." None of the leading Republican presidential contenders–Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney–advocates pulling out of Iraq until victory is achieved.

Vote for a Democrat, and the war will end, regardless of the consequences. Vote for a Republican, and we will win the war, regardless of the costs.

Stopping the war seems like a humane goal–nobody likes war. But it’s instructive to apply these divergent political philosophies to other fields of endeavor.

In the 1958 NFL season, the worst professional football team in the league won only one game. The following year, the Green Bay Packers hired a new head coach named Vince Lombardi. He had never been a head coach, the team was a perennial loser, and nobody thought they had a chance. But Lombardi was a leader, famous for demanding single-minded focus and dedication from his players with exhortations such as, "Winning isn’t everything–it’s the only thing." Lombardi promised his players that if they followed him, played by his rules, he would make them champions. In December 1961, the Packers won the NFL championship against Lombardi’s old team, the New York Giants, 37-0. Under Vince Lombardi, the Packers went on to win five national titles in seven years. Could this astounding turnaround have been achieved by a coach who huddled at half-time with his battered, bruised and bloodied players, and told them, "Men, we’re a touchdown behind, we’ve had lots of injuries, and the fans don’t think we can win. It’s hopeless, let’s go home."

In the 1960's, President Kennedy issued a challenge: "I believe this nation should dedicate itself, before this decade is out, to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth." The race to the moon had begun. But the Russians launched the first satellite to orbit the planet, put the first cosmonaut into space, and had the first cosmonaut to orbit the Earth. Their rockets were bigger and more reliable, their space program bolstered by slave labor and captured German scientists compelled to work on Soviet spacecraft. Our rockets were small and prone to malfunction. Our Apollo program began with the tragic deaths of three astronauts in a fire on the launch pad. Vast resources were poured into the program with no guarantee of success, yet Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon on 20 July 1969. Would we remember a space-race president who confided to the nation, "We’re never going to beat the Russians to the moon. It’s costing too much money, too many lives. Let’s stop all this nonsense." Man’s greatest space faring achievement might never have happened.

In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt described a proposed canal across the Isthmus of Panama: "No single great material work which remains to be undertaken on this continent is of such consequence to the American people." The French had labored for over a decade, moved 76 million cubic yards of dirt, spent a billion and a half francs, and seen as many as twenty thousand lives lost in the effort, with no success. Begun by Roosevelt, the American effort would dwarf the French attempt. Railroads, towns and dams would be built; rivers and mountains would be moved; dreaded diseases like malaria and yellow fever would be overcome, almost $400 million would be spent, and many more lives lost. Could a political opponent have beaten Roosevelt in the election if, at the height of this great endeavor, he had campaigned on halting it? "This is too hard," he might have said. "The mountains are too big, the rivers too powerful, the diseases too virulent. It’s just not worth the effort. I promise you that we shall abandon the Panama Canal before it goes any further!" Would that battle cry rally the nation?

Any effort to overcome adversity is difficult. The harder it gets, the easier and more tempting it is to capitulate.

We are engaged in a noble enterprise to bring freedom to Iraq, to bring democracy to a people who risk their lives to vote in a free election, to turn a nation that once marched to the orders of brutal tyrant into a beacon of hope in a war-torn region. We have deposed a brutal dictator who was tried and sentenced for crimes against his own people by his own people. We are opposed by factions inside the country and by enemies from beyond its borders.

There is no guarantee of success in Iraq. The path to victory is not clear. The obstacles we face are enormous. The cost, in blood and treasure, is staggering. And, as in all such cases, we have two choices.

We can persevere, despite naysayers and second guessers, despite polls that show increasing numbers of Americans losing heart, despite setbacks, defeats and tragedies. We can rededicate ourselves to a commendable goal, be inspired by the victories and triumphs along the way, and press on until the enemy is vanquished, freedom is upheld and justice is affirmed.

Or we can quit. We can take counsel of our fears and rationalize our capitulation. There are thousands of excuses available to abandon our efforts. Those who believe that peace is achieved by acquiescing to dictators and appeasing tyrants would celebrate our forsaking of this cause.

Iraq is the main battlefield in the war against terrorism. It is a war we will fight, whether we choose to or not, whether the conflict takes place in the Middle East or Middle America. Our only choice is between the leaders we will follow–those who advocate giving up and those who are resolved to strive for victory.

Vince Lombardi did not abide quitters. He once said, "I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, his greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious."

As candidates and voters approach the presidential campaign, both should ponder this: The path of least resistance always beckons, but it is never the course a leader takes.

By Lance Thompson

Journalists and politicians against the war are always eager to report the latest dismal news from Iraq and just as reluctant to publicize progress. This is not objectivity--it is a bias that alters the perception of the war effort. A situation in which our own press and politicians purposely emphasize the enemy’s triumphs and our failures is one that gives our adversaries tremendous advantage. In the past few months, they have purposely downplayed a series of events that shows we are making progress in Iraq.

In the first week of January, an American AC-130 attacked al Qaeda operatives in Somalia. Targeted individuals included Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, bomber of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. With strong cooperation from the Ethiopian military, and Kenya sealing its Somalian border, our forces are systematically cornering and killing al Qaeda terrorists in Somalia.

In raids conducted in the Kurdish north of Iraq, American forces in December and January captured Iranian agents posing as diplomats. Several of these captives were identified as members of the Iranian Quds Force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards command that conducts military operations beyond Iran’s borders, and is responsible for supporting and arming insurgents in Iraq. The highest ranking Iranian officer seized was the Quds Force director of operations, who is still in custody.

In mid-January, the anti-American Shia militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr disclosed to an Italian newspaper that over 400 of his men had been arrested in Iraq, and that he feared for his life. He has since fled to Iran, his influence on events in Iraq drastically reduced.

On 29 January, Iraqi army troops, backed up by American and British forces, waged a 24-hour battle against several hundred terrorists of the Jund al-Samaa (Soldiers of Heaven), disrupting a planned massacre of Shia clerics and worshipers. Over 200 terrorists were killed, including cult leader Dia Abdul Zahra Kadim. Another 100 were captured, with the cost of five Iraqis and two Americans killed. On February 15^th, allied forces captured another 35 members of Jund al-Samaa.

On 31 January, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa,, a key al Qaeda financier and Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, was executed in his brother’s home in Madagascar, probably by elements of Task Force 145, an elite unit of the U. S. Joint Special Operations Command.

In a 48-hour period in early February, American and Iraqi forces in and around Baghdad captured key aides to the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri. In subsequent raids and air attacks, dozens more al Qaeda operatives were killed. On 16 February, Iraqi police engaged a group of insurgents, including al-Masri, near the town of Balad, between Falluja and Samarra. In the battle, Iraqi police killed al-Masri’s top aide, Abu Abdullah al-Majamiai, and may have wounded al-Masri himself. The al Qaeada leader is still a fugitive. This significant victory proves that the Iraqi police are standing up to terrorists and prevailing in combat.

From 15 to 19 February, in actions throughout Iraq, coalition forces captured a total of 61 terrorists, destroyed completed IED’s and components, and confiscated weapons ranging from small arms to heavy anti-aircraft guns. Forty-nine of the 61 terrorists were captured by combined American and Iraqi troops in Quarghuli Village, southwest of Baghdad, in a two-day sweep named "Operation Polar Iron."

The U. S. Government has presented incontrovertible evidence that terrorists in Iraq are being supplied by Iran with mortar ammunition, shaped-charge IED’s, Strela anti-aircraft missiles, and Austrian sniper rifles–all of which are taking a heavy toll on coalition forces. Iran’s complicity in the terrorist carnage in Iraq is no longer deniable.

Engagements in which hundreds of the enemy are killed, his top leaders killed or captured, his attacks disrupted, his clandestine operations exposed–in other wars, these events would have been called "victories," and the overall positive results as "progress," but not in this one.

Our press does not apply these terms to the American effort in Iraq. They scrupulously report, tabulate and linger on our losses, our setbacks, and our mistakes. But when we prevail, the news is buried in the back pages, murmured as an afterthought, or grudgingly mentioned before introducing video of American casualties. The press questions our motives, our intelligence, our conduct, as they did during President Bush’s 14 February press conference. But the press finds justification for every act of terror our enemies commit, and rationalizes belief in every lie they utter.

Politicians who oppose the war have invested themselves in our defeat. How else could Illinois Democrat Senator Barack Obama, at a 12 February campaign stop in Iowa, tell us that 3,000 American lives have been "wasted" in Iraq? On 16 February, California Democrat Congressman Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, proclaimed, "What we now have in Iraq is defeat." Pennsylvania Democrat Congressman John Murtha boasts about legislation he sponsors that restricts equipment, training, and reinforcements to Iraq, and brags that if his bill passes, our forces in Iraq "won’t be able to continue." Michigan Democrat Senator Carl Levin is leading an effort to rewrite the original authorization for the war, placing severe restrictions on the President’s authority to conduct it.

It takes no courage to voice dissatisfaction with an unpopular war. Those who opposed the war in the beginning (Senator Levin was one), when the polls showed overwhelming support, and a majority of Congress voted to authorize it, showed conviction. And those who continue to support the war, though polls now show this to be a minority position, show the same kind of resolve. But those who adjust their positions to mirror the latest trends are nothing more than barometers of public opinion, following the shifting winds while pretending to be leaders.

Opponents of the war in the press, in Congress, and in the spotlight of celebrity media claim to "support our troops." But they delight in reporting every setback our forces suffer, every mistake their leaders make, every prediction for tragedy and disaster. They obscure news of progress and ignore signs of hope. By searching for ways to limit our options, curtail our operations, and recall our troops, they are contributing to the defeat of American forces. They rejoice at exactly the same events our enemies celebrate, and disparage the same victories our enemies dismiss. The only troops they support are those on the other side.

by Lance Thompson

The Bush administration this week claimed success in securing an agreement in the six-party talks to coerce North Korea to suspend its nuclear weapons program. Only Democrats and North Korea could consider the agreement a success. Those who favor effective U. S. foreign policy must classify the agreement as a setback.

Pursuant to the agreement, North Korea will shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons, in exchange for 50,000 tons of fuel oil furnished by South Korea or China. If that is accomplished within 60 days, then North Korea will permanently dismantle the reactor in exchange for another 950,000 tons of fuel oil with an approximate value of $400 million. If this phase goes well, then the six nations party to the talks (United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea) would further negotiate the elimination of North Korea’s existing nukes.

President Bush has never disguised his disdain for North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il. But this agreement seems to be designed to placate not only Kim, but also those appeasement-minded politicians who never slacken their calls for "dialogue," "multilateral talks," and "diplomacy." They count the securing of an agreement as a success, regardless of the probability of its being honored. But all we have really secured is the promise of a nation that is best known for failing to keep its word.

The Bush administration characterizes this agreement as preferable to the one reached by the Clinton administration in 1994. In that negotiation, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright agreed to provide North Korea with light-water nuclear reactors and fuel oil in exchange for North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons program. There were no serious verification protocols. The new agreement differs in that it is a multi-lateral pact, provides for verification and inspection, and is nullified by violation. In these aspects, the deal is indeed superior to the Clinton/Albright agreement in which verification was based largely on blind faith and wishful thinking.

From Kim Jong Il’s viewpoint, the diplomatic win is clear. He gets 50,000 tons of fuel oil merely for temporarily halting North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. If he resumes the program, there is no practical way to retrieve the fuel oil–it’s just our contribution to North Korea’s hapless economy. Kim gets a permanent gain for a temporary halt.

Additionally, North Korea has effectively pushed the line of what the world will tolerate far past what would have been possible even a year ago. Kim Jong Il has declared North Korea a nuclear power. He has enough plutonium to construct at least half a dozen nuclear weapons. North Korea has launched ballistic missiles toward potential targets such as Japan and the United States. This all happened in the summer and fall of 2006, and what are the severe consequences to the outlaw regime? A gift of 50,000 tons of fuel for temporarily halting their threatening advances.

We congratulate ourselves on a successful play when all we’ve actually done is reward the opposition for calling a time-out.

The absurdity of the North Korean agreement is certainly not lost on Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He learns that the tolerance for outrageous acts is very high in the United States. North Korea detonated an underground nuke, developed and fired ballistic missiles beyond its borders, continued to amass weapons-grade plutonium, and the consequences included a huge energy subsidy. What is to discourage Iran from building, testing and launching delivery systems for nuclear weapons? Certainly not recent history.

North Korea has been an outlaw state for 57 years, beginning with its invasion of South Korea that sparked a war that never officially ended. Since then, this regime has held and tortured American prisoners after the end of hostilities, rebuilt its military, bullied its neighbors, and made good its vow to become a nuclear power. And every few years, when they take a break from this steady march toward becoming a global threat, they receive a gift from the United States.

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Lance Thompson’s writing and photography have appeared in Air & Space Smithsonian, Cowboys & Indians, the Los Angeles Times and the Dallas Morning News, among others. He has written for movies, television and issue-oriented web sites and lectures at the Scriptwriters Network. He lives in Southern California with his wife and daughter, who hope that his speaking engagements continue to keep him out of the house.
Contact lancethompson@mindspring.com.

by Lance Thompson

Illinois Senator Barack Obama has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the early presidential polls. The black Senator’s popularity will help Democrats cling to their most loyal voting bloc, and postpone the realization by black Americans that they’ve been voting for the wrong party since 1960.

Black voters have been overwhelmingly Democrats since civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., encouraged them to vote in the 1960 election, and privately backed John F. Kennedy. JFK received over 70% of the black vote. More recently, in 2000, 90% of black voters chose Al Gore, 9% George Bush. In 2004, John Kerry captured 88% of the black vote, George Bush 11%. Year after year, election after election, black voters overwhelmingly favor the Democrat ticket.

Yet history shows that black Americans have more to thank Republicans for than Democrats. The Republican party began in the 1850s, conceived by opponents to the extension of slavery into the new territories of the United States.

On 6 March 1857, the United States Supreme Court, consisting of seven Democrats and two Republicans, handed down the Dred Scott decision. The Democrat majority opinion, split along party lines, with vigorous dissent by the Republicans, stated that blacks were not covered by the Constitution, were not citizens, and, in Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s words, "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Political battles in the years preceding the Civil War centered on slave policy. Democrats wished to extend slavery into new territories, Republicans wanted to restrict it. This was also the central issue in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates in Illinois, with Lincoln the Republican arguing that slavery must be put on the road to extinction, and Douglas the Democrat defending the rights of slave owners.

The Civil War was sparked by Southern states seceding from the Union rather than submitting to a national anti-slavery policy. Lincoln went to war to prevent the South from carving a separate slave nation from the United States. In 1862, at the height of the war, the first Republican president passed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the Southern states. As the war neared its end, a Republican Congress proposed the 13^th Amendment, abolishing slavery, in January of 1865. The amendment was ratified after Lincoln’s assassination.

After the Civil War, the Southern states sent to Washington congressmen and Senators who were almost entirely Democrats and ex-Confederate officials all strongly resistant to conferring civil rights on freed slaves. The Republican majority in Congress, led by Pennsylvania Republican Thaddeus Stevens, refused to recognize these politicians until their states adopted the 14^th Amendment, which gave citizenship and guaranteed equal rights before the law to black Americans. President Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was a Democrat who sympathized with the Southerners. His vetoes of legislation to protect the rights of free blacks were regularly overridden by the Republicans in Congress, who defended the new freedoms and rights the Civil War had won for black Americans.

In 1869, the Republican Congress passed the 15^th Amendment, making it illegal to deny any male the right to vote because of race. This led to Republican inroads into the solid Democrat South, with thousands of new black Republican voters and 17 new black Republican members of Congress. Democrats gradually regained their dominance in the South, at least partly due to organized campaigns to suppress the black vote through intimidation, violence and murder.

In 1901, Republican President Theodore Roosevelt invited prominent educator and activist Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House–the first black person to be extended this honor. Roosevelt also defended black government appointees, and spoke out for school desegregation, a principle he enacted with legislation in 1899, while he was governor of New York.

Poor black families continued to be saddled with inferior schools for the first half of the twentieth century. In September 1957, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, faced with Southern Democrat defiance of federal school desegregation regulations, sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce the rules. Following this crisis, Eisenhower endorsed and pushed through Congress the Civil Rights Bill of 1957, the first civil rights legislation passed since the Civil War era. The legislation passed despite Southern Democrat resistance.

During President Kennedy’s administration, Martin Luther King, Jr., was under FBI wiretap surveillance, with the full knowledge of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, despite King’s support for Kennedy in the 1960 election. President Kennedy was unable to push a civil rights bill through the Democratic Congress prior to his assassination. During President Johnson’s administration, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed with a greater proportion of Republicans supporting the bill (80%) than Democrats (60%). Democrat representatives from Texas who voted against the Civil Rights Act were re-elected with over 95% of the black vote in their districts.

During his first year in office, President Nixon, on 8 August 1969, issued executive order 11478--the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, ensuring that all federal positions would be open to all applicants, regardless of race, color, religion, etc.

In July 1991, Republican President George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Despite a massive campaign of defamation orchestrated by Democrat Senators against the black jurist, Thomas was narrowly confirmed, and has become a leading originalist on the Court.

The last Democrat in the White House, Bill Clinton, appointed blacks to several cabinet posts, including Rodney Slater at transportation, Alexis Herman at labor, Mike Espy at agriculture (whose brief stay in the post was marked by a criminal investigation), and Jocelyn Elders as surgeon general–until she was asked to resign by the same president. George W. Bush appointed to the highest cabinet post–Secretary of State--Colin Powell and his successor, Condoleezza Rice, both black.

Black students nationwide continue to be handicapped by failing public schools, despite steadily increasing education funding. The one program offering an escape to black families from the hopeless public education morass is school vouchers, regularly championed by Republicans and resisted by Democrats. (One exception is black Democrat representative Curtis Brantley from South Carolina, who supports vouchers for his state. South Carolina, which ranks 50^th in SAT scores, is considering school vouchers as a way to provide low income families a choice in educating their children.)

What have the Democrats done to deserve the loyalty of black voters? Beyond rhetoric, symbolic gestures, and preaching to the choir in black churches, what of substance do Democrats offer black voters? There are two types of programs Democrats use to pander to black voters–entitlements and affirmative action.

Since LBJ declared war on poverty, Democrats have faithfully protected the sanctity of entitlement programs, and villify Republicans who even propose reducing the rate of increase of entitlement funding. The Democrats now defend entitlements with the sort of enthusiasm with which they once defended slavery and segregation. The Democrats prove their solidarity with black voters by promising to keep open the tap on government largesse--the very programs which keep impoverished black voters dependent on government handouts.

The other half of the Democrat strategy for keeping the black vote is known by many names--affirmative action, quotas, set-asides or diversity programs. Whatever the euphemism, the idea is the same–tilt the scale so that blacks have greater access to higher education, jobs, loans, or any other valuable entity. This sounds charitable, until one realizes for each less-qualified individual who gains access because of affirmative action, a more qualified individual is denied.

Both entitlements and affirmative action are based on the same assumption–blacks are less qualified, less competitive, less knowledgeable and less capable. Because of this, they require government subsidy and institutional favoritism. While Democrats routinely support such programs, Republicans routinely oppose them. Democrats believe in dispensing advantage on the basis of race, Republicans believe in a level playing field. Democrats believe blacks can’t compete, Republicans believe they can.

Entitlements and affirmative action can apply to any minority, not just blacks. But these are the programs that Democrats use to appeal to black voters. Unfortunately, entitlements and affirmative action have drawn poor black Americans into a perpetual state of dependence. They have contributed to the breakdown of the family, high unemployment and a legacy of poverty from one generation to the next. Even as Democrats like John Edwards decry the gap between rich and poor, his party relies on a permanent underclass to support it at the polls. The entitlements Democrats use to buy black votes may at first have been well-meaning, but are now demonstrably addictive and destructive.

So the Democrats must court Barack Obama, to prove that their party does indeed offer higher opportunities for their black supporters. Otherwise, black Americans will realize that the government handouts the Democrats sponsor keep them on a virtual plantation–poor, dependent and with limited prospects. When this becomes clear, black voters may realize they have a choice–and exercise their right to choose a different and more rewarding future.

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Lance Thompson’s writing and photography have appeared in Air & Space Smithsonian, Cowboys & Indians, the Los Angeles Times and the Dallas Morning News, among others. He has written for movies, television and issue-oriented web sites and lectures at the Scriptwriters Network. He lives in Southern California with his wife and daughter, who hope that his speaking engagements continue to keep him out of the house.
Contact lancethompson@mindspring.com.

by Lance Thompson

by Lance Thompson

Due to lag time between writing this article and posting on the internet, I’ll have to assume Washington Post columnist William M. Arkin is on his way out of town, covered with tar and feathers and suspended from a rail. So I’ll begin by crediting him with the courage to publicly proclaim the true liberal position of contempt for members of the military, rather than hiding behind disingenuous claims to "support the troops" while denigrating their mission, their tactics, their performance and their motives.

In a 30 January column, Mr. Arkin commented on an NBC Nightly News report in which soldiers serving in Iraq voiced frustration at the criticism and the weakening support they hear from American citizens. Mr. Arkin’s response is that the troops should be thankful that Americans offer them any support at all. He opines that the troops should be grateful that we have "indulged" them "through every rape and murder." Mr Arkin intimates resentment at the wages, housing, and logistical support Americans provide, including the "obscene amenities" we ship to troops in combat zones. He refers to American troops as "young," "naive," and "confused." He disparages our troops as "mercenaries" and recommends that "America needs to ponder what it is we really owe those in uniform."

Mr. Arkin believes the troops should be thankful that American citizens still support them. He has this relationship reversed. American troops support American citizens. American troops defend our nation, our safety, our freedom. To protect us, they sacrifice time with their families, more financially rewarding jobs, their personal needs and goals, their sweat, their blood, their lives. Mr. Arkin believes these people should be thankful to us?

After accusing American troops of rape and murder, and resenting our "indulgence" of these unsubstantiated outrages, he begrudges the meager wages, family support and medical care provided to these selfless guardians. He does not specify which "obscene amenities" shipped to troops overseas offend him–bottled water, magazines, video games, i-pods? Or by amenities, does he refer to body armor to protect our soldiers from snipers, IED’s and suicide bombers? Does he consider hot food, soft drinks, or MRE’s amenities? Do sunscreen, insect repellant, chemical suits and antitoxins for venomous snakes count as amenities?

Our troops, according to Mr. Arkin, are "young," "naive," and "confused." Why else would they voluntarily leave the comforts, freedoms, and opportunities of the United States, travel halfway around the globe to the most inhospitable environments on earth to fight the most brutal enemy Americans have ever faced? How else could they decide that the safety of their country and fellow citizens is more important than the needs of themselves and their families? Who else would sacrifice themselves so their children and grandchildren can live in freedom, just as previous generations made those same hard choices for them?

If there are members of a profession who should be thankful for the forbearance, indulgence and generosity of the American people, they are the members of the carping, whining, critical press who have nothing but contempt for those who safeguard their lives. I would venture that Mr. Arkin’s financial compensation is greater than the vast majority of troops serving overseas, that the rules that govern his profession are infinitely more lax than those our troops must follow, and that his collection of "obscene amenities" far outweighs those rare indulgences available to combat troops.

I remember a conversation I had with a retired naval aviator at a service station one summer afternoon while we waited for an overworked mechanic to fix our flat tires. I asked about his military service, and during a moment of reflection, he observed, "There’s a price to be paid for everything we have and everything we do. There’s a price for us sitting here in the shade. Most people never met the ones who pay that price, but believe me, they pay it." Mr. Arkin wonders what we really owe those in uniform. "Everything" seems too inadequate a word.

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Lance Thompson’s writing and photography have appeared in Air & Space Smithsonian, Cowboys & Indians, the Los Angeles Times and the Dallas Morning News, among others. He has written for movies, television and issue-oriented web sites and lectures at the Scriptwriters Network. He lives in Southern California with his wife and daughter, who hope that his speaking engagements continue to keep him out of the house. Contact lancethompson@mindspring.com.