Seeking Neville Chamberlain

This from Captain's Quarters:

After seeing the effect that the Madrid bombings had on the Spanish electorate, it appears that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have gone on a public-relations campaign to undermine Western resolve in the war on terror. In today's Daily Standard, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross points out the changing rhetoric of AQ leadership that now seems tailored to the tastes of the war's critics, promising a truce (hudna) for the simple act of abandoning Southwest Asia and North Africa for good:

Captain Ed then quotes a few paragraphs from Gartenstein-Ross's column discussing Ayman Al-Zawahiri's latest change in rhetoric. And Captain Ed follows with this chilling analysis:

Obviously bin Laden and Zawahiri have studied the reactions of the West through our media, and likely their own as well. Like most of our enemies over the past century, they have analyzed dissent as weakness and intend to exploit it. The only difference in this war is that their analysis may not be in error.

We have dissent in our country (and in the Western world as a whole), and it is weakening us and taking its toll. Witness the (however faulty) recent poll results from USA Today/CNN Gallup. America's support for the Global War on Terror is slipping, whatever the reason, and that makes us vulnerable to repeating the past.

Al-Qaeda is "promising a truce (hudna) for the simple act of abandoning Southwest Asia and North Africa for good." Similar promises came from the Third Reich when they promised to stop after annexing the Sudetenland. And Austria. And...

All it took was a Chamberlain to believe them. And all it takes now is a similar-minded leader in a nation more powerful than Spain to believe al-Qaeda and act on that belief.

Unfortunately for us, we have plenty of leaders on the left willing to declare "peace in our time," if only they can gain a position of power. And once the promises are believed and peace is declared, the results will be the same.

We cannot afford to lose our will now. However difficult the road ahead, it must be travelled, and victory must be secured. Total victory. Our enemies will accept nothing less.