THE CHINOOK CHALLENGE
November 4, 2003 -- Sunday's downing of a U.S. CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter, killing 16 GIs and wounding 21 others, could prove pivotal in the long-term battle for Iraq - and the larger War on Terror.
Because how Americans react to this attack may well determine whether international terrorism will be defeated - or whether it will be free to continue its war on America.
President Bush yesterday made clear - albeit belatedly - what's at stake:
"America will never run," he said. "The enemy in Iraq believes America will run. That's why they're willing to kill innocent civilians, relief workers [and] coalition troops."
Frankly, the president should have been saying the same thing Sunday - personally, publicly.
Sometimes it's hard to be supportive of this administration - for no other reason than the president's distressing reluctance to speak clearly and concisely on behalf of his policies and objectives.
It's not as if the American people have been bashful about supporting the War on Terror - not after 9/11.
Yes, America has a disturbing history of beating a hasty retreat when casualties begin to mount.
Or, rather, some of America's leaders have lacked resolve when it counted.
Bill Clinton bugged out of Somalia 10 years ago - after the disastrous "Black Hawk Down" attack that cost 18 American lives.
Even the otherwise indomitable Ronald Reagan did it 20 years ago in Lebanon, when a suicide bomber destroyed a barracks in Beirut, killing more than 240 U.S. Marines.
America's ignominious flight from Vietnam, and its subsequent reluctance to defend with vigor many of its interests elsewhere in the world, wasn't lost on the nation's enemies.
Among the consequences was 9/11.
President Bush responded magnificently to that challenge - and, to be perfectly fair, he has never sugar-coated the difficulty of the task at hand, nor minimized its complexity.
But ever since the president articulated a strategic vision for the War on Terror at West Point in the spring of 2002, he has seemed reluctant to be candid on critical issues.
The American people, for example, can be forgiven for their confusion regarding Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction - given the administration's public rationale for invading Iraq in the first place, and its relative silence on the subject ever since.
So, in the wake of the Chinook shoot-down, critical questions are bound to emerge:
Is the game worth the candle?
How many casualties are too many?
What is the point of the exercise?
Where is the threat?
Osama bin Laden two-plus years ago gambled that America lacked the attention span - or the stomach - to fight a sustained low-intensity war against radical Islam.
Was he correct?
The world is about to find out.
One year less two days from this morning, America will go to the polls and either ratify the policies of George W. Bush, or reject them.
The War on Terror stands to be the defining issue of the coming year.
And that's as it should be.
The Democratic candidates, nine of them now, are desperate to find an issue with which to unseat this president. And so they have settled on Iraq - questioning strategy and tactics and, indeed, wondering out loud why America went to Baghdad in the first place.
Wesley Clark, for example, made political capital out of Sunday's attack by demanding that Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator in Iraq, be fired and replaced by "the United Nations or an international organization."
Similarly, the cover of Sunday's New York Times Magazine asked ominously: "Who Botched the Occupation?"
Newsweek, never bashful in this regard, wonders this week about "A War in the Dark" - while Time concentrates graphically on America's wounded from the Iraq and Afghan campaigns.
These are all fair questions - however tendentiously, or dishonestly, they may be asked.
All the more reason why George W. Bush needs to be out front - in person - displaying the take-charge leadership the nation saw immediately after 9/11.
There is a battle underway for the hearts and minds of not only Iraqis - but the American people, too.
We would be insincere if we suggested that we wish the best for Howard Dean or Wesley Clark or John Kerry or any of the others.
But we are quite sincere in our hope that the campaign forces a vigorous debate on American foreign policy.
President Bush will then need to explain to the American people why it was necessary to topple Saddam Hussein.
Indeed, why it remains necessary to persevere in the War on Terror.
Let the Democrats take the other side.
We have no doubt what the outcome of that sort of a contest will be.
Then the world will know, too.
But the president must start the debate - right now.
More facts.
More passion.
More reason for the American people to rally behind a leader who has demonstrated vision and courage and resourcefulness.
America remains up to the challenge.
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