Br'er Rabbit, again

There's been much made of late about how Iraq is President Bush's (or America's) 'tar baby'.
For those who never got to read Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus stories before they got banned by the Political Correctness Police (they were written in almost impenetrable black dialect; even though they weren't racist, they sounded like it, and went by the board anyway), Br'er Rabbit (Brother Rabbit, in dialect) is fooled by Br'er Fox using a 'baby' made out of tar and left in the rabbit's path. By hitting the tar baby (for remaining insolently silent when spoken to), Br'er Rabbit gets well stuck to it and thus, when Br'er Fox walks up triumphant, is liable to be eaten.
So far, so good, as far as the analogy goes.

But let's remember that the tale comes in two parts.

When Br'er Fox fixes to kill the rabbit, the rabbit convinces him that, of all the deaths he offers (barbequed, hanged, drowned, skinned alive), the worst is being thrown into the briar patch.
Convinced by the rabbit's pleading that it is the worst death imaginable (and "wanting to hurt Br'er Rabbit as bad as he can"), the fox unsticks the rabbit from the tar baby and flings him into the briar patch.
After awhile, of course, Br'er Rabbit sings out from the top of the hill: "Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox, bred en bawn in a brier-patch!"

We, like Br'er Rabbit, were born and bred 'in a briar patch'.
War, even ugly guerilla war, is something the United States is good at.

If we, as a nation, can come to understand how important this war is (and it is a war, make no mistake; it's not merely a battle or two and then 'bring the boys home by Christmas') to the future of not only the United States, but to civilization as we know it (an old phrase that fit never so well as now), and thus persevere, perhaps it will be the fox (the Islamofascists) that will be the one "stuck to the tar baby", the one pleading to be let loose, not us.

Oddly enough, if the Islamofascists had merely sat quietly by for a year, maybe less, we'd have 'brought the boys home' and there would have been little public support for sending them back to 'sort out' the Iraqis again.
But they just had to fire up that jihad and get in their licks (perhaps it was just the next generation, who hadn't been able to join the jihad against the Russians) on the stupid Americans.

Offering death and destruction to us may not be the smartest thing they've ever done. But if they ever wake up and realize that they're the ones stuck to the tar baby, I vote that we offer to throw them in the briar patch and let them go.